Beijing:
The founder of TikTok owner ByteDance will donate 500 million yuan ($77.35 million) to the southeastern Chinese city of Longyan for education, the city government’s education bureau stated on Tuesday.
Zhang Yiming’s move came as Chinese tech billionaires are rushing to make charity gestures, specially in education, amid China’s unprecedented crackdown on the tech sector.
The donation will set up the “Meifang Foundation” to help teachers with sophisticated education and assistance vocational education, Longyan’s education bureau stated in a statement. The foundation will mostly focus on the rural locations in the area, according to a particular person with direct understanding of the matter.
This month, Chinese meals delivery giant Meituan’s founder Wang Xing donated about $2 billion worth of Meituan shares into the Wang Xing Fund, which promotes education and scientific study.
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, who all but vanished from public view following an October speech that triggered the dramatic suspension of affiliate Ant’s $37 billion IPO, surfaced briefly in January, participating in an on the web ceremony for rural teachers organised by Ma’s charitable foundation.
Both Alibaba and Meituan face scrutiny from China’s antitrust authorities. China’s market place regulator fined Alibaba a record 18 billion yuan ($2.75 billion) for its abuse of dominant market place position, and announced an antitrust probe into Meituan in April.
China in current months has been cracking down on the private following-college tutoring sector, with President Xi Jinping saying schools really should be accountable for mastering, rather than tutoring providers.
Last month, Zhang unexpectedly announced he would step down as ByteDance CEO, and stated he would focus more on the company’s lengthy-term techniques and social responsibilities.
Zhang in 2019 donated $10 million to San Francisco-based Minerva Schools and $14 million to the Innovation Fund for Nankai University in Tianjin.
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