Over on the main ChinaFile site, Dr. Shawn Shieh offers his view on the current environment and possibilities for civil society under Xi Jinping's effort to “remake civil society in the Party-state’s image.” Shieh wonders if Xi's grand ambitions for the Party in China and for China in the world can be fully realized without an independent civil society to help ensure a modicum of government accountability. He also takes stock of Chinese civil society in this politically charged landscape, terrain, he writes, that is like a "forest that has experienced a major fire. Some areas were unaffected and continue to grow, but other areas damaged by the fire will need to regenerate new plants and trees. This will require time, ingenuity, luck, and, above all, persistence."
Read the full post here.