At the end of this month, two of the world's richest tycoons, Microsoft Group founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Officer and ultra-successful financial investor Warren Buffet, will experience a poverty of guests at a dinner party.
The two tycoons, wearing the hats of philanthropists, invited 50 Chinese tycoons to a charity dinner on September 29 in Beijing but, so far most of the invited Chinese tycoons have shunned the chance of an intimate dinner with the two famous American industrialists.
As noted by Forbes magazine, the U.S. leads the world in billionaires with 403, followed by the PRC itself with 64.
Most of these 64 billionaires undoubtedly received invitations from Gates and Moffat but have failed to reply, evidently because they are trying to figure out ways to refuse without themselves losing face or giving offense.
One of the few exceptions is the already well-known PRC "self-made" philanthropist Chen Guangbiao, who is an exception in more ways than one as he is the only PRC citizen who has responded favorably to the Gates-Moffat appeal to contribute half of his wealth to charities and has indeed vowed in an open letter to donate his fortune of some US$725 million to charities upon his death.
While Chen's declared intention is praiseworthy, the lack of social responsibility displayed by PRC billionaires is rather at odds with the country's surface ideology of socialism, even with Chinese characteristics, and his actions have not been greeted with praise by his fellow citizens.
Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law research fellow Li Huafang wrote in her institute's blog Friday that Chen's announcement was immediately met with doubts about "what (unspeakable) purposes does Chen Guangbiao have?" and "why won't he leave his money to his family?"
In Li's view, the comprehensive collapse of morality in China in the wake of the so-called "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" from 1966 to 1976 has bred a nearly universal lack of trust toward both public authority and individual actions and created a climate in which any individual whose actions or statements attract notice is first and foremost put under a virtual microscope and dissected to find his or her personal and selfish motives.
In fact, what is subject to such scrutiny is not only the motives of Chen Guangbiao, but how he and many other Chinese who rose from poverty to riches in the wake of the PRC's "reform and opening" since the late 1970s gained their fortunes.
The leading suspicions are that such tycoons did not become wealthy "the hard way" through hard work but through the use of special privileges, exploiting relationships, corruption or, at best, the whims of good fortune.
Thus, Chinese billionaires who publicly attended the Gates - Moffat charity bash in Beijing could be anxious that they will be greeted upon their return home that evening by central or local government tax auditors along with even more people asking for their "contributions" to their own favorite charities.
Happiness and generosity
Actually, it also appears that people who are happy are more likely to charitable than rich citizens who possess a far greater share of society's resources, at least according to the first - ever "World Giving Index" published September 6 by the England-based Charities Aid Foundation.
Based on a survey commissioned from the Gallup Group of 195,000 people in 153 countries, the CAF found that about one fifth of those surveyed expressed willingness to volunteer time in helping others, one third had contributed money to charitable institutions and 45 percent were willing to be "good Samaritans" and help strangers in need.
According to the WCI, people living in Australia and New Zealand are the most likely in the world to engage in these three types of charitable behavior.
Within East Asia, Hong Kong "belongers" were the most generous as their city ranked 18th worldwide, followed by Mongolia at 67th, Taiwan at 72nd, South Korea at 81st and Japan at 119th.
China trailed the pack at 147th or seventh from the bottom, tied with Lithuania and Greece and superior only to Serbia, Ukraine, Brunei and Madagascar.
Certainly, relative poverty cannot be cited as an excuse, as shown by the fact that the Lao Democratic People's Republic ranked 11th in the world (tied with Sierra Leone) and were thus the most generous people in continental Asia.
PRC citizens may be following the standards set by the ruling Chinese Communist Party leadership which touts their intention to have the PRC "rise peacefully," but have instead expanded the PRC's military budget by well over 10 percent annually for the past two decades.
Taiwan's WCI ranking for generosity is nothing to be proud of generally, but is not too bad compared to the rest of Asia.
This modest achievement is attributable primarily to the accumulated good works and generosity of spirit displayed by ordinary Taiwan citizens such as Taitung's "A-Ma" Chen Shu-chu and not to the philanthropy of tycoons and is displays just how different Taiwan is from China.
Our only regret is that the gap is not even greater.
Source: Taiwan News Online - Editorial 2010/09/14
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