How can NGOs survive in China? – Mark Schaub

 

Mark Schaub

In recent years NGOs have been seeing tougher regulatory oversight, including visits from the police forces, urging them to comply with China’s regulations for NGOs. China lawyer Mark Schaub dives into the recent law for NGOs and concludes that survival in China is possible, he writes for the China Law Insight.

Mark Schaub:

Foreign NGOs have become a more established part of the China economic and social landscape.

By some counts there are some 7,000 foreign NGOs operating in China[8] in some form or another – official or under the radar. However, most commentators believe there are some 500 to 700 foreign NGOs registered officially as Representative Offices in China and many more engaging in temporary activities.

Many of these registered foreign NGOs are trade promotion bodies or guild like organizations. These tend to be far less controversial organizations than NGOs dedicated to political or social issues. In our experience, the Chinese authorities have been even handed in dealing with these entities provided the Overseas NGOs have agreed to bring their operations in line with the legal requirements.

More in the China Law Insight.

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Religious crackdown: part of controlling civil society by the state - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The crackdown on two of five churches has not so much to do with religion, but is part of the government to control civil society, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, including NGO's and others outside government control, at CNN.

CNN:

Analysts and civil rights advocates say Beijing is intensifying its campaign against worshipers seen as an ideological threat to the party's monopoly on power. 

"We are now entering a new era of repression toward two of China's five religions, which is different than what we've seen over the past 40 years," said Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author of "The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao."... Experts say restrictions on worship help those in power mold religious institutions to their liking, or co-opt them altogether. 

Christianity and Islam, Johnson said, are seen as particularly threatening because the party views them as having "strong foreign ties." "(That's) even though both religions have long roots in China and are very much localized," he added... 

While other communist regimes have also been hostile to religion, Johnson said the crackdown on Christianity and Islam was less about the faiths' practices and beliefs and more about the China's ability to control them. 

"Under President Xi, the government has further tightened control over Christianity in its broad efforts to 'Sinicize' religion or 'adopt Chinese characteristics' -- in other words, to ensure that religious groups support the government and the Communist Party," Human Rights Watch said in a statement calling for the release of Wang Yi, the Chengdu pastor, and his fellow believers... 

It remains unclear how the Vatican deal will affect Protestant churches like Early Rain, but critics believe it comes from the same playbook as the arrests in Chengdu -- it's all about control. 

"This goes back to a broader effort by the government to crack down on anything that can be construed as civil society -- in other words, groups like religious organizations, or NGOs, that are outside government control," Johnson said.

More at CNN.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form?

Are you looking for more political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Dear Policeman Kang

Nick Young of the China Development Brief has - after the closure of the Chinese edition of his leading publication - published a statement and a letter he wrote to investigating police officer Kang. (In full here - courtesy of the WSJ).
Of course, policeman Kang probably does not care less, since it is for him an illegal operation. But it show a bit what kind of trouble he is heading for, when he or his superiors decide to push ahead with the closure.
The letter includes a list of organizations who have supported the newsletter:
Oxfam Hong Kong, Save the Children UK, The Worldwide Fund for Nature, The Ford Foundation, The Trace Foundation, The Kadoorie Charitable Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Great Britain-China Centre, The Japan Foundation, ActionAid, The British Council, The Canadian International Development Agency Civil Society Program, The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Human Rights Project Fund, The Australian International Development Agency, The Charities Aid Foundation (UK), The European Union Beijing Delegation, CARE International; Voluntary Service Overseas, Save the Children UK, The International Fund for Agricultural Development, The United Kingdom Department for International Development, The University of Harvard Centre for Global Equity, JP Morgan Bank, HPBilliton

China Development Brief ordered to close

Authorities in Beijing have ordered the leading publication on NGO-activities in China, the China Development Brief, to close its Chinese edition. reports Time at its blog.

Nick Young, founder of the publication that has been around since 1996, keeps hope:

"My hope is that these actions have been precipitated by zealous security officers," he says, "and that more senior figures in the government and Communist Party will realize that actions of this kind are not in China's best interest."

The publication was, according to the local security officials both "illegal" and conducting "illegal surveys". The closure, last week, comes at a time when China seems busy in trying to control non-governmental activities by foreigners, one year ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Earlier a US group also accused China of deporting over one hundred foreign missionaries from China.

While those acts are obvious going to be an embarrassment for the central government, zealous local official might have their own interpretation of what is needed in the country.

Nick Young remains faces a 5-year ban from China, but remains optimistic for the time being:

One irony of the moves against the publication is that the China Development Brief, whose motto is "to enhance constructive engagement between China and the world," has editorialized against what Young describes as "more or less openly hostile" Western criticism of China. "I do consider myself to be friend of China," he says. "I think it's a serious problem if the state cannot distinguish between friends and enemies."

Update: I just learned from a press release that the servers of this online publication are based in the UK, making it - if it has any nationality - a British publication that should adhere to British laws and regulations. When the authorities have any misgivings about an online publication, they can block it.
That is most likely why Public Security in Beijing got the local statistics bureau involved and included "illegal surveys" as another offense. I'm not sure how much meat is on that one. Anyway, even if the accusation by the Beijing authorities are illegal, it would not make the life of Nick Young much happier.

NGO's help to build roads in Jiangxi

Nineteen villages in Jiangxi Province are part of a rather unique project in China, where NGO's take the lead in building roads and other infrastructure, writes Reuters.

Chris Spohr, an economist with the [Asian Development Bank] ADB in Beijing, said the government's readiness to take NGOs on as partners showed its commitment to spreading the benefits of prosperity more evenly.
"It suggests that terms like 'building a harmonious society' and 'government role transformation' are not merely rhetoric, but are being at least cautiously explored and pushed ahead," Spohr said, referring to two stock phrases the leadership has employed to etch out its priorities for reform.