February 2018

The impetus for this event is it’s about a year since the new Foreign NGO Law was implemented in China. There was also another law implemented in 2016, the Charity Law, that governs how domestic NGOs function in China. But there’s a lot more going on beyond just the regulatory environment. There’s an evolving dynamic in the civil society space in China, and the appetite for charitable giving and philanthropy in China is growing by leaps and bounds. So I think what we’re seeing right now is a rapidly evolving sector—a charity sector, a philanthropic sector, and new government policies that are evolving to try to regulate that space in a reasonable manner as it develops.

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s three-day visit to China, from January 31 to February 2, has amplified ongoing debates in Europe about the costs and benefits of engagement with China and of Chinese investment. Attention to China’s role in fortunes of less developed economies has tended to focus on Africa. But as Beijing expands its One Belt, One Road investment and infrastructure campaign to encompass greater swaths of the globe, the often-overlooked small nations of the Pacific Islands are becoming a key testing ground for reactions to China’s growing economic and political clout. What’s at stake for China in these far-flung regions? Are regional and local concerns about Chinese investment justified? And how do they relate to similar debates elsewhere in the world?