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Check here for updates from our editors on new developments in regulation, operation and activities of Foreign NGOs in China as well as updates to the China NGO Project site
Over on the Fairbank Center blog, authors Wendy Leutert, Elizabeth Plantan, and Austin Strange explain how foreign NGOs are increasingly working with Chinese state-owned enterprises on projects all over the world. Noting that “many international NGOs are pivoting from working inside China to partnering with Chinese actors to promote development abroad,” the authors explain that a combination of factors—including the Foreign NGO Law and ever smaller pools of money to fund development work inside China—have...Read more
Is Hong Kong about to get its own Foreign NGO Law in the name of ‘national security’? In our Analysis section, Thomas Kellogg and Alison Sile Chen ask how a planned national security law, as announced by the National People’s Congress in Beijing on May 28, might affect the international non-profit sector in Hong Kong. Though any provisions related to foreign NGOs would probably look different than they do in the rest of mainland China,...Read more
No Foreign NGO Representative Offices Registered in May
Last Month Was the First Since January 2017 with No New Registrations
Public security officials did not register any new foreign NGO representative offices in the month of May, marking the first time since the the Foreign NGO Law first took effect in January 2017 that an entire month elapsed without any registrations. During the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, authorities were still reporting new registrations, with three new offices registered in January, three in February, and five in March. The current lack of registrations...Read more
‘I Feel Like I Am Committing Crimes’
A Q&A with Legal Rights Advocate Yang Zhanqing
On July 22 last year, three activists from the public interest NGO Changsha Funeng were detained and later formally arrested for “subversion of state power.” Cheng Yuan, Liu Dazhi, and Wu Gejianxiong, known as the “Changsha Three,” have been detained for about seven months. Established in 2016, Changsha Funeng mainly focused on disability rights and also the rights of disadvantaged groups. To understand more about the arrests, public interest work in China, and the challenges...Read more
Civil Society’s Shifting Role in the Response to Coronavirus
Rule Changes Allowing for More NGOs to Get Involved
In our Analysis section, contributor Holly Snape explains how local and central policies at first hobbled domestic civil society organizations’ ability to respond to the coronavirus, limiting who could receive donations, and, critically, who could disburse them. Subsequent rule changes mean that groups are now freer to play a role in collecting and distributing funds and material goods—a hopeful sign for the management of this epidemic.Read more