Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s planned charitable visit to China

Billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett invited a number of wealthy Chinese individuals to attend an event they plan to host in China, only to hear that most declined the invitation due to concerns they’d be asked to donate to charity.

Gates, 54, and Buffett, 80, who Forbes Magazine estimates are worth a combined $100 billion, recently pressed American billionaires to pledge at least half of their fortunes to charity.

Gates and Buffet are now planning to publicly explain the purpose of their planned visit to China. A letter may be released as early as this week detailing why they’ve invited Chinese billionaires to a private event during a visit to the Asian nation at the end of the month.

Zhang Jing, a press officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Beijing office, said, “Our biggest intention for this month’s China trip is to learn how to do philanthropy in China. We would like to learn how to propel the charity business in such a big developing nation.”

The Economic Observer reported that Buffett and Gates will also travel to Shanghai and the southern province of Guangdong. The two billionaires will visit companies in which Buffett holds a stake, the newspaper said, citing people it didn’t identify.