Strategic
Options for Building the Chinese NGO
Sector in an Open World
By
Li-Qing Zhao
Since the
1980s, dramatic changes have been taking place in both China and the globe, and
they seem to be even more significant in the former. China used to be a country
totally dominated by the State with a so-called centrally planned system
insulating it from the outside world. After twenty years of reform and opening,
China now has a new look in the world: the market system has been built up step
by step, the control of the state on the society has been loosened greatly, the
country’s ties with outside world have become closer and closer, and
accordingly it has become a new major actor in global affairs. However, China’s
NGO sector nowadays is still in its infant stage: to varying degrees, most
social organizations are controlled by the Chinese government, and few are
genuine NGOs.
Facing an
open world, China needs greatly to build up its NGO sector. The demands
originating from an open world: economic globalization, new types of
international aid, the formation of international civil society, and so on,
require Chinese NGOs to react and play a positive role both at home and abroad.
The demand originating from China’s reform and development: the transition
towards the market economy and the new role and functions of the Chinese
government, require Chinese NGOs to assume many essential functions previously
taken by the government and to provide various social services.
Building up
the Chinese NGO sector requires efforts from various sides, including
intellectuals, government officials, journalists, and people from many other
circles. One major task is to separate
the existing social organizations from the government. The Chinese Government
should create a more positive legal and policy environment for NGOs. Chinese
NGOs should establish more sound internal organizational structures, and so
forth.
If the
Chinese NGO sector is set up, Chinese NGOs should devote themselves to the
process of China’s sustainable development, promote the transition to market
economy, cooperate with the Chinese government, and foster China’s civil
society. Internationally, Chinese NGOs
should try to establish ties with foreign NGOs, multilateral and bilateral
development agencies, and other foreign institutions or people, promote mutual
understanding, and cooperatively engaging in global sustainable development.
Since the
1980s, great changes have been taking place in the world, most notably, the globalization
of economies, the end of cold war and the resulting reformation of world
economic and political regimes, the revolution of information technology, the
freer and freer flow of products, capital, people, and information across
national boundaries, and the emergence of global civil society and its most
active organizations-- NGOs.
For China,
all of these changes have historically unique meanings. Until 1978, China was a
country closed to the outside world for nearly 30 years. During that period, no
external changes could severely affect the internal affairs of China. Yet since
1980s, things have been extremely different. Paralleling the dramatic process
of globalization, China has been becoming an increasingly open country.
In 1978,
Mr. Deng Xiao-Ping launched and led China’s reform and opening. Twenty years
have passed and China has greatly changed. In vast rural areas, the old system
of people’s communes was disintegrated, and the new responsibility system of
farmer household was established. In industrial and commercial sectors, the
reaches of direct state intervention have been substantially lessened: traditional state planning is canceled, the
proportion of state-dominated industrial activity has decreased from almost
100% to the current level of one-third.
Most
importantly, China now has a much more plural and open economy. By the end of June 1998, 314,533 foreign
enterprises had been ratified by the Chinese government to open their business
in China. The amount of direct foreign
investment by contract was 545.366 billion US dollars, and the amount of actual
direct foreign investment was 242.321 billion US dollars. (Hu 1998, p. 4) Since
1993, China has become second only to the United States in absorbing foreign
direct investment in the world. According to the statistics of China’s
customhouse, in 1997, the total amount of its foreign trade was 325.06 billion
US dollars. Exports were 182.7 billion
US dollars, and imports totaled 142.36 billion US dollars. (IECM No.2 1998. P1)
China is now the tenth largest trade country in the world. Relative statistics
are more meaningful. In 1998, the output of foreign industrial enterprises in
China accounted for 18.57% of the gross output of domestic industry; the number
of laborers employed by foreign enterprises in China, 17.5 million people,
accounts for 10% of China’s non-farming labor force. In 1997, the amount of
export and import of foreign enterprises in China was 152.62 billion US
dollars, accounting for 46.95% of the total amount of China’s export and
import. (Hu, 1998, pp. 4-5) In addition
to the speeding up of internationalization of Chinese economy, there has been
an increasing flow of population across China’s boundaries. For instance, in
1997 the number of overseas tourists entering China reached 57.588 million.
(Zhou, 1998, p. 4)
The facts
illustrated above demonstrate that China has been increasingly integrated into
the process of globalization and can no longer avoid the impact of major
changes in the outside world. As an important part of the interdependent world,
China should not only understand and introduce those changes, but also
positively react to them.
In the past
two decades, China has made great achievements in its development. However,
several factors are threatening the sustainability of its development, such as
population explosion, severe scarcity of resources, degradation of environment,
and polarization of the rich and the poor, etc. To resolve these problems and
make its development sustainable, China needs to establish its NGO sector.
China used
to be a country dominated almost totally by the state. There were no enterprises, let alone NGOs.
During the process of reform and opening, the market mechanism was introduced,
enterprises established. Meanwhile, the
state mechanism has not been given up—a new “planned and market” system is
being built. However, China cannot avert those problems emerging in the name of
market failure and state failure. Although both the market and the state have
their positive roles in development, it is also undeniable that both of them
have limits. Furthermore, the two cannot mutually eliminate their flaws
completely. Hence, it is increasingly obvious in China that a NGO sector is
inevitably needed in addition to the enterprise sector, which is
profit-oriented, and the government sector, which is power-driven.
The outside
demand for China to develop its own NGO sector is also important. For the past
twenty years, increasing numbers of bilateral and multilateral development
agencies and foreign NGOs have been entering China and conducting various
activities to promote China’s development. Especially in recent years, both
foreign government organizations and NGOs have expressed their strong will in
seeking out Chinese NGOs as their collaborators in implementation of
development projects in China. Foreign organizations provide knowledge,
equipment, and financial resources to their Chinese partners or potential NGOs
to support their activities and capacity building.
In China, a
sound NGO sector will be able to promote sustainable development and benefit
China’s society in many respects. Chinese NGOs, as new actors engaging in
development, can do what both the government and enterprises cannot do, are
reluctant to do, or cannot do well.
Such things are education, poverty elimination, protecting women and
children, environmental protection, family planning, and so on. Chinese NGOs
can mobilize, organize, and support ordinary people to participate in the
process of social and economic development. Chinese NGOs can also contribute
much by promoting the current government restructuring and fostering the
formation of a new ethical system adapted to the newly established market
economy, and pushing the progress of political democracy. Internationally,
Chinese NGOs can promote mutual understanding between peoples, establish
relationships of cooperation with foreign counterparts, exert increasing
influence on the decision making process of the international community, and
play a more positive role in international civil affairs.
Although
public-spirited activities conducted by citizens have been flourishing since
China’s reform in the 1980s, a NGO sector has not been formed until now. On one
hand, most social organizations still are internally under government controls
to varying degrees. On the other hand, only a very few private NGOs have
registered and gained legal status, and the scale and capacity these NGOs are
very limited. To establish a NGO sector
is a new and exciting challenge in China.
Considering
the current state of Chinese society, there are two ways for would-be Chinese
NGOs to pursue. The first type of NGO
originates from the state system, and is created by and has a close
relationship with the government. These
organizations may be called government-NGOs. The other type of NGO originates
from the nascent civil society. These
organizations are independent from the government, and may be called private
NGOs. Both types of Chinese NGOs have advantages and disadvantages in their
organizational building respectively. Currently, there are many government-NGOs
in China. They have large membership,
can play important roles in China’s development and exert relatively strong
influences on the process of China’s policy making, and do not rely on foreign
aid. However, since almost all of them are created and, to some extent,
supported financially by the Chinese government or its affiliated organs, their
ways of doing things are more or less bureaucratic and lack independence. Private NGOs, independent from the Chinese
government, but financially rely on foreign donors, their membership is small,
and their influence on Chinese society is marginalized.
At this
current stage, both government-NGOs and private-NGOs have not developed as real
NGOs. The former has a close inner relationship or in some cases even overlaps
with the government. The latter is still in its infancy. Both types of NGOs
have to pursue an uneasy way to become real NGOs. The particular contexts for
the building of Chinese NGOs both internally and internationally represent
different prospects for these two types of NGOs. There are four major factors
affecting the strategic options for building the Chinese NGO sector.
1)
The
social conditions.
Social conditions are the institutions, customs, attitude, knowledge and
experiences in Chinese society which affect the process of building NGOs. Since
China has no experience with contemporary civil society and the whole Chinese
society as a whole had been controlled exclusively by the state for nearly
forty years, it lacks social conditions as a starting point to build its NGO
sector. Any NGOs originating outside the state system have to make huge efforts
to carve a way and strive to maintain existing rights in a strange social
environment. It needs time to be understood and accepted by the public, perhaps
most importantly by people inside the state system, because until now most of the
resources, money, skilled workers and educated people are still contained in
that system.
2)
Legal
and policy environment. The attitude of the Chinese government towards the building of NGO
sector is essential. The communist party of China, which is in power, has
declared that it will respect and apply itself to establishing the rule of law
and the small government with big society. Generally speaking and from a
long-term perspective, the current leadership of the party and government is
positive towards a civil society with an active NGO sector as one of its most
important organizational forms.
Nevertheless, in the near future and concretely speaking,
the leaders of the Chinese government are very cautious towards any movement in
this newly emerging sector. They are on
guard against any threats to the political stability and social order in China.
This can explain why the Chinese Government recently enacted two new
provisional regulations. The first is the Regulation of the Registration and
Management of Social Groups (shehui
tuanti dengji guanli tiaoli). The other is the Regulation of the
Registration and Management of People-Organized Non-Enterprise Units (minban feiqiye danwei dengji guanli zanxing
tiaoli). It seems that these regulations are too strict for any attempts by
Chinese citizens to organize a NGO. This is so because any Chinese NGO must
obtain the sponsorship of a government organ as its “lean-and-depend-upon
unit” (gua kao dan wei). These sponsoring units have responsibilities to
supervise and monitor the NGOs under their patronage. Although the Chinese
government to some extent understands the necessity of building the NGO sector
and does not intentionally oppose its formation until it can be ensured that
the forms of NGOs will not be used in a corrupt way or against the Chinese
government, the process of deregulation cannot be initiated in China. The newly
enacted regulations of Chinese NGO sector demonstrate that the Chinese
government demands a sound and orderly NGO sector in promoting China’s
development. To reach its goal, it has first to eliminate any possible
threatening elements.
3)
The
making of leaders and staff of Chinese NGOs. To set up China’s NGO sector requires a number of
people who are intelligent, educated, and competent to take on such work.
However, most qualified persons in China are inside the government or its
associated institutions, such as universities, research institutes,
state-controlled social organizations.
Even those people who are willing to undertake the cause of building
Chinese NGOs, they will not ready to give up their positions inside the state
system, which provide economic security, political status, and social
reputation. These benefits are difficult to obtain in current Chinese society
outside the state system.
4)
The
foreign donors and partners of Chinese NGOs. Since the
1980s, and especially in recent years, more and more foreign NGOs have been
entering China. In its 1995 China Report, UNDP listed more than twenty foreign
NGOs which have been active in China’s development. Furthermore, many
government organizations, such as World Bank and other multilateral aid
institutions and bilateral development agencies have been seeking Chinese NGOs
to participate in their sponsored development projects. Their efforts have
gained few results, but these are fairly limited. For instance, two private
Chinese NGOs, the Friends of Nature, set up in 1994, and the Global Village of
Beijing (its legal status is a company, not a NGO), set up in 1996, have
conducted some activity concerning environment protection relying financially
on foreign aid. However, the scale and influence of the two are quite limited.
Along with the global trend of moving away from foreign aid
to a new type of international cooperation, China’s NGO sector can not expect
too much of foreign aid. In 1995, the amount of total disbursements to China by
foreign NGOs was 22 million US dollars, and accounted only for less than 1 % of
the total amount of foreign aid to China. (UNDP 1997, p. 40) The prospect of shifting
the assistance of foreign government agencies away from their current
counterparts in the Chinese government to Chinese NGOs is not very
promising. Foreign government aid to
China has been experiencing a decline since 1994. (UNDP 1997, p. 27)
In view of
the above-mentioned factors, the appropriate strategic option for the building
of Chinese NGO sector should be to take the government-NGOs as the base to
start with and keep their dominant status in China’s emerging NGO sector for a
certain time.
Government-NGOs
enjoy some major advantages to expand organizationally and institutionally.
Since the leaders and staff of government-NGOs are usually former government
officials (and in some cases officials currently with the government), their
activities are often a continuum of those taken by the government. Any initiatives and innovations made by
government-NGOs will be much more easily understood and accepted by the Chinese
society and ordinary people than that by private NGOs. Government-NGOs enjoy the
trust of the government and they are able to do many things which the
government cannot do or do well. The Chinese government does not need to always
monitor them in order to avoid being misused by political opponents, dubious
Westerners, and other corrupt persons. The strict, newly promulgated
regulations have little actual effect on government-NGOs, which are created and
financially supported by some agencies of the government themselves. It is
natural for them to have a “lean and rely-upon unit.” Government-NGOs can
easily find suitable persons as their leaders and staff. The current administrative reform which is
aimed at streamlining the Chinese government, moves out more and more
unnecessary officials and gives a strong push to the building of government-NGOs.
Government-NGOs can expand their networks into the bottom of China’s society by
the assistance of administrative system of the government. Although
government-NGOs require foreign aid, they are not necessary to rely on it. Compared with private NGOs, they have much
more solid domestic bedrock.
As for
private NGOs, things are quite different. Leaders of private NGOs nowadays in
China often have some experience in Western countries and can speak English
well. Usually they have a strong desire to engage in the cause of China’s
sustainable development, and have done a lot in particular fields. However, not
only do the various social conditions in China restrict their activities, but
the Chinese government also lays a heavy burden on them so as to limit their
number and scope of activity. According to the newly enacted regulations of
NGOs, it is very difficult for Chinese citizens to privately organize a
non-profit organization, providing that they could find a government agency to
rely upon. There are not enough persons both trusted by the government and
capable of leading the activity of NGOs, and some people have little
opportunity to privately organize a NGO. The declining and shrinking of
international aid constrains the potential of external support of Chinese NGOs.
That means those Chinese NGOs which depend absolutely upon foreign aid will be
small in number, narrow in scope of activity, and perhaps more importantly,
their sustainability of surviving will be a serious problem in the future. Furthermore,
the Chinese government might doubt the intention of those Westerners who
exclusively assist private Chinese NGOs. If a private Chinese NGO solely relied
on foreign aid, that would hamper its efforts at sinking its roots into the
Chinese society.
Establishing
the NGO sector in China is hard work and time-consuming. In the foreseeable
future, the process of constructing this new sector should be divided into two
stages. In the first stage, the main tasks should be as follows:
1)
To
let Chinese NGOs assume some major and extremely urgent work to promote
sustainable development in China which the government and the enterprises can
not do or do well, such as poverty elimination, family planning, women and
children protection, environment protection, etc.
2)
To
make the transition process of China’s economic system from a centrally planned
one to a market-based one more smooth, rapid, and especially more ethical.
3)
To
help the Chinese government accomplish its scenario of administrative reform
and restructuring, and promote the transition process toward a smaller but more
efficient government.
4)
To
make adequate rules and standards for the new NGO sector. The emerging Chinese
NGO sector primarily requires institutional construction, such as rules and
standards to govern the behavior of NGOs and their relationships with the
Chinese government, the public, and foreigners.
Under the
current contexts of China’s society and severe policy and legal environment
toward private NGOs, only government-NGOs have the potential to fulfill the
above tasks. Although government-NGOs do have their limits, their experiences
and achievements demonstrate that some of them are not only capable of engaging
in the building of NGO sector, but also are enthusiastic to do so. For
government-NGOs, the great challenge they face is how to transform the current
status of semi-NGOs to real NGOs. That means these organizations must separate
from the government and obtain independent status in the society—i.e. they
should not always be the subordinates of the government, and they should
gradually become independent social organizations which enjoy the rights of
self-governance.
The Chinese
government is the most essential actor for the transformation of
government-NGOs. The current Chinese government is development-oriented. It has
been leading China’s reform and opening for 20 years. Without its leadership
dismissing the traditional rural people’s commune system, introducing the
market system, absorbing foreign direct investment, the restructuring of
government itself, and other major achievements during the process of
twenty-year reform and opening are unthinkable. The establishment of the NGO
sector in China requires the leaders of the Chinese government to understand
the values and significance of this new sector in the context of the market
economy, thereby devoting themselves to its establishment, just as they have
been leading the market-oriented economic reforms.
In the near
future there is not much possibility for registering more new private NGOs in
China. However, the importance of
existing private NGOs, though very few, should not be overlooked. They should
treasure the rights gained of surviving and operating in the unique circumstance
of Chinese society. They should dedicate themselves to particular fields to
promote sustainable development, to focus on capacity-building, to establish
partnerships with the government, and to sink their roots into the Chinese
society. With these efforts, private NGOs may set good examples, illustrating
that a private NGO could be beneficial to the transition toward the market
economy, the stabilization of politics, and the auspiciousness of society,
further building their constituency and allowing the government to put its
trust in them.
Once
government-NGOs have separated from the government and become real NGOs, and
private NGOs have developed and become mature, the Chinese NGO sector will have
its broad foundation and sound structure, then the second stage of building the
Chinese NGO sector begins. Chinese NGOs should become independent in society,
but keep a close, cooperative relationship with the government. They should be
friends, partners, and collaborators of the government. By that time, the government will not worry
too much about negative possibilities with a NGO sector as before. The crucial
time for the Chinese government to release its strict control on private NGOs
will be coming, and the current provisional regulations concerning the NGO
sector will be replaced by relevant laws which are rational, sound, and
permanent. The NGO sector combined with the market sector and the state sector
in China will play its ideographic role in China as well as in global
sustainable development.
Foreign
people can help with the cause of building Chinese NGOs in many ways; they can
provide relevant information, expertise and funding; hold relevant conferences
or workshops; promote intercommunion; conduct relevant research and
investigation either jointly with Chinese scholars or financially supporting
them; and create a positive international environment in order for Chinese NGOs
to participate in international affairs more easily and effectively.
References:
China’s State Council. 1998. The Provisional Regulations of the Registration and Management of Social Organizations (shehui tuanti dengji guanli tiaoli).