All Shook Up

Just such a test is taking place in Mianzhu, a city of 520,000 people—most of whom were rendered homeless by the quake. An unusual experiment in urban reconstruction is taking shape there with input from Wang Ping, 52, head of the China Social Entrepreneur Foundation. CSEF breaks the old NGO mold. Wang is a party member and a former investment banker with high-level business and political contacts. Within days of the quake, she began talking to the mayor of Mianzhu about reconstruction plans, and then brought in the consultancy McKinsey to design part of the economic recovery scheme.

Thirty years after China first opened its doors to capitalism and foreign investment, Wang and CSEF are carrying on the tradition of Deng's bold pragmatism. The group's brochure even quotes Deng approvingly: "Let some get rich first, then help others to get rich after them, and in the end we will all achieve common wealth." CSEF's official godparent is the State Council's Anti-Poverty Bureau, and its coffers are filled by corporate donors. Unlike most Chinese NGOs, CSEF has a board packed with business leaders, including the bosses of Taikang Life Insurance, the NASDAQ-listed chip firm Vimico and the Hong Kong-listed real-estate firm Country Garden.

China's new rich classes have often been painted as only interested in acquiring more wealth, but Sichuan is highlighting another side. They were products of the idealistic 1980s, when getting rich was linked to social transformation and experimentation, explains Victor Yuan, 43—founder of market-research group Horizon—who works with Wang. Many held onto big-picture dreams, and are now secure enough to put their ideals into action. Philanthropy is "growing, it's a new trend," says Yuan. This is good news for the party as it tries to curb resentment at a gaping rich-poor divide.

As for those plutocrats who have not gotten the message themselves, China's Netizens have been quick to help, scourging those entrepreneurs who failed to give generously enough. After real-estate mogul Wang Shi donated 2 million RMB to the relief effort ($290,000), for example, bloggers pounced. "Not enough to buy a two-bedroom flat in Shanghai!" scoffed one.

Wealthy philanthropists are also lending their business skills. CSEF's strategy is to prove that services work better if they're based on consultation and research. Corporate know-how is key, and that's where McKinsey and Horizon come in. Their surveys found that 20 percent of tent-dwelling quake refugees would go back to their own homes within six months with a little financial aid, so they're advising the mayor to divert some resettlement money toward repairing permanent homes rather than building temporary ones. Moreover, while Chinese officials have generally focused on ramping up local economic growth, Wang is now urging them to hold consultations on other, softer social goods such as job security, disabled needs and mental-health care. She says these efforts should be seen as "community driven." "We don't like to use the words 'self-government'," she adds after a pause.

As Wang suggests, the Communist Party has no reason to fear political challenges from newly empowered civic activists. There's little sign they intend to link up with, say, protesting parents and they're determined not to blow this golden opportunity to weave themselves into China's social fabric. CSEF supports the political establishment. And even the libertarian blogger An Zhu, whose NGO set up a tent library in Mianzhu, says criticizing corruption now would "only give rise to conflict … We can't change things overnight but we can serve people better."