What are the future possibilities for Chinese civil society? Practitioners and academics speak of optimism or pessimism—whether ‘spring’ will soon come or whether civil society organisations (CSOs) will remain in the depths of ‘winter’ (Zhu and Lu 2022). The tougher it seems for CSOs to survive, the more common such language becomes. In recent years, […]
Act One The Theme: Study Me! Be Loyal and Struggle! In the opening of his 72-page report to the Twentieth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping (2022b) proclaimed that the theme of the congress would be ‘comprehensively implementing Xi Jinping Thought’. The theme also included ‘carrying forth Great Party-Founding Spirit’ (伟大建党精神), […]
As the context in which Chinese nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) operate evolves, and the challenges they face change, revisiting the early days of post–Mao era NGO development (often dated to the early 1990s) can help us reflect on this change in comparative perspective. During my doctoral studies, I had the great luck to be based as […]
If the organisations and individuals involved in the Six Must Nots consciously resist illegal social organisations, illegal social organisations are sure to gradually die off through a lack of oxygen. Ministry of Civil Affairs Comrade in Charge, 2021 ‘Grey space’ and ‘tacit approval’ are concepts familiar to people working in or studying China’s organised […]
‘Speak this clearly: the development goal for Chinese society is a Marxist social community; it is not a Western civil society of state-society opposition.’ This comes from a recent article originally published on the public WeChat account of a central academy (CPPCC Daily 2019). The academy is charged with training people from the ‘democratic parties’, […]
The passage of the Charity Law has made the legal environment for charities in China more complex. The new Law does represent an initial breakthrough in the transformation of the regulatory system for social organising. However, it does not equalise the rules for all Chinese non-profit organisations and, crucially, it does not provide a basic law applicable to all types of non-profit entities. Why does this matter?
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