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Keiji Maeda
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Chen Guangbiao wants China's richest men to follow him and give away their fortunes
Chen Guangbiao has no doubt that he is the most popular billionaire in China.
By Malcolm Moore, Shanghai
Published: 7:00PM BST 02 Oct 2010
Chen Guangbiao is the first billionaire in China to pledge his entire fortune, estimated at 2.8 billion yuan (£280 million) last year, to charity after his death
Chen Guangbiao helped save victims in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake
"I totally deserve the title," he said. "I have been doing good deeds since I was just a small child. Whenever I see people in difficulty, I just try to help them. In fact, I believe I have helped over 700,000 people in my life." In a country where the rich are often seen as uncaring and cold, cocooned inside luxury cars or living at the top of crystal skyscrapers, the 42-year-old Mr Chen has shot to fame for loudly proclaiming the importance of charity.
He is the first billionaire in China to pledge his entire fortune, estimated at 2.8 billion yuan (£280 million) last year, to charity after his death. "My two sons will have to be happy with their spiritual wealth," he said. His mission, he told The Sunday Telegraph in his first interview with a British newspaper, is to create a "charity army" of rich Chinese, who will donate at least 20 per cent of their profit each year to good causes. Leading by example, he claims to give away two thirds of his company's annual profit.
Short but trim, with a square-cut bristle of hair and rimless spectacles, Mr Chen speaks roughly and directly. "If you have a cup of water, you can drink it. If you have a bucket, you can keep it, but when you have a river, you have to learn to share it," he said. "I have to be grateful to our society here in China, grateful to the economic reforms for letting me get rich, and grateful for the efforts of my staff. If there had been no reforms, I would have been a farmer.
I have a responsibility to devote my energy to my country and my people," he said. Mr Chen spoke as he prepared to fly to Beijing, to attend perhaps the most important event in his charity career. On Wednesday, 40 of China's richest tycoons gathered in Hotel Park Laffitte, a replica of Chateau Lafite in the suburbs of the Chinese capital. They had been invited by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, and Warren Buffett, the star fund manager, to discuss the state of charity in China.
In a sign of how disdainful the majority of China's rich find the idea of philanthropy, a large number of invitations was declined, with billionaires apparently fearful of being buttonholed for donations. "This makes me so mad!" Mr Chen told one radio station. "How did we get rich? We need to repay society." Nevertheless, he said after the dinner that he felt it would produce "at least 10 more Chen Guangbiaos, and that is enough."
He added: "I benefited the most from the banquet, since I did not spend a cent or make a contribution but my image has never been so shiny. So far, no other billionaire has reached my level of charitability." Certainly Mr Chen is not short of self-esteem and he seems to be milking his moment in the spotlight. A new promotional film that he recently commissioned begins with a Hollywood-style voiceover in English: "One name has been resonating over the length and breadth of China's landscape.
One name is heard constantly from word of mouth, on television screens and in the press. The name? Chen Guangbiao!" Born in poverty in the countryside outside the eastern city of Nanjing, Mr Chen saw his elder brother and sister starve to death in China's great famine. At the age of 10, he said he carried water from a well to sell in a nearby village, making four yuan (40p) one summer, enough to put himself through school and pay for the education of a neighbour, his first charitable act.
Today both his parents, and his other brother and sister, still live in the countryside, but Mr Chen splits his time between Nanjing, where his wife and two sons live, and a stylish apartment in Beijing. Mr Chen will not speak of his family, merely saying that they prefer to be low-profile and that his wife is a full-time housewife. "She is my greatest support," he said. How exactly he made his fortune is unclear, and his rise to wealth has been extremely rapid.
He draws a veil over his early years, in which he is thought to have sold scooters and also medical equipment, but said he had hit the jackpot when he won a large government contract to demolish a sports stadium in Nanjing in 1998. Extracting the steel from the rubble, he resold it for a tidy sum, giving him the capital to build his fledgling company. Certainly, he appears to be extremely well-connected.
More than 70 per cent of the staff of his company, the Jiangsu Huangpu Recycling Resource Group, are former members of the People's Liberation Army. Meanwhile, on the walls of his office hang 10 photographs. Nine are portraits of Mr Chen with each member of China's all-powerful politburo and the tenth is him with Bill Gates. On another wall hangs an enormous stuffed turtle, near three enormous statues of Buddha. Next door is an entire room filled with some of the 1,700 awards he has won for his good deeds.
"I am proud of my business," he said. "We clean up cities," he added. His company takes rubble and steel from its demolition jobs and recycles it into new building materials. Mr Chen has ridden perhaps the biggest construction boom the world has ever seen over the past decade, as China knocked down its cities to build new ones. Today, he says he has donated more than $100 million (£64 million) to charity. But Mr Chen does not only donate cash.
He may be the only billionaire philanthropist in the world who personally flies to disaster zones to carry out aid work. After the enormous Sichuan earthquake of 2008, Mr Chen dug out 200 people from the rubble, saving 11 lives. When an earthquake struck on the Tibetan plateau earlier this year, Mr Chen drove for more than 20 hours to reach the scene, bringing with him an army of helpers and 21 pieces of heavy machinery. His team saved 11 students.
"Wherever a disaster strikes, you never fail to see Chen Guangbiao," declares his promotional film. Such self-promotion is a risky strategy. Many of China's new rich prefer to remain anonymous, fearing tall poppy syndrome. "Being rich brings a man the same thing as being fat brings a pig," runs a Chinese proverb. Philanthropy also has its pitfalls. Charitable organisations represent a threat to the Communist Party's pledge to provide for all of its people's needs.
Today there are barely any private charities in China and even Jet Li, the Hollywood superstar, has been unable to register his One Foundation legally, leading many to speculate that it may pull out of China. Accordingly, with the exception of 46 schools he built in Qinghai, Mr Chen is careful not to structure his philanthropy too tightly and always gives the appropriate praise to the Party. "All my wealth is given by the Party and the people, so when the Party and the people need it, I should rightly give it back," he said.
Instead of donating his money to a specific cause, Mr Chen donates the vast bulk of it directly to the needy, in small packets of cash - anywhere from £20 to £50. But while the money is welcome, there is a question mark over what sort of legacy Mr Chen will leave behind. "We do not know who he will give his money to after he has died," said one of his aides. "Perhaps he will even give it to a foreign charity."
So far, Mr Chen has managed to steer clear of any trouble, but there are signs that the attention he is cultivating may bring with it some unwelcome scrutiny of his affairs. Last week, the Chinese Propaganda department issued a notice to journalists banning them from writing any "negative reports" about him. Until the curtains close, however, Mr Chen is adamant he will continue to shout his support for charity in China, and for himself. "We need more Chen Guangbiaos!" he said.
