07.26.17

Six Months In: An Analysis of Foreign NGO Activity in China

Tee Zhuo
Half a year after China’s new law regarding foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) went into effect, many questions remain about the law’s implementation across different regions of China and across different fields of work. To get a better...
07.24.17

Making Sense of MPS’ Data: A Compendium of Data Visualizations

To better understand the Ministry of Public Security’s publicly-available information on Foreign NGOs’ representative offices and temporary activities, The China NGO Project has created a series of data visualizations that allow readers to explore...
07.24.17

Guangzhou Small Group Holds Training Class

According to the Guangzhou government website, Guangzhou’s Coordinating Small Group for Foreign NGO Management Work held a training class on July 11 and 12. Participants included representatives from all of the government entities represented in the...
07.11.17

Qinghai Public Security Bureau Meets with Foreign NGOs; Guizhou Makes Filing More Convenient; Four Provincial Public Security Bureaus Conduct University Outreach

On June 30, the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB) Foreign NGO Management Office granted registration certificates to 15 foreign NGOs: Ford Foundation (United States), Give2Asia (United States), The Asia Foundation (United States), Caterpillar...
06.30.17

New Analysis: Four More Previously Unlisted Entities Become Professional Supervisory Units

A total of six entities, not originally included in the Ministry of Public Security’s 2017 list of eligible Professional Supervisory Units (PSUs), have now sponsored foreign NGO representative offices. More details about the newest of these PSUs can...
06.30.17

Four More Previously Unlisted Entities Become PSUs

Jessica Batke
Based on data released on June 28, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has permitted four additional entities to become Professional Supervisory Units (PSUs) for foreign NGOs. The addition of these four new PSUs confirms that the MPS is actively...
06.28.17

Ministry of Public Security Logs More than 30 New Representative Offices on Its Foreign NGO Management Office Website

On June 28, the Ministry of Public Security added more than 30 new foreign NGO representative offices to its running tally, bringing the total of approved offices to 132. The China NGO Project notes that most of the new additions were for offices...
06.28.17

Where Can My Organization Find All the Official Forms?

The following includes links to the official forms (in Chinese), as listed on the Ministry of Public Security website, which are necessary for compliance with both the representative office registration and temporary activity parts of China’s...
06.28.17

Unofficial English Translations of Registration/Filing Forms Now Available

The China NGO Project has just posted English translations of the official forms needed to apply for a representative office or file for a temporary activity. You can access them all here.
06.28.17

New CSIS Report on ‘Business Models’ for Human Rights NGOs

The Center for Strategic and International Studies recently published a new report by Edwin Rekosh exploring ways in which human rights NGOs might rethink how they approach their work internationally. Using a “business model” framework to...
06.26.17

Chongqing Public Security Bureau Trains Other Government Agencies on Foreign NGO Law

Today, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau Foreign NGO Management Office presented registration certificates to twenty-one foreign NGO representative offices.
06.22.17

New Analysis on (Non-)PSUs

To complement our chart on which government agencies are serving as Professional Supervisory Units (PSUs) for foreign NGOs, we’ve written a separate analysis looking at what agencies are not serving as PSUs. Check it out here.
06.21.17

China Development Brief Posts List of Foreign NGO Representative Offices

China Development Brief (CDB) has posted its own list of foreign NGOs with representative offices in China. CDB’s foreign NGO-related content can be found under the keyword “Overseas NGOs” on its website, including document translations and news...
06.21.17

Which PSUs Listed by the MPS Are Not Yet Serving as Such?

Jessica Batke
As of June 16, more than six months after the Foreign NGO Law went into effect, 84 foreign NGOs have successfully registered 97 representative offices. Thirty-eight unique Chinese government entities at either the national or provincial level have...

Rethinking the Human Rights Business Model

Edwin Rekosh
Center for Strategic and International Studies
06.20.17

Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shanghai, and Jiangsu Public Security Bureaus Conduct Outreach to Foreign NGOs, Universities, and Other Government Agencies

On June 12, the Guangxi Public Security Bureau Foreign NGO Management Office met with the foreign NGO Couleurs de Chine, including the NGO’s vice president, who was visiting from the group’s headquarters in France.
06.15.17

University Training on Foreign NGO Law in Heilongjiang; Hong Kong Groups Thank Hunan Public Security Bureau

Today, the Heilongjiang Public Security Bureau (PSB) Foreign NGO Management Office, in conjunction with Heilongjiang University, held a meeting on the Foreign NGO Law. In attendance were the university's international culture and education...
06.14.17

An Article Worth Reading

On June 13, South China Morning Post published a thorough report by Nectar Gan that details the experiences of foreign NGOs since the Foreign NGO Law went into effect this year.

A Statistical Analysis of the Implementation of the ONGO Law

The Beijing Normal University China Philanthropy Research Institute

Why Foreign NGOs Are Struggling with New Chinese Law

Nectar Gan
South China Morning Post
06.13.17

Analysis from Beijing Normal University: “How Is Implementation of the Foreign NGO Law Progressing?”

The Charity Philanthropy Research Institute (CPRI) at Beijing Normal University has published an analysis of the foreign NGO representative offices registered and the temporary activities that have been filed in the first five months of 2017. The...
06.09.17

New Analysis from Legal Expert Fu Hualing

Hong Kong University Legal Expert Fu Hualing conducts a thought experiment related to non-Chinese NGOs, asking “why does the Foreign NGO Law apply to them?” Read more here.
06.09.17

Henan Public Security Bureau Quizzes Employees on Foreign NGO Law; Beijing Explains Temporary Activity Filings

Here are our translations of the latest WeChat posts from the Ministry of Public Security related to Foreign NGOs.
06.09.17

Brochure: “Key Information about Registering a Foreign NGO Representative Office”

The Beijing Public Security Bureau Foreign NGO Management Office provides this brochure in paper form at its offices in Beijing’s Haidian District. The content of the brochure is identical to the information found in numbers 1-6 of the Guide for the...
06.09.17

Granting Money to an Individual under the Foreign NGO Law: A Thought Experiment

Jessica Batke & Fu Hualing
Despite the Foreign NGO Law’s taking effect on January 1 of this year, quite a number of questions regarding the law’s contents remain unanswered. Lawyers, scholars, and foreign NGOs themselves all face uncertainty as they try to understand how...
06.06.17

Possible Foreign NGO Law-Related Detentions: What We Know, and What We Don’t

Jessica Batke
Three labor activists affiliated with the New York-based China Labor Watch (CLW) were detained in China last week. Reports suggest that they were detained for investigating labor practices at factories in Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces. This comes...
06.02.17

Ministry of Public Security Appears to be Making New Organs Eligible to Sponsor Foreign NGOs

A comparison of the list of Professional Supervisory Units (PSUs) that have already sponsored foreign NGOs and the Ministry of Public Security’s (MPS’) list of eligible PSUs for 2017 shows that, as of June 1, two entities that were not on the...
06.01.17

New Foreign NGO Registrations in Beijing, Liaoning, and Guangxi

Today, the Beijing Public Security Bureau Foreign NGO Management Office granted representative office registration certificates to five more NGOs, including the Business Software Alliance (United States), The Nature Conservancy (United States), the...
05.31.17

Have a Question? Ask an Expert!

Despite the Foreign NGO Law’s having been in effect for five months, foreign NGOs have many unanswered technical and procedural questions about operating in China. The China NGO Project is soliciting foreign NGOs’ outstanding questions, which we...
05.31.17

Template for Foreign NGO-Chinese Partner Unit Memorandum of Understanding

The Environmental Law Institute has shared a version of the document it recently created to formalize a temporary activity agreement with its Chinese Partner Unit. This template is is available here, so that other foreign NGOs can use it to create...
05.30.17

Professional Supervisory Unit List Now Available as a Sortable Table

We’ve combined the Ministry of Public Security’s 2017 list of approved Professional Supervisory Units with China Law Translate’s translation of the same, creating a table that you can sort alphabetically by any column. Check out the table here.
05.27.17

Beijing Public Security Bureau Holds Foreign NGO Lecture at Renmin University

Today, Hunan granted approval for its first batch of Foreign NGO representative offices: the Institute for Integrated Rural Development (Hong Kong), the China-Britain Business Council, and Reading Dreams (Hong Kong).
05.23.17

German Political Foundations Register in Beijing

On May 23, the Beijing Public Security Bureau’s Foreign NGO Management Office presented four German organizations with their representative office registration certificates: Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Rosa Luxembourg...
05.19.17

New Rules for Foreign NGO Bank Accounts

On May 19, the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the “Notice on Work Related to Foreign NGO Representative Offices’ Renminbi Bank Account Management” (关于做好境外非政府组织代表机构人民币银行账户管理有关工作的通知). According to the...
05.18.17

Ministry of Public Security Highlights Foreign NGOs’ Role in Belt and Road Initiative

Here are our translations of the latest WeChat posts from the Ministry of Public Security related to Foreign NGOs.
05.12.17

We Called All of the Provincial Foreign NGO Management Offices So You Don’t Have To

As part of the fact-checking process for our FAQ on Ministry of Public Security (MPS) contact information—and keeping in mind previous reports that the National-level MPS Foreign NGO Management office initially didn’t have anyone answering the phone...
05.10.17

Guangdong and Shanghai Public Security Bureaus Talk Foreign NGO Law with Foreign Consulates

The Ministry of Public Security continues to post updates relevant to the Foreign NGO Law on its WeChat account, the most recent of which are translated and summarized below.
05.09.17

More Foreign NGOs Register in Yunnan, Sichuan, Shanghai, and Guangdong

Shawn Shieh
The Beijing-based China Development Brief's (CDB’s) English-language website came out last month with more news about the implementation of the Foreign NGO Law in Yunnan, Shanghai, Sichuan, and Guangdong, where a large number of foreign NGOs...
05.02.17

German Political Foundations May Be Able to Register as NGOs in China

According to German media reports, China’s Ministry of Public Security has determined that five of Germany’s political foundations—Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Hanns Seidel Foundation, and Rosa...
04.25.17

Are Activities Carried out by Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises Subject to the Foreign NGO Law?

According to guidance given during a Q&A session in 2016, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) Foreign NGO Management Bureau will allow WFOEs to donate money for public interest or charitable purposes in China as long as they carry out...
04.24.17

Approved Foreign NGO Representative Offices: A Comparison with Previous Registrations

Jessica Batke
One of the mandates of the newly-enacted Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in the People’s Republic of China is that all Foreign NGOs with a permanent footprint in China must register with the Ministry of...
04.24.17

Foreign NGOs’ Temporary Activities

This sortable table lists the temporary activities that foreign NGOs have filed for since January 2017, and includes foreign NGOs’ activity names, Chinese Partner Units, activity dates, and activity locations. Click on any heading column to sort the...
04.24.17

How to File for a Temporary Activity

In recounting its experiences with the new filing process, the first NGO to successfully register for and carry out a temporary activity stressed that a willingness to educate Chinese partner units was key. Given how new the law is and how uncertain...
04.24.17

Registered Foreign NGO Representative Offices

This interactive map shows the approximate location of foreign NGOs’ representative offices in China. Click on a foreign NGO name in the sidebar to zoom in to that location on the map and display a pop-up containing the NGO’s Chinese name, country/...
04.23.17

Government Forms Foreign NGO Coordination Groups at National, Provincial Levels

Jessica Batke
The Chinese government has established “coordination groups” at the national and provincial levels specifically to manage Foreign NGOs in the context of the newly-enacted Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in...
04.23.17

Can My NGO Give Money to Individuals in China?

Based on the text of the Foreign NGO Law, it does not appear that foreign NGOs can lawfully give grants directly to individuals, such as for travel to workshops outside China, without a Chinese Partner as an intermediary. Article 22 states that...
04.23.17

How Does the Law Apply to Non-Profit Performing Arts or Other Cultural Groups?

According to the NGOs in China blog’s summary of guidance provided by the Ministry of Public Security at a 2016 Q&A session, “Article 21 [of the law] permits foreign NGOs to use ‘other funds legally acquired within China’ for their...
04.23.17

How Many Organizations Have Carried out Temporary Activities in China?

The Ministry of Public Security’s main NGO website lists temporary activities (in Chinese). The China NGO Project also maintains a sortable chart with English translations, including the area and dates of activity and the name of the Chinese Partner...
04.23.17

What Needs to Be in a Foreign NGO Representative Office’s Annual Plan?

The Ministry of Public Security has not offered clear guidance on this point. The China NGO Project hopes to learn from foreign NGOs what level of detail groups included in their successful annual plan submissions.
04.23.17

Can a Chinese Citizen Serve as the Main Representative of a Foreign NGO?

According to an interview the Guangdong MPS gave to NGOCN, a Chinese national may serve as a foreign NGO’s chief representative in China. The individual’s identity card will be required as proof of identity.
04.23.17

What Is a Professional Supervisory Unit’s Role in Terms of Oversight and Management?

A PSU’s precise role vis-a-vis its sponsored foreign NGO remains unclear at this stage in implementation. Many foreign NGOs report uncertainty about the nature of the relationship and have expressed a desire for greater clarity about the parameters...
04.23.17

What Documents Does My NGO Need To Report a Temporary Activity?

The following documentation must be filed with the relevant Public Security office at least 15 days before a temporary activity begins (note: this time restriction is waived in cases of emergency relief services): 1. Documents and materials showing...