Few can doubt that as China gets more prosperous, its wealthiest entrepreneurs will be asked to give more of their money away.

It’s already happening. In December, the investment bank UBS reported that the donations by China’s top 50 publicly disclosed philanthropists had risen eightfold in three years. Their donations hit $10.9 billion last year.

It’s not happening fast enough, though. At least that’s what a top Chinese entrepreneur said at Harvard Business School over the weekend. The entrepreneur is Niu Gensheng, chairman of Mengniu Dairy, the huge Inner Mongolia concern that trades on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

“No matter how you look at it, compared with developed countries, China’s enterprises and entrepreneurs in general lag behind their Western counterparts both in terms of shouldering their social responsibilities and in terms of investment in charitable causes,” Niu said, according to a text sent to me by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.

Niu recounted in his lecture how he decided in 2005 to donate his and his families shares in the Mengniu Dairy Group, valued at $516 million, to set up the Lao Niu Foundation, dedicated to public interest causes.

He said Confucian ideals call for great achievers to give back to society.

“It is my hope that China will re-embrace our tradition of giving, adapt a new mindset of what ‘success’ means, and encourage our enterprises and entrepreneurs to advocate a philanthropic business culture,” he said.

Niu said his company provides milk free of charge for a year to all of the teachers and students of more than 1,000 primary schools in impoverished rural areas.

I can’t vouch for Niu or his company but I bet a lot of Chinese hope he is right when he says “entrepreneurs are awakening to their responsibilities to contribute to the harmonious development of China.”