Are China’s increased trade, investment and aid flows to Africa a neo-colonial threat or a new opportunity for South-South cooperation? Probably nothing so simple, concludes Nick Young in this review of the growing literature on the topic—but if the relationship is to be “win-win” it must embrace a wider and deeper discussion.
“China is resigned to the fact that US [global] domination is a cold reality it has to live and contend with. China has come to see globalisation as a way of transforming great power politics and establishing more co-operative forms of interstate competition that can increase the prospects for China’s peaceful rise. This has led to a situation where China, while recognising the dominance of the US, seeks to limit it through the UN and other international...
Violent protests this month in Guangxi’s Bobai (博白) County—sparked, according to international press reports, by heavy-handed implementation of birth control rules—are a tragic reminder of the pain caused by a policy that has, nevertheless, played a key role in China’s social and economic......
Although not an HIV hotspot, China’s north-eastern province of Heilongjiang has a cluster of gay NGOs working on AIDS prevention with an apparently broad-minded Centre for Disease Control. But, Nick Young and Mian Liping ask, is this a civil society success story or is it driven by the whiff of international funding?
HARBIN Away from the bright lights of Gogol Street, the main entertainment strip in this northern industrial city with historic ties to Russia, a Saturday night crowd has gathered in a downmarket bathhouse that caters for MSM—“men who have sex with......
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs is campaigning to promote charitable giving, while also hoping to encourage higher standards of non-profit performance and accountability. Meanwhile, reports Chang Tianle (常天乐), multinational corporations and management consultants are also hoping to bring business models—or, at least, a more businesslike approach—to the non-profit sector.
Over the past decade China has seen a large increase in non-profit organisations engaging in public benefit programmes and this has been gradually recognised and encouraged by the government. Donations from businesses and individuals have become an important funding source to complement government’s role in social service delivery. This trend is expected to grow rapidly as corporations allocate more funds...
Non profit organisations established by the Government of China to mobilise resources for public benefit work are frequently regarded by foreigners as fake, “Government-Organised NGOs.” But the signs are that, as the community of more autonomous, “grassroots” groups mushrooms and spreads, China’s political leadership sees all the more reason to maintain its own stake in the non profit sector. This mirrors China’s management of its industrial sectors and in some ways it makes sense.
China’s first generation of GONGOs included the Leninist “mass organisations” such as the Women’s Federation (which no one in those days thought to describe as an NGO of any kind) as well as groups like the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries...
Rather than treating child trafficking as an isolated issue, the government of China should respond by creating comprehensive and integrated child protection mechanisms, Save the Children’s Kate Wedgwood, He Ye (何叶) and Sun Tiezheng (孙铁铮) argue in the following excerpts from a recent presentation to the Foreign Correspondents Club in......
Rural migrants to Chinese cities are having a very tough time, according to a report issued on March 1 by Amnesty International. True enough. But hardly news to anyone at all familiar with the subject. Any well-informed broadsheet newspaper reader in the West knows this already, and so of course do all Chinese people who have been out of their village. So what was the......
In January the Ministry of Agriculture launched a month-long drive to inform farmers and local officials about the new Law on Farmer Professional Cooperatives (农民专业合作社法). Given China’s long and varied experience of things called “cooperative” it might take longer than a month to get the message through, Chang Tianle (常天乐) concluded after visiting Anhui, Sichuan and......
At the end of 2005, the People’s Bank of China (China’s central bank) launched a pilot initiative to create new, privately invested lending institutions in some of China’s poorest areas. A year later, the China Banking Regulatory Commission announced measures to stimulate new “village banks” and financial cooperatives, and on the last day of 2006 it also licensed the Post Office Savings Bank to enter the rural credit market. Rural finance experts have welcomed the new measures. But, Nick Young reports, many earlier efforts to encourage rural credit have faltered and it may be some time yet before financial services trickle down to the......
Although average rural incomes have failed to keep pace with rising urban incomes, some people in China’s countryside are managing to thrive. Here, Ren Xuping (任旭平) tells Chang Tianle (常天乐) about his journey from poverty to relative prosperity in rural Sichuan, and how this led him to become a social entrepreneur....
Less vocal and publicity-seeking than their Western counterparts, Japanese environmental NGOs have nonetheless achieved a substantial presence in China, reports Robert Efird
Japan and China have been described as “neighbors separated by a mere strip of water,” an expression that emphasizes both the physical proximity of the two nations as well as their extensive and longstanding cultural affinities. These historical and cultural connections help to explain why more Japanese NGOs are engaged in exchange with China than with any other country, while the shared geography is one reason why so much Japanese NGO activity in China is focused on the environment. Yet the activities of Japanese environmental organizations in China remain largely unknown to both non-Japanese NGOs and the...
A paper published last year in The China Quarterly concludes, on the basis of interviews with Chinese university students, that “There is little likelihood of environmentalism among students transforming into an independent grassroots movement or becoming a source of pressure for political change.” The most revealing aspect of this study is not the finding but the fact that the researchers chose to pursue such a line of enquiry.
Why are watchers of China’s civil society so preoccupied with looking for signs of nascent, oppositional movements? The prevailing paradigm for social and political change, it seems, sees a necessary role at some point for barricades (or, at least, a “non-violent” variant.) Such a view is not only anathema to the Chinese authorities, inviting the kind...
For more than a decade, China’s total government revenues have been rising faster than GDP, recording 19.9% growth in 2005 alone. This sounds like great news for the government’s efforts to promote more equitable development with greater equality of opportunity and more robust social protections for the poor. But, as Chang Tianle (常天乐)reports, although reform efforts are gathering pace,the fiscal system is fraught with problems that tend to perpetuate, rather than reduce, inequalities.
In 1994 China’s total government revenue was just 10.8% of GDP. By 2005 it had risen to 17.3% of GDP—a larger share of a much larger cake, but still well below international norms of 30-50%. Nevertheless, the steady rise in revenues brings into sharper focus the issue of how those revenues are...
Musapir, a native of Kelamayi (克拉马依) in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, is a police cadet in the Peoples’ Public Security University of China. In July 2006 he posted the following story on a website devoted to Uighur affairs.
During this summer vacation the school arranged for us to go to Shenzhen on a two month internship. The people and events in this story are all real, but for their security and for other reasons some names have been changed.
The danwei where I did my internship was a local police station (派出所) in Shenzhen city’s Bao’an (宝安) district. Around midday the day before yesterday we received a call saying some of our people on the beat (巡防人员) had arrested a thief in front of a commercial plaza. After taking the call, a police officer and...
Relaxation of controls on foreign journalists in China—intended, it seems, to promote “harmonious” reporting during the Olympics—is a welcome sign that the government is alert to the power of global public opinion and recognises the need for a more sophisticated approach to news management. This may be good news for Chinese journalists too if it proves to be the harbinger of greater domestic freedoms—which are necessary for the profession to develop and become the foundation for a globally competitive, Chinese media......
China’s top leaders recently recognised the need for a corps of professional social workers. Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports on ongoing efforts and challenges in building the new......
Shanghai’s municipal and district governments, busy creating whole new urban districts, are also experimenting in social service delivery, in some cases contracting service provider NGOs. But, Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports, development of the sector remains piecemeal, still largely dependent on individual relationships and......
Self-help groups of people living with incurable illnesses or disability provide an invaluable forum for information sharing and personal support. But although they are appearing in China, as Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports, their growth is hampered by problems of legal status and......
November’s China-Africa summit in Beijing was like a coming-out ball for China as a new global force. As well as substantially boosting aid, trade and political ties, it further isolated Taiwan’s pro-independence movement and, as a bonus, gave Beijing extra, pre-Olympics practice in hosting major international events. But there was no sign of civil society at the party; and they should be invited next......
Yang Shaobin (杨少斌), born to a coalmining family in Hebei Province, has put together an exhibition of oil paintings and installations that, according to the catalogue, “dialectically thinks about the linkages between Chinese history, culture and social development.” Nick Young looks at these and other pictures, wondering what “dialectically” might mean......
Since the shock of SARS in 2003, the government of China has invested heavily in public health programmes to strengthen control of infectious diseases, WHO China representative, Henk Bekedam , tells Nick Young in the following interview. However, he cautions, the health system as a whole still has grave, structural problems; Rural Cooperative Medical Schemes that are now being rolled out are unlikely to guarantee universal access to basic services; and until the government decides what its role in the health sector should be it will find it hard to create efficient and effective regulatory frameworks for quality and cost......
Driven barking mad by information requests from foreign correspondents and researchers keen to investigate environmental or labour rights activism as a manifestation of China’s civil society, China Development Brief thought there must be a better litmus of state-society relations, grounded in the hopes and deeds of ordinary people. Like, say, dog owners. Chang Tianle (常天乐) sniffs out the story....
Although in theory farmers in China can access credit through a national network of Rural Credit Cooperatives, in practice these are not always able or willing serve poor, remote communities. Numerous local and international NGOs have tried to plug the gap by offering microfinance as part of integrated rural development projects. Myriam Bartu explores the difficulties and the achievements of these......
A recently published World Bank study of farmers’ associations in China reviews a number of policy experiments that are now culminating in a draft Law on Farmers’ Economic Professional Cooperatives (农民经济专业合作社), which is expected to be released for public consultation before the end of the year, writes Nick Young. But, the authors of the World Bank study warn, although a clear legal framework would be a major breakthrough, local governments should support the development of farmers’ organisations without being tempted to direct or dominate......
Throughout the “reform and opening” era, China has struggled to universalise primary education and, as it nears that goal, the government is raising expenditure to remove financial barriers for the poorest families. But, as Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports, remaining challenges are not all......
Quality projects with local ownership are the most effective means of pursuing advocacy objectives in China argues Zhao Zhonghua (赵中华) of Save the Children, citing the experience of an education project that, he says, has had demonstrable impact on government policy and practice.
Since the 1990s, more and more domestic and international NGOs, UN bodies and other institutions have been doing “advocacy” in China. Hundreds of organisations are making PowerPoint presentations everywhere. Mountains of publications and video programmes have been produced and distributed to target groups, most of whom are always very busy attending all kinds of meetings and banquets. No one is really sure how many people are reading the publications or watching the video programmes, but two outcomes of...
As well as our usual array of news stories, this includes:
A feature article by our new staff writer, Chang Tianle, (常天乐) on the contribution to social service delivery and environmental protection made by Tibetan religious leaders and monasteries.
Forthright “notes from the front line” contributed by Zhao Zhonghua (赵中华) of Save the Children, who argues that quality projects with strong local ownership, as opposed to promotional “advocacy,” are the best way to achieve positive changes in Chinese policy and......
In October the Ford Motor Company will, for the sixth year in succession, award grants to Chinese environmentalists and green NGOs in recognition of their ongoing contribution to sustainable development. This year, the car manufacturer is increasing the total prize money to CNY 1.7 million (USD 214,000) which is expected to be divided between fifteen......
Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports on the growing role that religious leaders in Tibetan areas are playing, both in delivering social services and in protecting their environmental......
Bilateral donors are fast winding down their aid programmes in China, but the World Bank is hoping the government of China will be willing to pay for continued Bank assistance in social policy and development projects, according to the Bank’s Resident Representative in China, David Dollar. The Bank’s partnership with China, he told Nick Young, may now also extend to joint projects in Africa, given that China has shown how globalisation can work for the......