Failure to success

Born in 1968 in Jiangsu Province to a poor family, Chen lost his brother and sister at a young age.

The boy grew up a businessman who built a fortune in recycling. He ranks 406th in China at the 2010 Hurun Rich List.

As chairman of Jiangsu Huangpu Recycling Resources Company, Chen's fortune is estimated at 5 billion yuan.

Such a story might be new to an American, but Chen is very old news back home. For years he has been making charity work into a kind of public theater.

In 2008 when a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit Sichuan Province and killed nearly 70,000 people, Chen donated his company's bulldozers to assist with the rescue work.

He has also famously handed out cans of fresh air to residents in smoggy Beijing.

Not long ago, before his trip to the US, Chen decorated a television studio with 16 tons of 100-yuan notes to promote a national economic census.

Chen is no stranger to the New York Times. In the last couple of years, Chen has spent $90,000 on advertisements asserting China's sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

One question seems worth asking: Where does all the money come from?

An article appeared on an online forum alleging Chen's first "bucket of gold" was a scam and detailed how he had violated product laws.

In response, Chen wrote a statement on his Sina Weibo microblog, suggesting that if he had been operating an illegal business, he would have been busted a long time ago.

"My success should be credited to the Communist Party, the opening-up policy and my own hard work," he wrote.

"I know deeply that everything I have today is given to me by my motherland and my people."

His generosity made enemies, Chen said, some of them "tigers," fierce and connected. But he remains undaunted.

"Only those who have survived a cold winter," Chen said, "can understand the warmth of the sun."