Resources for contextualizing recent developments in philanthropy and civil society

I'm proud to announce the release of a set of infographics, graphs, timelines, factsheets and FAQs that I developed with the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. You can find these resources on ICNL's website. The purpose of these resources is to help people understand the significance of recent developments in the philanthropy and civil society space in China. They are meant to complement a longer, more detailed China Philanthropy Law Report that I wrote and published with ICNL.

The idea behind these resources was to 1) provide context for the report, and 2) highlight the significance of the legal developments discussed in the report.

In terms of context, we wanted to provide a visual way to understand the universe of civil society actors affected by recent legislation, particularly for those unfamiliar with the Chinese civil society space. Thus one set of resources is a Universe of Chinese  and Overseas NGOs, and graphs showing the growth of Chinese NGOs since the 1990s.

Another part of the bigger picture is how these developments fit into the longer-term evolution of philanthropy and civil society, and its regulation, in China. Thus, another set of resources are two timelines, one a timeline on the rise of philanthropy and civil society in China, and another timeline on major developments in the regulations of philanthropy and civil society.

In highlighting the significance of the legal developments discussed in the ICNL report, we wanted to drive home how major legal developments starting in 2016 have substantially reshaped the philanthropy and civil society space in China. Thus, we developed three factsheets underlining major changes in the regulation of Chinese and Overseas NGOs after 2016.

Finally there are two sets of FAQs, one on the 2016 Charity Law and another on the 2016 Overseas NGO Law.

I hope these resources are useful for those who want to understand the importance of these very substantial changes that have taken place in the legal environment for philanthropy and civil society  in China over the past 2-3 years. Please share these resources if you think they would be helpful to others.

The Regenerative Power of Civil Society

I’ve always been more of an optimist when it comes to the future of civil society in China, even in these dark days under Xi Jinping’s rule. In early March of 2015, I wrote the response below to some hand-wringing among academics about the growing restrictions on labor NGOs and activists. Soon after I wrote this, five women activists around China were detained in a coordinated high-level campaign, and then about nine months later, a number of labor activists were interrogated and some detained and criminally charged. So was I wrong? I don’t think so. Re-reading this response, I think it’s as relevant as it was when I wrote it about a year ago. My point then and now is that we need to be more attentive to the organic way in which civil society multiplies and regenerates itself. Indeed, months later, some of these same women activists, who were released after a month in detention, have gone back to working on the same issues they were working on prior to their detention, and for all I know they may have found a few more supporters, and I’m confident the same will be true of some the labor activists.

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March 2, 2015

At a macro level, the recent campaign against lawyers and activists in China is not sustainable, nor is it meant to be sustainable. In this sense, the crackdown is not the “new normal”. It is instead a means to an end. What that end is remains to be seen, whether it’s laying the foundation for the reforms laid out in Xi Jinping’s ambitious Third Plenum Decision, or revitalising the relationship between the party-state and society, or strengthening China’s national sovereignty and security, or perhaps all three. Those are the new normal, not the crackdown. 

The end is not, as some people believe, the eradication of civil society. If that is the end, then the Xi Jinping administration has a lot more work to do but I don’t believe that is a priority.  The leadership has too many other burning issues to attend to than try to stamp out pesky activists - the economy, the anticorruption campaign, territorial and sovereignty issues on its periphery, and North Korea come to mind. Nor am I saying Xi Jinping is a closet liberal who will turn around to save civil society. He wants to save and strengthen the party and the nation, not civil society. But if Xi Jinping’s affirmation of “social governance” in his Third Plenum Decision’s is still valid, then there’s still a chance that he is willing to work with civil society if it helps him achieve his larger goals.

At a more micro level, I wish journalists and academics would do more to recognise the hard work of civil society activists and organisations on the ground and their achievements rather than their setbacks. Activists, NGOs and lawyers seem to attract more attention and support for being repressed than for making progress. No disrespect to the journalists which have done a great job covering China under tight deadlines and editorial demands, but if I was just trying to understand China by reading the media, I’d wonder how civil society could make any progress at all on the ground because it always seems be getting shut down.

To illustrate the power of the media, I always think about people I met when I was reviving the English version of China Development Brief whose founder, Nick Young, was barred from China in 2007. When I told them in 2011 or 2012 that I was working for CDB, many would tell me that they read CDB’s newsletter and would cite some piece from the pre-2007 days. Well you know, I would say, that was the old CDB, but you know there’s now this new CDB and it’s not the same as the old one. I could tell though it was hard for them to get their mind around this piece of information. It was like once the media reported that Nick had been barred, CDB ceased to exist in the minds of many people.

The reality is that in China, as I’m sure happens in other countries, detaining activists and lawyers and closing down NGOs is like the whack-a-mole game. They just pop up in other forms. Or maybe a better analogy is to understand these civil society actors as an organism. Hurting that organism, killing some of its cells, is only a temporary setback because over time that organism will grow new cells to replace the ones that died. Just as I was able to resurrect the old English-language CDB through the Chinese-language CDB that had spun off of the English-language organization and had managed to survive the closing down of Nick’s operation. Count that as yet another achievement of civil society. Once it begins to multiply, it’s very difficult to exterminate.

Ironically, this seemingly novel way of looking at civil society is applied to uncivil society actors, or what we might call bad civil society, such as terrorist organizations and networks. We often hear how killing leaders of an organization like Al Qaeda may not be that be that effective because other leaders and cells will arise to take their place. How prophetic that insight has become! But it’s that not great of a leap to say the same of civil society actors.

I recognise that there are exceptions to this tendency in the media to play up the negative, but the grand narrative plays in favor of seeing activists and NGOs as weak and powerless rather than as fighters, objects to be pitied rather than admired. Progress made by civil society is rarely reported, whereas their failures almost always are.

I think our myopia with regard to civil society is one reason we are often caught off guard when social movements succeed in causing a political rupture, as in the Solidarity movement in Poland, Arab Spring in North Africa, and the democratic opening in Myanmar. Experts very rarely predict these events. They end up trying to explain them using the benefit of hindsight, working backwards from the rupture to see what they had missed. But maybe if we were more attentive to following the various ways in which civil society multiplies and regenerates, we might have more forewarning of when a rupture is coming.

CDB (English)'s Inaugural Special Issue on Philanthropy and Civil Society

I am very pleased to announce our inaugural special issue on New Trends in Philanthropy and Civil Society in China is now available on our new website (www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn).  (P.S. We are not the same as the old China Development Brief which is at www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com). 

Thanks to the fine work of our CDB translators, the 12 articles that make up this special issue have been appearing on our website for the last month.   Together, they provide a compelling and insightful glimpse into an important change taking place in China's nonprofit, philanthropic community.  For each article, I have written a brief introduction to provide context, and inserted explanatory notes through the text.  To provide coherence and context, I have also provided a Preface and Table of Contents for the special issue.

The Preface

·      tells how the special issue was produced;

·      provides a short primer on the nonprofit/philanthropic sector in the PRC;

·      summarizes the key findings of the 12 articles. 

It has been a busy summer for us at CDB(English).   In addition to getting our website up, and our special issue released, I have been traveling in the U.S. promoting CDB(English), and meeting with potential funders and partners.   I gave two public talks on our special issue at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York City, and the Kissinger Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.  The title of the talk was “Same Bed, Different Dreams?: The New Philanthropy and Civil Society in China”.  Both talks were recorded and podcasts/videos are available on the websites of the Wilson Center and National Committee for those interested.

We hope you will take the time to explore the articles and other resources we provide on our website.   These resources include translations of Laws and Regulations governing the nonprofit sector, a Bibliography of sources on civil society, and Announcements of jobs, conferences, and activities of interest to an international audience. 

We will continue to provide translations of selected CDB articles, and develop the other NGO resources on our website.   We will be sending you monthly newsletters alerting you to new material on our website in addition to new CDB (English) developments and events.  If you know of others who wish to receive monthly CDB (English) newsletters, please have them email inquiries@chinadevelopmentbrief.cn.  If you do not wish to continue receiving newsletters, please reply to this email with the subject line “Unsubscribe” and we will take you off our mailing list.

CDB (English) would like to thank CDB, the Ford Foundation, and our CDB (English) translators and interns for their support.   As a translation project of CDB, CDB (English) would not be possible without the hard work of CDB staff who invest long hours to report on the nonprofit sector in China.   We also appreciate the financial support of the Ford Foundation who believed in us from the very start.  Finally, our translations and other resources would not be possible without the work of our CDB Translators, and interns: Emily Chesborough, Stephanie Roach, and Justin Pena. 

Promoting CDB (English)'s special issue on philanthropy and civil society in China

I'm pleased to finally announce that our special issue is now online at China Development Brief (English) (www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn).  The special issue comes with a Preface and Table of Contents.  The Preface provides some information about the special issue, a brief primer on the nonprofit and philanthropic sector in the PRC, and the key findings from the 12 articles translated for the special issue.  I'm very happy with the result and believe CDB's reporting provides a very insightful, thorough look into a very important development in China's civil society.  I'll be emailing a monthly newsletter about the special issue and other developments at CDB (English).  If you'd like to get on the email list, please send me an email at profshawn@gmail.com.

When I was in the U.S. in July, I also gave two public talks on our special issue at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York City, and the Kissinger Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.  The title of the talk was “Same Bed, Different Dreams?: The New Philanthropy and Civil Society in China”.  For those interested, both talks were recorded and podcasts/videos are available on the websites of the National Committee (http://www.ncuscr.org/programs/same-bed-different-dreams) and the Woodrow Wilson Center (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/same-bed-different-dreams-the-new-philanthropy-and-civil-society-china).

Improving Human Rights Through Social Change

Last Monday, I was invited to participate in a briefing on Capitol Hill to Congressional staffers on the topic of "Human Rights and Social Change".  It was an opportunity for me to think through the U.S. government's (and more generally the U.S.) approach to the human rights issue in China.  Here are my remarks:

The way in which we view China is shaped strongly by our own political, social and cultural biases.  We tend to focus on areas that are of importance to us: human rights, rule of law, treatment of ethnic minorities, rights-based activities, freedom of expression and religion, etc.   What we might call political and civil rights.  These are important issues not only to Americans but to the larger international community, but we should keep in mind that they come out of a specific political, social and cultural context, and are not necessarily the most important issues to many in China’s civil society.  These are also areas where the party-state has been more vigilant in opposing reforms, partly because they perceive outside forces pushing hard for changes in these areas.  

The problem is that in focusing so much of our attention and energies on these areas, we have developed blind spots in other areas where change is occurring in a more organic fashion, using strategies and methods that are generally accepted and have proved effective in China.   These changes have not resulted in the kinds of change we in the U.S. would like to see, particularly a stronger, more independent legal system, and greater protection of legal rights, and the expansion of freedom of expression and religion, for Chinese citizens.  But they are nonetheless important changes that have resulted in the expansion of civil society broadly defined.  This civil society consisting of voluntary, private, self-governing initiatives, organizations, networks and movements has been growing in numbers and in the diversity of actors involved.   They include lawyers, journalists, academics, ordinary activists, NGOs, foundations, informal and virtual groups and networks, and even the occasional government official.

I would argue that we need to do a better job understanding how social action and change is unfolding in China before we try to impose our own template of how political and social change should occur.  Why and how has civil society continued to grow through the cycles of relaxation and repression that we keep hearing about in the international media?   What are the consequences of this growth?   Where will it lead?  What if anything can the U.S. government do to support civil society?

We’ve been very good about identifying and calling attention to the ways in which the government has sought to stifle and repress civil society.  It seems that every week we read news about activists, writers, lawyers,  and monks being restricted, detained, disappeared or arrested.  We’ve also done a fairly good job of identifying acts of “mass disturbances”, strikes, protests, riots.  But again, these stories are consistent with our concern for rule of law, freedom of expression and religion, and the treatment of ethnic minorities. 

What we hear little about are the stories that do not get the attention of journalists.  Stories about the quiet work that is being done behind the scenes, the emergence of social actors promoting change in less public ways, the growth of social and virtual networks, and the growing collaboration between civil society actors, the government and business sectors.   These are areas where civil society is trying escape marginalization and join the mainstream of Chinese society.  They are also trends that get little mention in the media and in U.S. government human rights reports.

Information about these changes is not lacking.  It is available and being documented by academics, bloggers, and organizations like China Development Brief.  But it does not seem to be filtering up to those in the U.S. government.

Just to give one important change that has happened recently is the rapid rise of private foundations which offer another means of support for civil society.  The rise of foundations established by private entrepreneurs suggests that the private sector is gradually becoming more socially engaged.  Their support of civil society, while not a direct statement supporting political reform, shows their support for an organizational sphere independent of the party-state.  The coming together of private entrepreneurs and civil society has been gathering speed over the last two years.  It represents a very significant event that is beginning to change the civil society landscape because now you have independent foundations with lots of money and influence.  The question is, will they support civil society? 

The always insightful Liu Xiaobo, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, recognizes the importance of social change in reforming the political environment in China.  In his 2006 essay, “Changing the Regime by Changing Society”, he states:

“China’s course toward a free society will mainly rely on bottom-up gradual improvement and not the top-down ‘Chiang Ching-kuo style’ revolution.  Bottom-up reform requires self-consciousness among the people, and self-initiated, persistent and continuously expanding civil disobedience movements or rights defense movements among the people.  In other words, pursue the free and democratic forces among the people; do not pursue the rebuilding of society through radical regime change, but instead use gradual social change to compel regime change.  That is, rely on the continuously growing civil society to reform a regime that lacks legitimacy.”

Is China's civil society in danger?

April 22, 2011 (updated May 29, 2011)

I started this blog out wanting to write more about what NGOs have achieved in their short life in the PRC – their achievements, the people behind the scenes, the challenges they face -- but I find myself returning frequently to the issue of how the party-state controls NGOs.   I have to admit that this is driven by international media reports that focus heavily on instances of NGOs being harassed and closed down.  Of course, state control and regulation of NGOs is an important dimension, but it’s only one dimension, and the purpose of this blog is to bring to light other aspects of social activism in China that do not get much attention in the international news media.

So you can imagine that I’m writing this post with some trepidation, and I’ve sat on it for over a month before posting this.  But it’s hard to ignore the international media reports on the recent spike of repression in China following the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East and calls for a similar uprising in China.   It’s also hard to ignore when it affects someone you know.  One of my friends, a foreign journalist who was at the Wangfujing area in Beijing which was supposed to be one of the staging grounds for the uprising, was a victim of that repression.   He was beaten up by a gang of plainclothes thugs/police because he was carrying around a camcorder filming what ended up to be a nonevent.  He suffered cracked ribs and had to be hospitalized.  Later, to add insult to injury, he was followed by the police for days.   

The April 16-22 issue of the Economist argues that the latest crackdown on activists like the artist Ai Weiwei, rights-defense lawyers, and other human rights activists goes far deeper and wider than previous crackdowns.  It then makes the startling claim that this crackdown is the worst since the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen.  

I like the Economist but I think this time it went too far.   Before I explain myself, let me say for the record that I don’t want to sound like an apologist for the regime, or to downplay the repression that is happening.   I too am dismayed by the many arrests and disappearances of activists who are fighting the good fight.   What happened to my journalist friend was reprehensible.  The Chinese government should be called to account for what they did.  And I agree with the Economist when they say that the repression is an overreaction to perceived threats and shows a regime that is not confident but rather very nervous about its position. 

But the Economist makes it sound like we’re returning to the days of the early 1990s or even the early 1980s when outlets for activism for few and far between.   If so, how do we square this claim with more optimistic trends discussed in this blog and elsewhere showing the emergence of a more vibrant civil society?   

I like to think of civil society in China as an iceberg where only a small portion is visible and the bulk lies below the surface.  The tip of the iceberg are mostly individual activists – rights lawyers, human rights activists – who dare to venture over that imaginary line that the Chinese government says should not be crossed.  A few are activists associated with NGOs.  Below the surface lie other activists and groups, including many NGOS, that carry out their work in relative anonymity within the boundaries permitted by the state.   Over the last two decades, this iceberg has grown substantially and ever so often we see cycles of repression aimed at the tip of that iceberg.   But the bulk of the iceberg below the surface continues to expand without attracting much attention. 

The iceberg is also sprouting new tips as we see more of the iceberg below the surface emerging and becoming visible as the government and society begins to recognize the NGOs and activists that are working within permissible boundaries.  NGOs are also getting more networked not just with other NGOs, but also with government agencies, GONGOs, businesses, academics, and the media.   NGOs are also making some progress in terms of diversifying their funding and attracting more professional staff.   These trends – greater legitimacy, networks, professionalization –  are all indicators of a more mature, independent civil society emerging in China, even as repression continues mostly against those individual activists who push the boundaries of the permissible. 

What bothers me about the kind of coverage we see from the international media is that its coverage of civil society is driven by the harassment, arrest and disappearance of activists.  This narrative is misleading on two counts. 

One is that it sends a message that human and social agency in China is monopolized by an all-powerful, monolithic government that can squash (or allow) dissent and activism at a moment’s notice.   As I’ve written about in other posts, this is not an accurate reflection of the reality here.   There is no single, unified view or approach within the government about how to deal with civil society here.   Yes, there are efforts to wall off the more vocal activists who push the envelope, but in other areas the government is seeking to find ways to better regulate the growth of independent organizations.   Of course, one motive behind greater regulation is control.  But government leaders are also beginning to realize that civil society is not going away, and that it will be better to have civil society as allies working together with the government to address China’s immense social problems.

Secondly, this narrative sees these individual activists as representative of the larger civil society in China.    That is not the case.  Many NGOs are aware of the latest crackdown, and may sympathize with their fellow activists, but they also have different philosophies and approaches to carrying out their work.  Like the state, civil society is by no means monolithic.  

What is missing from this narrative is accounts of the many expressions of social agency coming from activists, NGOs, bloggers and other groups that are an important part of China’s civil society.  How else to explain the expansion and maturation of civil society over the last 20 years?  How else to explain their growing partnerships with and acceptance by government, businesses, academics, the media, and society at large?   I’ve heard some people say, these trends have happened because the government allows it.  But once again, this answer makes the same mistake.  It assumes agency on the part of the government, and sees social activists and groups as passive actors trapped within an authoritarian system.  

If the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt tell us anything, it is that we should not underestimate the agency and power of society even within seemingly resilient authoritarian states.  Yes, we should sympathize with activists who are unjustly harassed or jailed.  But we should also call attention to the many other social activists who, by working within permissible boundaries, are changing China slowly from within. 

The 2008 Sichuan earthquake and China's NGOs

February 25, 2010

Yesterday, I spoke at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) about the impact of the 2008 Sichuan (or Wenchuan) earthquake on China’s NGOs, along with Xu Yongguang, the director and cofounder of the Nandu (Narada) Foundation and a prominent leader in Chinese NGO circles.

The earthquake was widely seen as stimulating an outpouring of volunteerism and public donations, the likes of which has never been seen in the history of the PRC. But what was less well understood was the way in which the earthquake energized the Chinese NGO community which responded almost immediately and from all corners of the country to the disaster.

We are now much better informed thanks to several Chinese academic studies of the NGO response, and reports by NGOs such as China Development Brief (the Chinese version), and Huizeren, which have published their own valuable accounts of how NGOs performed in the earthquake relief and reconstruction. One of the most comprehensive accounts is a survey of the NGOs that participated in the earthquake relief. The survey involved researchers from Beijing Normal University and Tsinghua University’s well-known NGO Research Center, and has been published in Chinese under the title, Wenchuan dizhen: gongmin xingdong baogao – jinji jiuyuanzhongde NGO (The Wenchuan earthquake: a report of citizen action – NGOs involved in emergency relief). Deng Guosheng, a professor at the Tsinghua University NGO Center, has also written a book titled Xiangying Wenchuan: zhongguo jiuzai jizhi fenxi (Responding to Wenchuan: an analysis of China’s disaster relief mechanisms) which contains several chapters on the NGO response.

My presentation at the FCCC was based on a paper that I coauthored in English with Professor Deng who has been a tireless advocate for China’s NGOs. In that paper, we argue that the earthquake energized the NGO community in important ways. NGOs from different parts of the country, and different sectors, responded immediately, forming partnerships with mass organizations and local governments, as well as networks with other NGOs and GONGOs. The network part is important because it shows that NGOs are now capable of organizing and coordinating horizontally, across different sectors, quite rapidly and doing so independently of the government. What we are seeing here is the outlines of a civil society.

But a functioning civil society requires more than a committed, energized group of NGOs. It also requires a supportive legal, social and economic environment, and the NGO response to the earthquake showed that China has a long ways to go in creating such an environment. Legally, the biggest issue is registration. It is difficult for NGOs to get registered, and impossible for NGO networks. As a result, the NGO networks operating in the earthquake region were essentially illegal, which made it difficult for them to work with local governments and get financial support. One of the two biggest networks eventually closed up shop a month after the earthquake. The other, the 512 Voluntary Relief Services Center (512 minjian jiuyuan fuwu zhongxin) is still operating on a shoestring budget because they can’t get funding as an “illegal organization”. Socially, NGOs still have viewed suspiciously by society and local governments, although NGO participation in the earthquake went a long ways to improving their social image.

Economically, the earthquake showed how much public fundraising favors the government. Donations from the public in 2008 hit an all-time high of 100 billion yuan, of which 76 billion was for the earthquake relief. Due to restrictive fundraising laws, however, most NGOs and private foundations cannot raise money publicly. As a result, very little of the public donations for the earthquake relief went to NGOs or private foundations. Almost all of it went to government departments under the Civil Affairs ministry, or to government-run foundations (GONGOs) like the Chinese Red Cross and the China Charity Foundation. Ultimately, because these foundations are government controlled, the public is not informed about how their donations are being spent. This issue touched off a debate among academics and NGOs about the need to draft new regulations governing public donations.

Still, there are some positive trends in the economic picture for NGOs. One is that after the earthquake, for the first time in the PRC’s history, GONGOs have started disbursing funds to grassroots NGOs. The most publicized case was the Chinese Red Cross setting aside 20 million in 2008 mostly for NGO projects in the earthquake area. One of the beneficiaries of this Red Cross money was Global Village, a Beijing-based environmental NGO that is rebuilding a village near the city of Pengzhou that was damaged by the earthquake. I visited that project in June and Global Village appeared to be well on their way to finishing much of the housing for the farmers in the village.

The other is the rise of private foundations since the Foundation regulations were passed in 2004. These private foundations are not allowed to raise funds publicly, but they can raise funds through private channels. Many of these private foundations are being established by private entrepreneurs and corporations, and their emergence is significant because they represent the conjoining of China’s entrepreneurial class with the public welfare sector.

One of the people at the forefront of both of these trends is Xu Yongguang, who I profiled in an earlier post. Xu used to head the China Youth Development Foundation where he was the brainchild for the Project Hope schools, and since 2005 has been heading the Nandu Foundation. NGO leaders have told me that Xu is one of the people responsible for the Red Cross’ change of heart in funding NGO projects. Xu is also a leader in the world of private foundations. Together with a number of other private foundations, he plans to establish a China Foundation Center which seeks to provide a set of standards for, and information about, China’s foundations, and thereby promote the growth, transparency and credibility of China’s private foundations.

I’ll be posting Xu’s remarks about the importance of private foundations for the nonprofit, NGO community in China in a later post.