Foreign NGO Law

The Environmental Law Institute has shared a version of the document it recently created to formalize a temporary activity agreement with its Chinese Partner Unit. This template is is available here, so that other foreign NGOs can use it to create...

We’ve combined the Ministry of Public Security’s 2017 list of approved Professional Supervisory Units with China Law Translate’s translation of the same, creating a table that you can sort alphabetically by any column. Check out the table here.

Today, Hunan granted approval for its first batch of Foreign NGO representative offices: the Institute for Integrated Rural Development (Hong Kong), the China-Britain Business Council, and Reading Dreams (Hong Kong).

On May 23, the Beijing Public Security Bureau’s Foreign NGO Management Office presented four German organizations with their representative office registration certificates: Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Rosa Luxembourg...

On May 19, the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the “Notice on Work Related to Foreign NGO Representative Offices’ Renminbi Bank Account Management” (关于做好境外非政府组织代表机构人民币银行账户管理有关工作的通知). According to the...

Here are our translations of the latest WeChat posts from the Ministry of Public Security related to Foreign NGOs.

The Center for Charity Law at Beijing Normal University’s China Philanthropy Research Institute (CPRI), which runs a Foreign NGO Registration Support Program, issued a bilingual set of FAQs addressing 30 common questions related to foreign NGO...

As part of the fact-checking process for our FAQ on Ministry of Public Security (MPS) contact information—and keeping in mind previous reports that the National-level MPS Foreign NGO Management office initially didn’t have anyone answering the phone...

The Ministry of Public Security continues to post updates relevant to the Foreign NGO Law on its WeChat account, the most recent of which are translated and summarized below.

The Beijing-based China Development Brief's (CDB’s) English-language website came out last month with more news about the implementation of the Foreign NGO Law in Yunnan, Shanghai, Sichuan, and Guangdong, where a large number of foreign NGOs...

According to German media reports, China’s Ministry of Public Security has determined that five of Germany’s political foundations—Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Hanns Seidel Foundation, and Rosa...

Since April 2, the Ministry of Public Security’s Office for NGO Management has been posting updates on its work to a WeChat account. The following are translations of some recent posts. We’ll do these translations frequently and post them in our “...

According to guidance given during a Q&A session in 2016, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) Foreign NGO Management Bureau will allow WFOEs to donate money for public interest or charitable purposes in China as long as they carry out...

The following are a few of the questions and ideas we’re still grappling with after our initial discussions with the NGO community and others interested in Chinese civil society. We expect to be revisiting these ideas in the weeks and months to come.

One of the mandates of the newly-enacted Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in the People’s Republic of China is that all Foreign NGOs with a permanent footprint in China must register with the Ministry of...

This sortable table lists the temporary activities that foreign NGOs have filed for since January 2017, and includes foreign NGOs’ activity names, Chinese Partner Units, activity dates, and activity locations. Click on any heading column to sort the...

In recounting its experiences with the new filing process, the first NGO to successfully register for and carry out a temporary activity stressed that a willingness to educate Chinese partner units was key. Given how new the law is and how uncertain...

Some provincial Public Security Bureaus have posted lists of Professional Supervisory Units (PSUs). The following are links to all the provincial-level PSU lists (in Chinese) that The China NGO Project was able to find online. All lists are in...

The Chinese government has established “coordination groups” at the national and provincial levels specifically to manage Foreign NGOs in the context of the newly-enacted Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in...

On January 1, China began enforcement of its Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in the People’s Republic of China. Several weeks later, we initiated The China NGO Project to try to help readers better...

Based on the text of the Foreign NGO Law, it does not appear that foreign NGOs can lawfully give grants directly to individuals, such as for travel to workshops outside China, without a Chinese Partner as an intermediary. Article 22 states that...

According to the NGOs in China blog’s summary of guidance provided by the Ministry of Public Security at a 2016 Q&A session, “Article 21 [of the law] permits foreign NGOs to use ‘other funds legally acquired within China’ for their...

The Ministry of Public Security’s main NGO website lists temporary activities (in Chinese). The China NGO Project also maintains a sortable chart with English translations, including the area and dates of activity and the name of the Chinese Partner...

The Ministry of Public Security has not offered clear guidance on this point. The China NGO Project hopes to learn from foreign NGOs what level of detail groups included in their successful annual plan submissions.

According to an interview the Guangdong MPS gave to NGOCN, a Chinese national may serve as a foreign NGO’s chief representative in China. The individual’s identity card will be required as proof of identity.

A PSU’s precise role vis-a-vis its sponsored foreign NGO remains unclear at this stage in implementation. Many foreign NGOs report uncertainty about the nature of the relationship and have expressed a desire for greater clarity about the parameters...

The following documentation must be filed with the relevant Public Security office at least 15 days before a temporary activity begins (note: this time restriction is waived in cases of emergency relief services): 1. Documents and materials showing...

After gaining approval from a Professional Supervisory Unit (whose application materials and process vary from unit to unit), a foreign NGO must submit the following materials to the appropriate public security office.

Unlike Professional Supervisory Unites (PSUs), which are paired with foreign NGO representative offices in China and which must be selected from a list provided by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), Chinese Partner Units (CPUs) are organizations...

Yes. The term 境外 (jing wai) used in the law, which we translate as “foreign,” is frequently translated as “overseas,” but its literal translation is “outside the borders.” For legal and regulatory purposes, jing wai includes Taiwan, Hong Kong, and...

Article 2 of the Foreign NGO Law, as translated by China Law Translate, defines Foreign NGOs as any “not-for-profit, non-governmental social organizations lawfully established outside mainland China, such as foundations, social groups, and think...

All organizations seeking to register as a foreign NGO in China must meet certain requirements to be considered legitimate foreign NGOs by the Chinese government. These include being legally established outside mainland China and having been active...