India and China have withdrawn troops from a disputed Himalayan region on the border with China, foreign ministries from the two countries announced Monday, defusing a tense standoff that had threatened to provoke armed conflict between the nuclear-armed Asian rivals.
Friends of Nature, a Beijing-based non-governmental organization (NGO), filed two landmark cases against a local Environmental Protection Bureau in Yunnan this year that have revealed the current limits of one of the most hopeful provisions in China’s recently-amended Environmental Protection Law.
The State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development issued two documents on August 22 outlining the procedures for foreign NGOs seeking to register a representative office or file a temporary activity in conjunction with the Office. These documents represent a significant step forward in transparency for those foreign NGOs hoping to work with the Office. The China NGO Project is not aware of any other Professional Supervisory Units (PSUs) or Chinese Partner Units (CPUs) that have issued similar formal documentation of their adjudication procedures.
On August 21, the China Philanthropy Research Institute (CPRI) at Beijing Normal University published an interview with Elizabeth Knupp of the Ford Foundation in both English and Chinese, discussing Ford’s history in China and its registration process. Knupp describes Ford’s search for a Professional Supervisory Unit (PSU), noting that it took Ford multiple efforts to find a PSU that could cover the wide range of work that Ford does. Knupp also highlighted open communication with the Public Security Bureau as a key to the group’s successful registration.
On August 16, the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB) Foreign NGO Management Office met with Italian NGO “International Cooperation Volunteer Group—Our Homeland,” and presented the group with its registration certificate. Also present were representatives from the China Disabled Person’s Federation and the Italian Embassy.
When the Indian subcontinent bumped into Eurasia 40m years ago, the collision produced the mighty Himalayas. The world’s two most populous nations, India and China, are still colliding across that majestic range.
China has come out strongly against new U.S. moves to pressure North Korea with its foreign ministry opposing the “long-arm jurisdiction” of President Donald Trump’s administration, arguing that Beijing has always met international obligations in containing its reclusive neighbor.
China’s commerce ministry has already expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with the US launch of an inquiry into alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property, calling it “irresponsible”.
China has pitched its mammoth, pan-Eurasian “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative as a means of promoting economic prosperity and fostering diplomatic ties on a global scale.
President Xi Jinping is spending more than $50 billion in an economic corridor in Pakistan, Afghanistan’s neighbor. The highways and gas pipelines, designed to provide China an alternative land route to the high seas, also give it an interest in stabilizing the volatile region.
