BEIJING, June 22 – Founder of TikTok owner ByteDance will donate 500 million yuan (SGD104 million) to the southeast China city of Longyan for education, the city government’s education bureau said on Tuesday, June 22.
Zhang Yiming’s move came as Chinese tech billionaires rush to make charitable gestures, particularly in the education sector, amid China’s unprecedented crackdown on the tech sector.
With the donation, the “Meifang Foundation” will be established to support teachers in further education and to support vocational training, said the Longyan Education Office in a statement. The foundation will primarily focus on rural areas in the region, according to a person with direct expertise.
That month, Wang Xing, founder of Chinese food supplier Meituan, donated approximately $ 2 billion (SGD 2.7 billion) in Meituan shares to the Wang Xing Fund, which promotes education and scientific research.
Alibaba Group’s founder Jack Ma, who nearly disappeared from the public eye after an October speech that sparked the dramatic suspension of subsidiary Ant’s $ 37 billion IPO, popped up briefly in January and attended an online event Attended the rural teacher ceremony organized by Ma’s charitable foundation.
Both Alibaba and Meituan are under review by China’s antitrust authorities. The Chinese market regulator fined Alibaba 18 billion yuan for abuse of a dominant position and announced an antitrust investigation into Meituan in April.
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China has cracked down on the after-school private tutoring sector in recent months, with President Xi Jinping saying schools should be responsible for learning rather than teaching businesses.
Last month, Zhang unexpectedly announced that he would be stepping down as CEO of ByteDance and said he would focus more on the company’s long-term strategies and social responsibility.
In 2019, Zhang donated $ 10 million to Minerva Schools in San Francisco and $ 14 million to the Nankai University Innovation Fund in Tianjin.
