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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

Tribute to an ‘Ordinary Chinese Activist’

I first met Jianbing on a cold Gansu winter day over twelve years ago, in the Year of the Ox. As fate would have it, the same astrological sign that brought a dear friend into my life snatched him away mercilessly when it returned twelve years later.Read more
Shawn Shieh explores both the potential upsides and downsides of the “14th Five-Year-Plan for the Development of Social Organizations.” At the U.S.-China Perception Monitor, Jessica Teets makes the case that people-to-people exchanges are a crucial way to maintain information flows between the U.S. and China, even if the current environment may not be conducive to extensive policy cooperation.Read more
In an article for The European Institute for Chinese Studies (EURICS), University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Law and Public Affairs Mark Sidel assesses how the Foreign NGO Law framework functioned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking at donations made through both the representative office and temporary activity mechanisms, Sidel concludes that the structures set in place over the last four years held up under crisis conditions and allowed international funding to flow in for COVID-related causes.Read more
According to the Global Times, local public security officials in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province issued an administrative warning to Australia-based non-profit Nying-Jey Projects in April for operating in the area without permission. It is not clear from the wording of the Global Times article whether police censured the NGO for failing to register a representative office or for failing to file for a temporary activity.Read more

A Look Back at Foreign NGOs in China in 2020

2020 saw something of a lull in foreign NGO activity in China. According to Ministry of Public Security data, fewer foreign NGOs registered new representative offices or initiated temporary activities than they had in the previous two years. Of course, in a year where China and the rest of the international community had to contend with successive waves of a global pandemic, it is not surprising that foreign NGO activity in the PRC decreased. What...Read more