With a broader public participation in disaster relief throughout China, the country is moving toward a "renaissance" of charity development, experts said last week upon the release of China's first charity development report, adding that some problems remain, as the country is still in a preliminary state regarding helping good causes.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the "China Charity Development Report (2009)" at a conference attended by government officials, the heads of commonwealth foundations and scholars Wednesday.

Experts expressed their appreciation of charities' development in China over the past year, adding that charity is becoming a common undertaking that carries the highest social recognition and praise among the public.

"Charity is becoming an important social sector," Yang Tuan, vice director of the Social Policy Study Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and principal writer of the report, said at the conference, adding that the realm of charity had extended to education, health, environmental protection and social services, and should become a universal value in China.

According to the report, China collected funds and materials donated at home and abroad totaling 107 billion yuan ($35.6 billion) in 2008, 3.5 times the 2007 figure. About 90 percent of Chinese citizens and enterprises in major cities made donations.

In addition, donations from individuals surpassed corporate donations for the first time, changing the pattern in previous years in which individual donations accounted for less than 20 percent of all charitable donations, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Lack of disclosure

With the large amount of money donated and large number of people involved, where that money went has become a concern, as detailed disclosure of the use of donations is still not common practice.

"Donating is giving away your earnings to the government" is a common comment to be found on Internet forums.

Fan Baojun, chairman of the China Charity Federation, pointed out at the conference that there are large portions of national donations that lack basic disclosures about their use to the public, which is a common and severe problem in China.

Taking earthquake donations as an example, the total donations in the wake of the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake were as much as 76.7 billion yuan, "a new record in the history of China's donations."

According to a survey conducted by Tsinghua University, about 37.9 billion yuan, or 58 percent of the total funds, were directly allocated to government departments, without any disclosure of their use, China Youth Daily reported.

"Although the government might have more capabilities in large-scale rescue and providing relief to disaster victims, concealing the use of public donations will only hurt the faith in governmental charity organizations and the development of charity in the long run," Fan said.

Fan also noted that this also reflects the idea of "the government handling everything," which contradicts the concept of public charity, in which citizens are supposed to play a major role in helping others.

"Public welfare is not just a matter of the government, but we need to mobilize the whole of society in order to promote the development of public welfare undertakings," Fan said, adding that the government should boost the development of civil society in public affairs.

"The development of Chinese grass-root organizations is still at an elementary stage, and we need the support of government policy as well as public attention," said Yu Zhihai, known as An Zhu, the founder of 1 kg, an grass-root organization that helps poor students in rural areas by organizing urban youngsters to travel to the countryside.

While having fun on their way, they carry a kilogram of books and pens as gifts to the students.

They have provided help to more than 700 schools in the past four years.

Game for the rich?

In recent years, the list of "China's top philanthropists" was hyped in the media as usual, but this year the ranking was measured more by the sum of money they had donated, said Ding Yifan, a researcher at the Institute of Development Research Center of the State Council.

While the rich do have the idea of "repaying their homeland," many also donate huge sums to show off their fortunes and gain tax rebates, Ding said, suggesting that the country should establish a sound mechanism to push forward charities and shape a good environment for the public to carry out charity work.

Liang Chen contributed to this story

Source: Global Times