The Origins of China’s New Law on Foreign NGOs

By Shawn Shieh on January 31, 2017

For many years, the vast majority of foreign NGOs operated quietly in China in a legal grey area. Many are unregistered and work in China through local partners, while others are registered as commercial enterprises. That all changed with the passage in April 2016 of the Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter Foreign NGO Law), which went into effect on January 1, 2017. The law is the first comprehensive regulation of its kind covering all foreign NGO activity in China, and came out in a year when much of China’s nonprofit legislation was being rewritten.

Asia Pacific Nations Are Tilting Closer toward China as Trump Declares ‘America First’

By Evelyn Cheng on January 31, 2017

There are strong signs that countries in Asia and the Pacific region are turning away from the United States and tilting toward China as the Trump administration emphasizes “America First.”

Economy, Politics
Donald Trump, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam

For Couriers, China’s E-Commerce Boom Can Be a Tough Road

By Ryan McMorrow on January 31, 2017

The Chinese e-commerce industry has been built on the backs of couriers—called kuaidi, or express delivery, in China. They number 1.2 million, and online retailers like Alibaba use them to zip packages to customers by scooter or three-wheeled electric cart.

Business, Society, Urban Life
E-Commerce, Alibaba, Workers’ Rights, Workforce

George G. Chen

on January 31, 2017

George G. Chen is a Research Associate at the Mercator Institute for China Studies. He is an expert on China’s judicial system and legal policies, and is the author of Copyright and International Negotiations: An Engine of Free Expression in China?, a forthcoming monograph published by Cambridge University Press.

He has advised the Chinese and European governments on a variety of legal projects within the framework of the Sino-E.U.-Dialogue on the State of Rule of Law.

Chen worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL), and the Wolfson College of the University of Cambridge. He was a Visiting Academic of the PCMLP based at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies of the University of Oxford and a research fellow and Konrad Adenauer scholar at the University of Göttingen.

Chen has a PhD in law (Göttingen), mag.iur (Göttingen), master of law (Nanjing), and B.A. (Fudan).

Facebook Is Trying Everything to Re-Enter China—and It’s Not Working

By Alyssa Abkowitz, Deepa Seetharaman, and Eva Dou on January 31, 2017

Since regulators blocked the service in 2009, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hired well-connected executives, developed censorship tools and taken a ‘smog jog’ in Beijing—but the company has made no visible headway.

Business, Law, Media
The Great Firewall, Internet Censorship