Foreign NGO Law

Today, Shanxi held a meeting for foreign NGO Professional Supervisory Units (PSUs). Representatives from each of the province’s 42 PSUs participated. (Note: This likely refers to eligible PSUs, as Shanxi had registered no representative offices as...

In response to reader feedback, we’ve made two big changes this week to our tables that contain translated Ministry of Public Security information on representative offices and temporary activities: First, we’ve enabled a filter/search function on...

We’ve just posted the latest information about all the foreign NGO temporary activities and representative office registrations that took place as of January 31, 2018. Of note, registrations of representative offices were down somewhat in January—...

Any Foreign NGO wishing to establish a representative office or file for a temporary activity in China must compile a number of documents to be reviewed by public security authorities. That is the easy part. Because China has not ratified the Hague...

Any foreign NGO seeking to register a representative office or file for a temporary activity in China must prepare a number of official documents in the location where it is headquartered. These documents must be notarized and authenticated in the...

Thanks to the Ministry of Public Security’s website, we have a clear picture of which foreign NGOs were able to work in China in 2017 under the Foreign NGO Law, either through establishing representative offices or carrying out temporary activities...

Our suite of data visualizations now includes data from January to December of 2017.Of note, Anhui registered its first foreign NGO representative office in December, Love Without Borders Foundation (United States).You can see the full set of...

The advent of the Foreign NGO Law in January left many wondering what it portended for foreign NGOs’ work China. How many foreign NGOs would be able to register? Where in the mainland would they be able to operate? And how might the new registration...

A year after the Foreign NGO Law’s promulgation, Betram Lang of Goethe University asks why European civil society seems relatively quiescent about the new legal regime. The answer may lie in the wide range of interests belied by the singular “...

Worries about the future of civil society organizations in China are limited to only a handful of European countries. Others put their faith in established informal ties or have subscribed to Chinese understandings of “people-to-people exchanges,”...

During our year-end review of 2017’s official Ministry of Public Security data on foreign NGOs in China, we came across several interesting tidbits that didn’t fit into stories elsewhere on the site. Rather than holding onto them into 2018, we...

With almost 300 foreign NGO representative offices registered this year, implementation of the Foreign NGO Law has entered a new phase: management. For foreign NGOs that were operating informally or under a different status before, formal...

Articles 5 and 45 of the Foreign NGO Law suggest that foreign NGOs may not engage in “for-profit activities.” However, according to the NGOs in China blog’s summary of guidance provided by the Ministry of Public Security at a 2016 Q&A...

Though the Foreign NGO Law forbids foreign NGOs from partnering with for-profit organizations for activities, may foreign NGOs contract with for-profit entities for certain services?The Ministry of Public Security has not issued official written...

On December 14, the Charity Philanthropy Research Institute (CPRI) at Beijing Normal University published an interview with OVCI la Nostra Famiglia (OVCI Our Family) about their registration process under the Foreign NGO Law. OVCI stressed the...

As agreed at the U.S.-China Social and Cultural Dialogue in September of this year, the U.S. State Department met with the Chinese government on December 14 to discuss U.S. NGOs in China. Though the State Department’s press release does not detail...

Today, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) released statistics showing foreign NGO representative offices and temporary activities from January to November of this year.

On December 1, China Development Brief (CDB) held a workshop in Beijing for foreign NGOs in China. NGOs that had already registered a representative office in China shared their experiences related to finding a Professional Supervisory Unit,...

According to one source, a Ministry of Public Security (MPS) representative said that foreign staff of foreign NGOs seeking to register a representative office may enter China on tourist or short-term business visas. Once the representative office...

We’ve recently updated our FAQ on the definition of a “temporary activity.” Though there is still no clear-cut definition, we’ve added additional detail from informed sources to help address questions about whether authorities are likely consider a...

We’ve updated our suite of data visualizations to include information through the end of November. Several new countries of origin were represented among foreign NGOs that successfully registered their first representative office in...

On November 21, the State Forestry Administration convened a meeting on the Foreign NGO Law, attended by 28 provincial- and city-level Forestry offices as well as by the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB) Foreign NGO Management Office...

A new analysis compares how Xi Jinping’s 19th Party Congress report this past October and his 18th Party Congress report in 2012 discussed non-governmental organizations and other civil society institutions. Read the full analysis here.

Neither the 19th Party Congress political report (issued in October 2017) nor the 18th Party Congress political report (issued in November 2012) actually use the term “non-governmental organization” (非政府组织), nor do they specifically address...

Lee Ming-che may not have been charged under the Foreign NGO Law, but his case may still have a chilling effect on those non-profits working in China. Read the full analysis here.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) now lists the provincial Department of Commerce as the Taiwan Trade Center’s Professional Supervisory Unit (PSU) in Liaoning. The Taiwan Trade Center confirmed to The NGO Project that the Department of Commerce...

On November 28, Taiwanese NGO activist Lee Ming-che was sentenced to five years in prison for “subverting state power.” A mainland Chinese citizen, Peng Yuhua, whom Lee’s family says they had not heard of before the trial, was tried with him and...

We’ve added two new charts to our suite of monthly data visualizations: one showing how many foreign NGOs have carried out multiple temporary activities, and one showing the number of temporary activities that have started each week this year. You...

Though most Chinese Partner Units (CPUs) working with foreign NGOs have only filed for one temporary activity, approximately 18% of CPUs have filed for multiple temporary activities since the beginning of the year. Below, we list the CPUs that have...

We’ve just published a brief analysis looking at those domestic Chinese organizations that have served as foreign NGOs’ temporary activity partners for four or more temporary activities. Check it out here to see which groups have been most active in...

China Development Brief (CDB) has translated and published a statistical analysis of foreign NGO representative office registrations and temporary activity filings for the first nine months of the year. The analysis, originally published in Chinese...

Today, Guangdong Public Security Bureau (PSB) Executive Vice Director Li Qingxiong met with Cambodian Member of Parliament Suos Yara, who visited the PSB as part of an inspection team related to the Foreign NGO Law. Li said he hoped Suos’ visit...

As we approach one year since the Foreign NGO Law went into effect, these are some of the common questions and concerns we’re hearing from legal professionals, scholars, funders, and NGOs themselves—along with any answers we are able to offer. The...

The Ministry of Public Security has not offered clear guidance on this point. Notably, an earlier draft of the Foreign NGO Law forbade “accept[ing] donations from within Mainland China.” The final version of the Law says only that foreign NGOs and...

According to the Foreign NGO Law, a foreign NGO must provide “proof of premises of the proposed representative office,” though the law is not explicit on what constitutes “proof” if an NGO does not yet have an established presence in China. This...

We’ve updated our suite of data visualizations to include the month of October.Of note, Qinghai registered its first representative office last month, while Anhui, Hainan, Hebei, Ningxia, Shanxi, Xinjiang, and Xinjiang Bingtuan all remained without...

As part of an ongoing effort to streamline red tape, on October 31 the National People’s Congress Standing Committee struck several provisions from a draft version of the Accounting Law currently under deliberation, which in turn affected the...

What is the Foreign NGO Law, and why did the P.R.C. create it? The “Law of the People’s Republic of China on Administration of Activities of Overseas Nongovernmental Organizations in the Mainland of China” was adopted by the National People’s...

We’ve just posted a new analysis juxtaposing the process for registering a representative office and for filing a temporary activity. In particular, the flowchart highlights the differing points in the process during which an application or filing...

Based on its discussions with various foreign NGOs (and with much-appreciated assistance from several experts), The China NGO Project has created the following flowchart to help show the differences between registering for a representative office...

In addition to downloading new data entries on a regular basis, The China NGO Project also periodically reconciles our data set with that on the MPS website, changing old entries to reflect the newest information provided by the MPS. That means that...

Today, the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB) Foreign NGO Management Office issued registration certificates to three foreign NGOs: World Sport Federation Asia Headquarters (世界体育总会亚太区总部) (Macau), Oxfam (Hong Kong), and France Export Céréales.

We’ve updated our page of monthly data visualizations to include September. The data show that Hong Kong and the United States continue to have the most representative offices and temporary activities of all the countries/regions working in China...

On October 17, the China Philanthropy Research Institute (CPRI) at Beijing Normal University published an interview with The Asia Foundation in both English and Chinese. The Asia Foundation noted that the Foreign NGO Law offered them the ability to...

Zhaoqing city in Guangdong province participated in two local outreach meetings in late September related to the Foreign NGO Law. On September 22, the Zhaoqing Public Security Bureau (PSB) Foreign NGO Management Office held a training session...

The Foreign NGO Law and civil society cooperation more generally featured at the inaugural U.S.-China Social and Cultural Dialogue on September 28. As described in the U.S. statement on the dialogue, “Both sides discussed China’s foreign NGO...

After a slow start, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and its provincial Public Security Bureaus (PSBs) seem to be finding their stride in implementing the Foreign NGO Law with the rate of registering representative offices and filing “temporary...

The State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development has issued guidelines for NGOs requesting the Office to serve as its Professional Supervisory Unit or as its Chinese Partner Unit for representative offices and temporary...

China Development Brief (CDB) has posted two additional articles stemming from its July conference on foreign NGOs in China. One is from Wang Chao, Save the Children International’s China representative, who “suggests that international NGOs should...

New in our Analysis section: Rob Precht of Justice Labs argues that the obstacles the Foreign NGO Management Law creates for already beleaguered international human rights and rule of law organizations mean businesses and universities need to assume...

Many foreign NGOs working in China view its newly adopted Law on the Management of Foreign NGOs as a threat to their work and say the law may force their organizations to leave the country. Yet, at least for the work I am familiar with—namely, the...