Why are China’s billionaires suddenly feeling so generous?

China’s ultra-wealthy have been on a philanthropic tear this year, but behind the surge in private gift-giving looms the hand of the Chinese government.

Shenzhen, China – China’s billionaires are becoming terribly generous of late. In recent months, Wang Xing, the chairman and founder of food delivery giant Meituan, donated around $2.7bn in stocks to his personal charity promoting scientific research and education, along with several other large gifts. After Colin Huang, founder of e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, resigned as chairman of the company in March, he gifted around $1.85bn to an educational fund. And earlier this year He Xiangjian of the Midea home appliances empire and Xu Jiayin of the Evergrande real estate empire forked over roughly $975m and $370m respectively to poverty alleviation, medical care and cultural programmes. The list of largesse goes on and on, with some, billionaires like Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok parent ByteDance, giving around $77m for education to his hometown of Longyan in Fujian province, and former Olympic diving great Guo Jingjing donating $10m to the city of Wuhan.