HONG KONG -- In billionaire Ananda Krishnan's climb to success, one of the first rungs on the ladder was a philanthropic gift--a scholarship to earn his undergraduate degree at Melbourne University.
China
Promoting Culture and Art in China and Australia
Without a doubt, there are many other individuals and organizations in the region who practice art philanthropy that were not included in the 2009 Forbes List such as the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation in Hong Kong. Founded in 2005, one of its missions is to promote Chinese arts and culture.
It does so by promoting creative arts education by providing free arts education programs (seminars and workshops on art, photography, writing, etc.) for young people in Hong Kong and supporting education of Chinese nationals abroad.
China’s rise shows new, non-financial opportunities for diaspora philanthropy
Author Nick Young’s report on diaspora philanthropy in China points out that the country’s rise as a global superpower has contributed greatly to the dwindling inflow of official development aid to the country. “Voters in donor countries are more inclined to reason that any fraction of their tax contributions spent on overseas aid should go to poorer countries than China,” he writes—and for good reason. As the Western world experiences a financial meltdown, China seems to be the only economy that remains unaffected and that is still poised to post respectable growth figures.
Profile: China
Philanthropic giving in China is a growing practice, but one that is rarely directed to strangers. This is attributed to the Chinese system of guanxi or personal connections, which extend to those who share a certain identity.
