ECCENTRIC Chinese tycoon Chen Guangbiao took out a full-page bilingual advertisement in the New York Times, inviting underprivileged Americans to a charity lunch and offering cash handouts.

    According to Chinese media reports, the ad appeared in the New York Times print edition Monday, announcing that Chen would host a charity luncheon at New York Central Park’s Loeb Boathouse on June 25 for 1,000 “poor and destitute Americans.” Each participant would also receive US$300.

    Chen, who is known for theatrical philanthropic stunts, has a photo of himself in the ad placed side-by-side with a picture of Lei Feng, a Chinese soldier from the Mao-era who is celebrated as a selfless model citizen. The title above the images says, “China’s ‘Lei Feng for a new era.’”

    Those who wish to join the luncheon need to RSVP via a Hotmail email address.

    Chen said he was hoping the lunch would show the United States that there are Chinese philanthropists.

    “There are many wealthy Chinese billionaires but most of them gained their wealth from market speculation and colluding with government officials while destroying the environment. I can’t bear the sight of it,” Chen told the South China Morning Post.

    One of Chen’s eye-catching acts of bringing charity abroad was delivering five truckloads of supplies to Japan after the country was struck by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11.

    However, questions about the sources of Chen’s wealth resurfaced in the media after the China Business Journal reported a year ago that his company had experienced losses for six consecutive years prior to 2009.

    Furthermore, the newspaper found that while the company’s annual revenues have never surpassed 100 million yuan (US$15.37 million), its debts-to-assets ratio last year was possibly as high as 95 percent.

    The newspaper quoted a businessman in the demolition industry who said making donations of substantial amounts of money helps establish closer ties with senior officials in local governments and makes it easier to win government contracts.

    The report implied that Chen used his connections to close several deals in 2009 and 2010, in which he made massive profits.

    Making his fortune from recycling domestic waste and construction materials in China, Chen has been in the media spotlight in recent years for his dramatic publicity stunts promoting philanthropic causes. He arrived at the scene of the 2013 Lushan earthquake in Sichuan just hours after the disaster took place and personally handed out cash to the victims. He spent 54 days in the quake-hit zone and donated more than 100 million yuan for post-quake construction.

    Chen has also tried unsuccessfully to buy the New York Times as part of his ongoing campaign to develop closer ties between the United States and China. He recently expressed a desire to reignite discussions to buy the paper’s opinion section and fill it with articles about environmental protection and charity.

    Founder of the Huangpu Renewable Resources Utilization Group, Chen has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to various charitable causes over the years and has made it more than once onto Forbes’ list of Asia’s leading philanthropists.

    His chivalric behavior, made known via TV programs, was applauded nationwide and won him the title of “China’s top philanthropist.” He is also nicknamed “Brother Biao.”

    But not everyone is taken with Chen’s flashy generosity.

    Jeremy Goldkorn, director of Chinese media research firm Danwei, says: “Chen is a clown whose so-called philanthropy appears to consist entirely of self-promotional stunts like giving handouts of cash in Taipei and New York, and cans of air to people in China.”

    Goldkorn has also tweeted that Chen is the “greatest insult to the Chinese people.”

    Other critics find it difficult to take Chen seriously when his English namecard lists an absurdly long string of self-aggrandizing titles, including “Most Charismatic Philanthropist of China.”

    People soon suspected that the widely-acclaimed philanthropist’s generosity was a publicity stunt. A highly circulated photograph of him posing behind his donation of a wall of thousands of 100-yuan banknotes in Nanjing drew heavy criticism. He thrust cash to the palm of the needy and took photos with them, but required the beneficiaries to hold up the RMB he had given out. His charity was described as philanthropic violence. However, Chen seemed unfazed by the social pressure. He insisted on his “violent charity” and said his high-profile show was to attract other wealthy people to emulate him.

    In January 2011, he went to Taiwan and donated 110 million yuan to local underprivileged families. He was joined by more than 50 other businessmen from the mainland.

    In an open letter to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, he pledged to donate all his fortune to charity after his death. The duo made a trip to Beijing to talk about their “Giving Pledge” campaign, during which they asked the U.S.’s richest to pledge half of their wealth to charity either during or after their lifetime, and to help China start its own philanthropy community. Chen wrote to Buffet and Gates that it would be a shame to hoard his wealth, and he was pleased to accept the invitation.

    Born in July 1968 into a family long inured in poverty, Chen witnessed the death of his brother and sister in his childhood. After the tragedy, the Jiangsu native decided to change his destiny. Chen garnered his gold nugget with his keen business sense after several setbacks and started prominent charity drives after his success. Chen is now estimated to be worth US$510 million, according to Hurun Report’s 2010 speculation.

    On Aug. 31, 2012, Chen took out a half-page advertisement in the New York Times saying, in both Chinese and English, that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China.

    The ad, which Chen designed and wrote, said: “How would Americans feel and what would America do if Japan announced that Hawaii was its territory?”

    The ad featured his portrait and signature along with another photo of him on a bicycle. In the ad, he described himself as a “citizen of China and advocate of peace.” Chen said the ad had initially said Pearl Harbor but the newspaper insisted he replace it with Hawaii.

    After anti-Japanese protests in cities across China last year, Chen spent nearly US$800,000 on dozens of Chinese-made cars to give to people whose Japanese-branded vehicles were damaged.

    On Dec. 24, 2013, Chen decorated a temporary television studio in Nanjing with 16 metric tons of 100-yuan notes to promote the upcoming national economic census. The cash was transported to the studio in the provincial capital of Jiangsu Province in a large truck and it took 20 people five hours to decorate the tent-turned-TV-studio with the cash.(SD-Agencies)