Good post from Stan Abrams at China Hearsay on companies (and individuals) being shamed into making contributions to earthquake relief:

Humiliating individuals and enterprises for not contributing enough to earthquake relief is taking all this a bit too far. I applaud everyone, public and private, who has donated, physically participated in rescue efforts, organized on the charitable front, etc. This was all done out of kindness and goodwill and should not be sullied by others who pitch in only reluctantly out of shame.

Do we really have to punish others for not doing what we think is enough? The protests that have sprung up against certain companies and the nasty online criticism of a wide variety of folks is really unbecoming at a time of national crisis. There is a lot more of this directed against individuals and domestic firms, by the way, than MNCs. Take a look at a local BBS or two, and you’ll see some very tough stuff.

Stan cites an Associated Press article in which MNCs defend their donations:

Online comments called for boycotts of McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Nokia and others — in one case calling them "International Super-Misers" — but companies said they felt no impact.

By Tuesday, foreign companies had donated 1.2 billion yuan ($175 million) in cash, plus supplies worth 108 million yuan ($15.5 million), according to the government.

Despite that, nationalistic Chinese Web surfers who react angrily to any perceived slight to their country have accused foreign companies of failing to provide enough help.

A posting on popular search engine Baidu.com's blog service listed corporate donations and said they were smaller than those after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

"International super-misers." Colorful phrase. Isn't that the title of a Green Day album? Also circulating is an SMS message urging Chinese people to boycott several foreign companies, including McDonalds, Nokia, Louis Vuitton (still reeling from the Dalai Lama thing, I think), and others.

As always, in the manner of Chinese Internet outrages, which burn hot but often briefly, it will probably blow over. But it's shame that what has been a fairly substantial and sincere outpouring of aid from international and domestic companies alike has taken on a bit of  a negative tone. At this point, if I was advising a client who hadn't donated yet, I'd tell them to still donate whatever they felt appropriate, but not to publicize it externally. If you've not been pilloried yet, why invite criticism for being late to the party? But be ready to answer questions when asked.

Sina is still keeping the donation league tables if you want to check the scores. 

Previously:

Does your quake donation stack up?