NGO's China

8/4/2019 NGO's China

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The Study on Non-Governmental Organizations in China

Abstract

Since late 80th of last century, international community revolution embark on thisworld silently, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) emerge in large numbers

throughout the world. Main character is its independence from government and

market nonprofit-making, it is both a significant organization innovation and system

innovation which occur beyond market system and state system with unique character

and specialized advantage, this kind of innovation can positively take various

activities solve certain social economic problems. These play efficiently an important

role in pulling social economic development throughout the world. In such situation,

neither market nor government can reach it. Currently, Chinese reformation, which

aims at adjustment of significant interest relationship, is on solid foundation period,

social transformation has already come to crucial times. Therefore, the research on

development issue of non-government enables Chinese non-government organization

to take on an important social part, during the transformation course of “small

government, big society "governmental functions. This has significant meaning in

improving Chinese social economy’s continual stabilized healthy fast development.

1、NGOs’ definition 、Characteristics and their role in public management

（1）The definition of NGO

There are some misuses of definition due to different concert rating point of

different countries and scholars. The development of international relationship’s

theory has moved from state-centric to “Transnationalism," "Interdependence,"

"International Regimes," "Pluralism." The union of people's strength besides

governments is enlarging its effect among international relationship. How to use the

different approaches of research about NGOs to observe variables' qualitative change

and quantitative change among international relationship is becoming the new topic in

21 century.

NGOs is called the third sector, in fact, is the response to the first sector and the

second sector. It reflects one's growing and the other's declining between the

interaction of international relationship and NGOs, and the behind predictions should

be the third sector's operating logic because the interaction between nations has to be

zooming under globalization. That is, the interaction between international

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relationship and NGOs, which only shows each other's, but their interaction is under

the logic of global operation, so we should include other related rules about global

operation, and then we can see the general shape of whole pattern.

Now professor Salamon makes the most authoritative definition. ProfessorSalamon considers it as the greatest innovations in 20th century (Lester. Salamon.

2000). His definition of non-profit organizations raised in the international

comparison program of non-profit organizations is widely accepted now. He

mentioned 7 characteristics of NGOs or NPOs (Salamon, 1994) as following: Formal

organization; Nongovernmental; Nonprofit-distributing; Self-governing; Voluntary;

Nonpolitical; Nonreligious. But developed rapidly as a sector only in the last 20 years

of 20th century, especially in the 1990s, Professor Salamon considers it as the greatest

innovations in 20th century (Lester. Salamon. 2000). Professor Salamon crossed out

the limitation of “nonpolitical” and “nonreligious” in his later works. Then the first

five factors are considered key to define non-governmental organizations.

‘NGO’ and two other terms – ’non-profit organization’ and ‘third sector

organization’ – are also frequently used in China. Technically, these terms have

different nuances, but they are often used interchangeably.

(2) Characteristics of NGOs and their Role in Public Management

The reason why non-governmental organizations are called “The Third Sector” isthat they have some features different from governmental and enterprises. Shaoguang

Wang (1999) concluded 10 characteristics that non-governmental organizations have,

that is: nonprofit, indifferent, independent, mission important, various, professional,

flexible, initiative, participating and low-cost. In fact, the definition of

non-governmental organizations has already revealed the most important particularity

that NGOs have. Compared with governmental sector, NGOs are independent social

organizations that do not have bureaucracy system as government does, and they are

not running according to certain administrative orders. They are society-based,

independent, with power flowing both from up to down and from bottom to top.

Compared with enterprises, they are nonprofit-distributing. And differ from both

governmental and enterprises, non-governmental organizations have strong voluntary

tropism, being established and participating by citizens voluntarily.

The specialties that non-governmental organizations possess determine their

different role or status from governmental sector and enterprises in public

management. Such an understanding establishes the basis of the theory of

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non-governmental sector. In general, when “Market Failure” or “Government Failure”

happens in collocating resources because of their disadvantages, non-governmental

organizations will be an alternative choice. NGOs have special advantages in dealing

with some social problems which the market system and government can’t or don’twant to solve.

In general, “Market Failure” includes the following situations: failure of supply

of public products, monopoly in market economy, exteriority (the influence to the

third one or the environment), market fluctuate and economic instability, inequality,

etc. And “Government Failure” includes: overplus in production and high cost as a

result of the division of cost and income, low efficiency, low qualified policy caused

by complexity of policy making process, inefficiency in policy performance,

interiority (pursuing for department’s or official’s interests but not the public’s),

inequality of power allocation, rent seeking and corruption, deformity of ownership,

etc.(Chenfu Zhang, 2001). Compared with government and enterprises,

non-governmental organizations have the following peculiarities in public

management:

1) NGOs can supply public products effectively. Some theory believes that the

third sectors are the private organizations supplying public products (Shaoguang

Wang, 1999). This sentence actually reveals two aspects of the features of non-governmental organizations: they have the function of supplying public products

just as the governmental sector, but they also run as enterprises do, with efficiency as

one of their advantages.

This is decided by non-governmental organizations’ characteristics of

non-governmental and nonprofit-distributing. In these organizations, “mission” is one

of the key factors. Their performance aims not to gain the most profit as enterprises

do, but to realize some certain mission. The mission is nonprofit-distributing,

represents a kind of ideal, and has a strong color of commonweal, which decides

non-governmental organizations’ fundamental character. Someone considers

nongovernmental organizations as organizations with the strongest sense of duty. At

the same time, non-governmental organizations are independent from the

governmental bureaucracy, voluntary participating by citizens, and autonomy. It has

an structures with various, voluntary participating, and self-governing features, which

makes a great different in performance from the bureaucratic of government, and have

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superiority of low cost and high efficiency than government in supplying some public

products.

2) What roles NGOs can’t take on in public management? As showed above,

NGOs can supply public products efficiently, but this does not mean they can replacegovernment. Their effectiveness can only be seen in some aspects.

Public Management has a connotation of three levels: the first is management of

institutions, to establish the legislation system and other basic systems for a society.

The second is management of public products such as security, environment,

infrastructure and basic social services, to maintain competition in market, balance the

macro economy, and promote social justice. The third is management of public

organizations themselves. As NGOs have strong sense of mission, they play an

important role in the improvement of social justice, maintenance of competition order,

supply of social services, and supervision on public sectors. However, they have some

disabilities for their own features.

Government sector has a rigorous bureaucratic structure, so they can make policies

caring the “national interests”. They should pay attention to various aspects of

interests during their policy-making, comparing the advantages and disadvantages of

different sectors and making a balance of their interests. In the contrast,

non-governmental organizations are various, competitive, and independent from eachother. Each of them has its own mission, being active everywhere. They established

for diversified social needs, and their way of action is usually “question discovering --

solution seeking. So they are agile, flexible, responsive and efficient, but they can

hardly be organized together as a whole. That’s why someone considers the “third

sector” not really forms a “sector” as the government and the enterprise sector do

(Wang Ming,2002). Thus, they can’t realize the mission that should have social

consistency, such as legislation and institutional construction. Moreover, NGOs act

much like the enterprises do in the market, which may be lack of macro balance and

need to be regulated.

3) NGOs have different action pattern with government, so they can play some special

roles as following in public management.

① Advocacy in institutional construction: NGOs can’t ultimately complete the

construction of legal and institution system, but they can play an important role of

social advocacy and influence the policy making process. NGOs reflect information

from various aspects, represent the demand of people from bottom, thus their

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participation in policy making process could improve the rationality of the policy.

That’s the most important role NGOs can play in public management.

② As a social autonomy mechanism: NGOs perform their function of

maintenance of market order, supply of social services, and satisfactory of socialdemand in different mechanism from the government’s. NGOs fulfill these functions

more depended on volunteerism and self-governing mechanism. They are based on

communities, have widely civilian participation, mobilize extensively to achieve

self-action, self-management and self-discipline.

③ As an agency between government and market: NGOs are generally

indifference and can act as an agency between government and market, which is

frequently seen in economic activities. For example, trade unions are well developed

in the west countries. Many functions of industry management, such as the regulation

of an industry, the maintenance of competition, the coordination of enterprise, are

realized not directly by the government but by the guilds.

④ Special advantages in providing social services: Many NGOs set the social

inferior groups or social edged groups as their service objects, to promote social

welfare and social justice in the aspects that government failed to care about.

⑤ Enhance transparency in management of public sectors: Through

strengthening transparency, promoting social publicity and playing a role in socialsupervision, NGOs can restrict corruption, improve social commonweal, and

contribute to institutional innovation for the society.

4) There’re disadvantages and problems that NGOs may have when perform their role

in public management. NGOs carry out actions separately, so they lack of holistic

visual angle. And more important, there’s chaos brought by complexity of this sector.

“Non-governmental organizations” or the “Third sector” is neither like governmental

sector that has rigorous ranking system, nor like enterprises that have definite

economic criterion to evaluate. Their connotations are ambiguous, the borderline

being dim, and there are no commonly accepted evaluation standards. Under this

background, there is great disparity in quality between different organizations that

exist as NGOs. When we see the vitality NGOs bringing to the society, we should

realize that they also have some problems hidden. NGOs have their own deficiency,

such as internalities, rent-seeking, corruption as the government does, and monopoly

as enterprises do, especially when this third sector is not developed very well and lack

of supervision. In addition, capacity building is always a challenge that NGOs meet

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all over the world.

Strictly speaking, in China, there hardly has meaningful NGO which complete

coherence with international standard. But in China’s social transition, there do exist

some organizations somewhat separated from government and enterprise, and theyhave some characters of Self-governing and non-profit. To recognize such social

organizations and to promote their development in China, we also call them NGOs

though they are not exactly qualified using Salamon’s definition. According to

Chinese scholar the NGO can be definited as long as the formal official organization

which is registered lawfully, taken non interested activities，satisfied volunteer and

public requirements，had different scale of independence and autonomy ,that can be

called Chinese NGO. From law's view, we have 3 kinds of NGO, including social

community, enterprise and foundation .So NGO can be defined according to law, its

intrinsic character is to set non government’s development orientation, activity scale,

operating system and so on. Therefore it will enable government to better formulate

nongovernmental organization’s development law framework, and then improve the

development of non-government organization.

The emergence of an NGO sector in China has been a direct consequence of

the changes to both the Chinese state and society since the beginning of the

reforms in 1978.In addition，China's entry into the WTO and current trends towardsglobalization also promotes the development of NGOs in China.

2、 the profoundly analysis our country's non government organization’s

development's history and current situation.

The emergence of an NGO sector in China has been a direct consequence of the

changes to both the Chinese state and society since the beginning of the reforms in

1978. Reforms have not only led to a relaxation of state control over the economy

and society, but have also seen the state actively creating and sponsoring NGOs in

order to transfer to them certain functions which it used to perform itself under the

command system. In the economic sphere, the government has sought to reduce its

direct management role by establishing intermediary organizations, such as trade

associations and chambers of commerce, to perform sectoral coordination and

regulation functions. In the social welfare sphere, the government wants to foster

an NGO sector to which it can offload some of the burden of service provision

(see, e.g., Wong 1998). In the social development sphere, the government hopes

that NGOs can mobilize societal resources to supplement its own spending (see,

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e.g., Howell 1997).

Seen from the contempory history, our country's NGO can be divided 3 parts by

the mark of the found of PRC and the third plenary session of the 11th party central

committee, till today, Chinese NGO has already several how essence change incomparison with the past .it plays an important part in the development of the

economy and politics. Mainly express in a focalized way that the independence and

the whole power of the NGO has greatly improved Social influence expands day

by day the quantity, scale, ctivity field, activity ability, interchange of organizations

ability to raise funds, have greatly improved and through every channels to influence

the government policy. Compared with the NGO of the developed countries, Chinese

NGO still remains in the difficult situation .on the aspect of the organization's scale,

activity ability especially the basic attribute which accordance with the internationals

standard suffers from an inherent shortage. Meanwhile, the law system, the social

support culture background which are necessary for development, are relatively not

perfect, they are restrained dually by self-ability construction external law system,

policy culture environment and so on.

From a macroscopic perspective，China's transformation of the economic ，

political and social systems，have been developed successively in these years. They

have broken the traditional structure of the Government's monopolization of resourcesand strictly controlling private action space. The reforms have restructured the

relationship between the Government and the market society，and thus provided an

opportunity for the existence and development of all kinds of NGOs in China. In

addition，China's entry into the WTO and current trends towards globalization also

promotes the development of NGOs in China.

On the one hand ，various new social problems and social demands have come

into being in today's social transformation period；along with development of China’s

economy ，a new middle stratum of the society has gradually formed and citizens’

leisure time has increased which makes citizens’ participating NGOs' activities and

voluntary actions possible.

In a word ， development of NGOs in China has been faced with an

unprecedented favorable opportunity and a lot of problems and challenges since the

Reform and Open Door Policy.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China ，China mainly

followed the political and economic patterns of the former Soviet Union. In order to

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make China’s military and industry successful enough to catch up with and even

surpass some other advanced countries, national defense and heavy industry had to

take priority. Hence, the Government had to have overall intervention and control

over society, in order to mobilize all domestic resources to realize and ensure such astrategy. Therefore, some experts have named China's society from 1949 to 1978as a

total society（Sun Liping，1994）. Its primary characteristic is that the Government had

power to control and allocate most the social resources. While an individual，when

trying to obtain basic life conditions， had to acquire it through institutional

arrangement ，that is，the system of the Unit ，the household registry system and the

rank system. This kind of social structure and social organization system corresponds

with the planned economy system, which gave pre-Reform China had a strong

identity of "Strong Government, Weak Society". Meanwhile, NGOs , especially pure

civil organization had no space and environment for existence and development.

After 1978，China carried out，in succession，reforms of the economic system，

political system and society. Establishment of the socialist market economy system，

simplified and transformed government agencies. Change towards a pattern of "small

government, large society" have brought great changes to the relationship between the

Government，the market and society. At the same time, functions of all kinds of social

organizations are faced with new differentiation and reasonable orientation. In thissense, development of NGOs in China has gained an unprecedented opportunity.

Moreover, their development has promoted China's reform of the economic system,

political structural reform and social transformation.

China began its Reform and Opening to the Outside World in 1978.It was firstly

carried out in economic area and took reform of the economic system as its in section.

It carried through the Household Contract Responsibility System with Remuneration

Linked to Output，and abolished the Commune system in rural areas. Reforms

changed the relationship between the Government ，the society and individuals，

which mainly includes the following three aspects：

Firstly, in the former planned economy，farmers had no freely allocated land and

other production means. Only by depending on people's communes could the farmers

gain productive and living resources. However ，after restructuring of the economy in

rural area, farmers acquired the right to use land through contracting and ，thus，the

farm household become the basic production unit in China's rural areas.

Secondly，before the Reform，farmers had to work to a schedule and，thus ，

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could not control their own labor. After the Reform ，the farmers could freely arrange

their work and rest time and choose working categories according to their own will.

Finally ，former people's communes had both an administrative function and

economic function. The Government could control every aspect of farmers' laboringand private life through these production brigades and production teams. However，

the people's communes disintegrated after the Reform. In addition ，two different

organs in rural areas performed the former two functions of the people's commune. At

the same time，"village “was established within the scope of former production

brigades and villagers' committees——basal self-governing organization in China's

rural area was also founded.

In this sense ，the Government controlled every aspect of China's rural society

and thus made it impossible for NGOs to exist before reform of the economic system

in rural areas. Nevertheless，today's rural areas have had basic conditions for NGOs'

existence and development: freely flowing resources ，freely acting space and

decreasing Governmental intervention in society.

Once there is the environment and demand for NGOs to exist and develop in

China's rural areas ，it is inevitable that a great number of NGOs would come into

being.

Economic structural reform in China's rural areas established farm household'sprincipal status in agricultural production and thus aroused farmers' production

enthusiasm. Since farm households actually had individual status：undertaking

isolated and unenlightened individual production ，having backward productive

technologies and having difficulty in acquiring information，they were in urgent need

of learning modern agricultural science and technology. However ，the traditional

agricultural service departments of the Government were unable to fulfill all demands

of so many individual farm households due to lack of manpower and material

resources. Under such circumstances，the first group of self-organized bottom-to-top

technological service NGOs came into being in China's rural areas . The Government

agreed to such kinds of rural professional technology associations（ including

technology research society ）.

Since mid-1980s，rural professional technology associations have undergone a

rapid development with assistance and promotion from the Government and China

Science and Technology Association. According to official statistics，the number of

China's rural professional technology associations（including technology research

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society ）was more than 90，000 in 1993 while most of them became Government

NGOs.

Along with development of the market economy in China ， individual

production status of China's farm households put farmers in a competitivelydisadvantageous position. Then，they were in need of establishing their own NGOs to

safeguard farmers' benefits through jointly purchasing agricultural productive

materials ， joint distribution， coordinating farmers' productive activities and

representation of farmers to negotiate with relevant governmental departments and

enterprises. Under such new circumstances and demands ，various kinds of NGOs

have come into being in rural areas，for instance，professional associations providing

purchasing，marketing，processing, warehousing and transportation services for

professional production to their members. According to statistics from the Department

of Agriculture，the number of professional farm associations（including professional

technology associations）was more than 1，500，000.

The economic reform in China’s rural areas provides a base for rural NGOs'

existence and development. Subsequently, the first group's bottom-to-top NGOs came

into being in China's rural areas after the Reform and Open Door Policy. Such kinds

of NGOs were far from functioning as information communication centers. They lack

exchange methods and are neglected by the media，these pure civil organizations werenot as famous as those pure civil organizations that emerged in the 1990s'urban areas

（such as Friend of Nature，Rural Women Knowing All）. Some of them have

unknowingly emerged and perished by themselves. However，it is undoubted that

China's rural areas had the first environment for NGOs' existence and development

and thus giving birth to the earliest pure civil organization in China.

From 1984，emphasis of China‘s reform of the economic system transformed

from the rural areas to the urban areas. As for NGOs in China ，the main influence of

China's urban reform included changes of the structure of ownership and its

impactions the Unit System.

Before the Reform and Open Door Policy，China had a state-owned economy

and collective economy. The population of working age in urban areas could only

work in administrative units, public institutions， state-owned enterprises and

collective enterprises. They could gain no productive and living resources without

working in some “Unit”。However，all resources，chances and benefits possessed or

controlled by the “Unit” were allocated by the Government, that is to say, the “Unit”

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was dependent upon the Government. Therefore，an individual had no freely

controlled resources and active space under the “Unit” System before the Reform and

Open Door Policy. Then，after the Reform, a proportion of the nonpublic economy

（mainly includes individual economy ，private economy，and economy directlyinvested by businessmen from Hong Kong，Macao，Taiwan and foreign countries ）

increased greatly China ‘s GDP. In 1978，its proportion was only 1%.It reached

12.3%in 1993and24%in 1996.At the same time ，the employed population in city non

Unit enterprises（private enterprises and individual enterprises）also increased rapidly.

It was half the number of the Unit employed population （employed population of

state-owned sector）. Changes of ownership structure have made the Unit no longer

the only form of organization. The population of working age in urban areas can gain

productive and living resources without depending on the Unit.

All in all，in the centrally planed economy period ，individuals in urban areas

depended on the Unit，which in turn depended on the Government, While the

Government also depended on the Unit to control and regulate society. After urban

reforms of the economy，the Unit System gradually weakened while the relationship

between the Government and society were reconstructed. On the one hand，

self-employed individuals and private enterprises ，which are not included in the Unit

System，are in need of new communication methods to integrate them in order toprotect their benefits. On the other hand ，the market is in need of a new method to

maintain market order while the Government needs a new form of organization to

enhance communication between dispersed individuals and itself for reducing social

organization cost. Under such circumstances and demands，NGOs in China‘s urban

areas acquired unprecedented development opportunities. In this sense，China’s urban

reform of the economic system and weakening of the Unit System provided necessary

conditions and a good environment for the development of NGOs in China's rural

areas.

Administrative system reform is an important part of China‘s reform of the

political system and an important insurance to further reform of the economic system.

China ’s administrative system reform is very complicated，while restructuring of

government administration and change of governmental functions has played the most

important role in the development of NGOs in China.

Under the traditional administrative management system，China’s Government

has long played a role of “all-powerful government ”.In the economic area ，China

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had a highly centralized planed economy while the Government undertook

responsibility of disposing social resources and controlled all kinds of productive

tasks by directly ordering production targets. In the social area ，it had strict

administrative control and restrained growth of social organizations. In the culturalarea ，the Government provided funds to set up all kinds of cultural facilities. Along

with the development of the economic reforms ， restructuring of government

administration is developing steadily. Restructuring of government administration

mainly includes reform of traditional government ladder of management and

management style and transform functions of the Government ： firstly， the

Government transformed from micro management to macro management ；

secondly ，transformed from direct management to indirect management；thirdly，

transformed from department management to industry management；fourthly ，

transformed from emphasis on “management” to emphasis on providing services and

supervision；finally，social welfare’s socialization.

Administrative system reform emphasizes transform of governmental functions.

In addition ，ultimately ，this reform devolves administrative power to lower levels

and separates the functions of government from those of the enterprise. Therefore，

administrative setup，the same as reform of economic system，adjusts the relationship

between the Government and the market and society. Thus provides a wider space fordevelopment of NGOs in China. In fact ，in 1993 the Chinese administrative reform

directly brought a rapid development of China's social organizations." From 1993 to

1995，development of social groups expanded due to the influence a overheated

micrographic environment at that time.

Although administrative reform and transformation of administrative functions

cannot realize their objectives at one time ，they have further changed the pattern of

"Strong Government ， Weak Society". Current reform of China's

government-sponsored institutions is worthy of a special mention since it may change

China's image of "Strong Government，Weak Society "to a larger extent and even a

qualitative forward leap. Such institutions with Chinese characteristics include various

departments：science and technology ，education，health ，culture and sports. Their

manpower，material resources，but also their financial power are far more powerful

than today's Chinese social groups. If some of these institutions become non-profit

organizations and some others become enterprises，then, they will，greatly increase the

capacity of NGOs in China.

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Before the Reform and Opening ，the Chinese Government exercised its

administrative power to strictly control political ，economic life and all other aspects

of China's society through the Unit System ，the household registry system and the

rank system." The Government not only monopolizes most of the existingresources ，but also puts new resources under its direct control by exercising its

compelling power. It also destroys all potential competitors controlling scarce

resource through political or administrative methods"（Sun Liping，1994）。Then ，

it gave no existing and developing space for NGOs in China. After 1978，on the one

hand，reform of economic system ensured society had freely controlled resources and

space and thus a lot of bottom-to-top pure civil organizations and NGOs came into

being. On the other hand，reform of the administrative system and transformation of

administrative functions ，led to "separation of the functions of government from

those of the enterprise”. Which engendered and developed a great many intermediary

agents and linked the Government with the market ，further developing the strength

of social organizations.

China's social reform began along with the advancement of economic reform and

administrative system. Its main symbol is the establishment of an objective model of

"Small Government，Large Society”. Although former social reforms stopped during

the slogan period[4]，it at least pinpoints the direction of social reform ，that is"separation of the functions of government from those of the society" which returns

responsibilities that originally were shouldered by the society ，and develops

intermediary organizations

However, community developing"， "socialization of social welfare" and

"autonomy of villagers", promoted by administration of civil affairs pushed China's

social reform to a new level and substantive progression. Development of NGOs in

China has a looser environment and wider base, fully proved by the following

example：

A high official of the Ministry of civil Affairs，in a public speech ，indicated as

follows ， "Intermediary agents are an important force in a community

developing——All intermediary agents abiding by laws and regulations， are

welcomed by the public and advance development of the community ，will be

supported by this Ministry in order to give full play of their functions"

Another example is the Social Development Bureau of Pudong District ，

Shanghai. It provides land and housing for a civil organization YMCA and entrust

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YMCA to provide community service to the local community. It is the first example

of "Government sponsored and civil operated "and thus has a great significance for

development of NGOs in China.

The legal environment is one of the most important factors of NGO developmentin China. As to NGOs in China ，the change of the legal environment is the most

significant one after the Reform and Open Door Policy.

After the foundation of the People's Republic of China，the Government enacted

the Interim Regulation on Social Organization Registration in 1950，with a purpose to

administrate existing NGOs at that time. Then，legislation of civil organization was

suspended due to the "Culture Revolution". It had no substantial development until

the late 1980s.Measures on Foundation Management was promulgated in

1988.Regulation on Social Organization Registration and Management and Interim

Provisions on Foreign Business Association Management were promulgated in 1989.

Along with development of the social economy and changes of situation ，

Regulation on Social Organization Registration and Management enacted in 1989was

behind the time by the late 1990s.Therefore ，it was amended and a new Regulation

on Social Organization Registration and Management was issued in September

1998.At the same time，Interim Regulation on Registration and Management of Civil

Non-business Unit was promulgated in 1998.Law on Donation for Public Welfare wasissued in 1999.In addition ，the Ministry of Civil Affairs has issued more than 50rules

and regulation concerning administration of social organizations. The number of

relevant local regulations is even larger. Such laws and regulations constitute the legal

environment for development of NGOs in China after the Reform and Open Door

Policy.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs checked up，remanaged and reregistrated the social

organizations after the promulgation of Regulation on Social Organization

Registration and Management in 1989.The number of established and registered

social organizations at the end of 1992was 40，000less than that of early 1989.After

the promulgation of the amended Regulation on Social Organization Registration and

Management，the Ministry of Civil Affairs checked up and reorganized social

organizations all over the country and investigated and prosecuted a lot of illegal

cases or principle-breaking cases of China's social organizations. It incorporated many

social societies with similar or the same objectives or active scope as well as banned a

lot of illegal social organizations. Until the end of 1998，the number of China's social

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organizations decreased from 1996's 200，000to 165，000.Although their number has

decreased，their quality has increased at the same time.

Another interesting phenomenon is, when amending Measures on Foundation

Management（issued and implemented in 1988）, the Administration of Civil Affairscalled relevant foundation leaders together to have a discussion of its amendment，

listened to their opinion and amended draft.

All in all，China's laws and regulations concerning civil organizations are still not

perfect after the Reform and Open Door Policy. There are still some problems that

exist in its legislation ，for instance ，it always lagged behind development of civil

organizations：it is of low legislative level since there are no laws concerning civil

organizations till now ；the majority content of regulations mainly concentrate on

registration procedure while paying little attention to tax administration，financial

administration and staffs’ social security（Li Yong ，1999）.Compared with the status

before the Reform and Open Door Policy，the legal environment of civil organization

has seen great improvement. Legislation concerning civil organization has developed

rapidly since the establishment of the Bureau of Administration of NGOs in 1998.

There are quite a lot of different opinions towards the concept of "globalization".

However ，it is significant that ，globalization strengthens mutual influence ，

cooperation and promotion between countries all over the world. This graduallypopularizes things in common and standardizes them all over the world. Since China

is close to entering the WTO ，it is certain that globalization will have a greater

influence on China's politics ，economics，culture and even Chinese people's living

style，which is the same to developing environment of NGOs in China.

First of all，inviting businessmen to open companies ，attracting capital and

direct administration of enterprises’ production operations ，which are originally

undertaken by the Government will be regarded as non-market administrative

intervention after China's entering WTO. Therefore ，the business associations or

guilds independent of the Government will take over some former functions from the

Government.

Secondly，after entering the WTO ，many aspects of Chinese society will joint

with international society，or otherwise it will meet a lot of inconvenience in exchange

and communication. For instance，in foreign countries ，it is common for business

associations or guilds to undertake sectional management ，and protect benefits of

their members ，moreover international trade union can even formulate trade

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standards and normalize trade actions. Then ，on the one hand，it is inconvenient for

the Chinese Government to directly contact foreign chamber of commerce or guild

sand thus corresponding forms of organizations ，thus ，China's own business

associations or guilds should be established. On the other hand，development of domestic business associations or guilds will be helpful to specialization ，

normalization and internationalization of domestic trade and protection of holistic

benefits of domestic enterprises and common benefits of the state and society.

Thirdly ，along with the increase of international cooperation and exchange，

Chinese people's recognition of NGO and its role in resolving social problems will

correspondingly improve. In addition，foreign aid to China through NGOs will

increase，which will as a result promote the development of NGOs in China.

Fourthly，globalization will undoubtedly advance China's Reform，Open Door

Policy and social development. However，in the short term，it will also bring about

some negative influence ：expansion of disparity between the rich and the poor，rapid

increase if unemployment in some local areas or trades ，prevalence of AIDS in some

places，worsen of environmental pollution and so on. The Government will need

NGOs in China to play their full role in solving such social problems.

On the whole，the trend of globalization will not only increase NGOs in China，

but also accelerate the transformation of governmental functions and promote NGOsin China' autonomy and self-discipline，especially business associations and guilds in

trade and commercial aspects.

Since 1978, China's economic, political reforms, social transformation，

promulgation of relevant laws and regulations on civil organizations management,

have provided the necessary conditions for the development of NGOs in China. As for

the macrocosmic environment ， their development no longer has any strict

institutional and legal limitation.

At the same time， the microcosmic environment for the existence and

development of NGOs in China has also changed evidently ，which includes ：

progressive increase of demand for NGOs，forming the middle stratum of the society，

public participation，volunteer actions and development of West China.

During the social transformation period ，there were new social problems and

social demands coming into being in China. Nevertheless ，the Government had its

own limitation when solving such problems and fulfilling such demands. Therefore，

an invention of a new organization was needed. NGOs have their no replaceable role

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in this aspect.

Along with formation of a mixed ownership structure and continuing weakening of

the Unit System，multiple interest subjects dissociating from traditional Unit System

came into being ：individual farm households ，self-employed individuals，privateenterprises and joint adventures. Since such new benefits subjects are usually in

decentralized operation status ，they need new forms of organization to protect their

benefits in today's severe market competition. For example，separate operating farm

households are in need of professional associations providing uniform sale and

purchase，processing ，preservation and transportation. Self-employed individuals are

in need of associated associations to normalize market behaviors and protect their

benefits. In addition ，when there are a great many benefit subjects dissociating from

traditional administrative system，the Government is also in need of intermediary

agents to link itself up with such subjects. This will not only reduce the Government’s

cost of collecting information and increase efficiency of public policy ，but also be

helpful to social control and social stability.

Secondly，production efficiency has greatly increased since the Reform and

Open Door Policy，especially the establishment of socialist market system. However，

it also brings about some unfair social phenomena ，a lot of new vulnerable groups

and social problems ，such as expansion of disparity between the rich and the poor，problems of poor population ，floating population women and children among them，

increase in unemployment，formation of an urban underprivileged group，STD and

AIDS problems ，drug addiction problems，problems of swindling and selling women

and children，problems of old people ，etc. Evidently ，it is impossible for the market

and unpractical for the Government to solve such problems. Furthermore，fiscal

capacity of the Government declined year by year since the Reform and Opening. It

leads to the Government‘s incapability of providing enough social welfare and

resolving social problems.

Under such circumstances，society will start up new organizations to make up

insufficiency of the Government and the market. NGOs have advantages such as：

innovative，flexible，having close connection with grass roots ，knowing actual status

of grass roots, low costs and high efficiency. Such advantages give NGOs a non

-replaceable function in fulfilling demand of vulnerable groups and resolving social

problems. People also hope NGOs can make a contribution to eliminating poverty，

resolving unemployment problems and advancing social integration.

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Thirdly ，China has more and more international exchange and cooperation with

deepening of China‘s Reform and Open Door Policy and its imminent entry to the

WTO. Therefore，it shall be in accordance with international society in many aspects，

which makes China face with an urgent task of developing social intermediaryagents，especially those autonomic trade associations and chamber of commerce

linking the Government with the society and the market.

The average annual rate of increase of China's economy is as high as

9%percapita.National income has been doubled in the past 20years since the Reform

and Open Door Policy. Under such circumstances and directed by "permitting some

people to become rich earlier"，one of the most significant changes of China's social

structure is the forming of the social middle stratum. Up to June 1999，China’s

registered private businessmen were more than 2，810，000with registered capital of

817，700，000RMB.Number of self-employed individuals was nearly 20，000，000.In

addition，a stratum of new-rich people with high educational attainments have come

into being， such as IT undertakers ，Chinese managers in foreign-invested

enterprises ，rich intellectual and some show folks and sportsmen.

The formation of China's social middle stratum will not only provide new

financial channels and accumulate resources for volunteers，but also engender a new

generation of NGO leaders.Before the Reform and Opening ，the Chinese Government controlled and

allocated most of the rare resources and took charge of providing all public articles

and social welfare. In this sense ，the civil society could hardly have any necessity

and possibility of participating in public services.

Then，the civil society began to have a lot of freely flowing resources and free

active space due to the Government's loosing control over social aspects and

emergence of multivariate benefit subjects. On the other hand ，farmers absolutely

have had free control of their time and urban residents changed from working

6daysper week to working 5days per week ，in addition，they have gained more

holidays and thus have more than one third time free time allocated in a year. The

above circumstances provide manpower and material basis for public participation

and volunteer activity.

At the same time，the Chinese Government also began to encourage public

participation and volunteer activity. For example ，China's Agenda for 21st Century

issued by the Chinese State Council in 1993clearly indicated that，"Participation and

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degree of participation of the public，groups and social organizations will determine

realization process of objects of sustainable development.” The Ninth Five-year plan

for the National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of the Long-term

Objective for the Year 2010of the People ‘s Republic of China” issued inMarch1996also prescribed that "advocating volunteer activities and social mutual

helping activities."

Under such circumstances，Chinese public participation and volunteer activities

have undergone an unprecedented development. China has established more than

55200community-volunteer organizations and a large number of youth volunteer

associations，and a lot of important public welfare projects ，such as Project Hope and

Project Happiness.

3、the Problems and Challenges Faced NGOs in China

According to the above analysis, NGOs in China are confronted with

unprecedented opportunities in both macroscopic and microscopic environment after

the Reform and Open Door Policy. However, they are also faced with a lot of

problems and challenges.

Deepening economic，political and social reform is needed for NGOs to takeover

some responsibilities formerly undertaken by the Government. It can even be crucial

to the success of the Reform. However, today's NGOs in China are too small andincapable to take up all such responsibilities transferred from the Government.

Firstly ，NGOs in China lack funds. Being short of funds is a main problem

of NGOs all over the world，while it is typically significant in China because China is

a poor developing country though it has gained great economic development since the

Reform. According to statistics from the World Bank ，China's per capital in 1998was

only $750, which was far below the world's average level of $4,890. In addition，the

Chinese Government's limitation of NGOs' undertaking business operations makes

fund sources deficient. Moreover，up till now the Chinese Government has limited

measures in encouraging donation from individuals and enterprises.

Secondly，NGOs in China lack human resources. According to relevant

investigations，NGOs in China have few full-time staff and even less volunteers. Take

NGOs in Beijing for example ，in 19998.7%of NGOs in Beijing had no full-time

staff , 34.6%hadfull-time staff of one to four people and 55.8%had no volunteers . In

addition，due to some special causes ，quite a lot of NGOs in China have become

"rest-homes” for retirees ，lay-off personnel of government agencies and public

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institutions with people of low education and lacking innovating spirit，which also

restrict the development of NGOs in China.

Thirdly ，lacking relevant knowledge and experience a lot of current NGOs are

separated from former government agencies and public institutions ，which arecalled” second government” or "semi government”. They still keep the original

officialism：have no management skills，being short of innovation and flexibility，little

experience and methods of solving social problems ，and fulfilling social demands.

According to relevant statistics，at the end of 1998，China had more than1，

800national wide social organizations，165，600local social organizations and 700，

000mass-run no business units（Wu Zhongze，1999）. Besides，China also has a large

number of organizations permitted by the Unit and developing activities within the

Unit that need no registration. Some grassroots organizations in China had to register

with the administration of industry and commerce since they could not find a

governing Unit or were unwilling to be administrated by such a governing Unit. That

is to say，they are in fact NGOs [9]though they are companies in name.

Therefore ，China has a large number of NGOs. However，such NGOs are not

often same level: some NGOs illegally raise funds to earn illegal profit, some have A

phenomena of scrambling for power and profit with bad internal friction，some have

jumbled financial affairs and bad corruption, some take superstitious actions todefraud money, and some others even take anti-government, anti-mankind and

anti-scientific actions.

Due to the existence of a few NGOs with bad reputations, some NGOs cannot

win the trust, Which leads to difficulty of collecting funds and recruiting volunteers，

on the other hand ， the Government has no consistent policy towards NGOs

——when there are relatively more problems arising，the policy will be strict. It

strictly restricts long-term development of NGOs in China.

Limited Recognition of NGOs Results Restriction of Development of NGOs in

China. NGOs are relatively new in China. In this sense ，most people have a

limited knowledge and some misunderstanding of them which restricts the

development of NGOs in China.

It is often the case that Chinese people will connect NGOs with foreign

anti-government organizations and pressure groups. Especially because great changes

took place in the former Eastern Europe and Soviet Union and a large number of

reports concerning NGOs‘ disturbance of annual session of the WTO and World Bank.

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People ’s understanding of NGOs has some limitation. As a result，the Government is

in need of developing NGOs to undertake some functions conveyed by the

Government to protect achievements of the Reform ，however，some people are also

afraid of the possibility of NGOs‘ threatening social stability since it is the mostimportant thing in today’s Chinese society.

Under such circumstances，development of NGOs in China will inevitably be

restricted. The main cause is being a lack of self-government and having too close a

connection with the Government as well as some spontaneous NGOs’ quickly being

brought into the administrative system after establishment.

Meanwhile, societal actors have been quick to exploit the greater social space

and the non-state controlled resources now available to them to pursue their

independent interests and agendas. NGOs provide an important channel for such

pursuits. With the impetus to the formation of NGOs coming from both the state

and society, the number of NGOs has increased rapidly in the reform era.

Ministries of Civil Affairs (MCA) statistics show that before 1978 there had been

only about 100 national social organizations in China. By the end of 2003 their

number had reached 1,736. Meanwhile, the number of local-level social

organizations grew from 6,000 to 142,121. Moreover, the social organizations that

existed before the reforms were fully controlled by the state and mainly served thestate’s objectives, whereas many NGOs that have emerged since the reforms enjoy

considerable autonomy and work to promote societal interests. A good example of

such NGOs are those that are ‘organized around marginalized interests’ (Howell

2004), such as self-help groups formed by people living with HIV/AIDS, or

organizations championing labor rights.

Despite the rapid growth of NGOs, many factors have prevented them from

effectively performing public-benefit functions. These factors range from

government policies on NGOs to the characteristics of political participation in

China.

Due to the lash of the social change, the aspiration spirit, public goods

consciousness and social sincere, which are essential to the development of NGO, are

scarcely insufficient; they all seriously restrain the development of Chinese NGO.

4、conclusion and Suggestion

This paper has discussed some major problems that have negatively affected

the ability of Chinese NGOs to perform the benevolent functions, which are

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generally expected of such organizations. This suggests that the effectiveness of

NGOs either as service providers or as advocates for the interest of their

constituencies cannot be automatically assumed but must be empirically proved.

Most of the problems faced by Chinese NGOs have no quick or easy solutions.Many of them stem from the institutional and structural arrangements that currently

exist in China, such as the way state–society relations are structured. At the moment

organizational capacity building for Chinese NGOs is high on the agenda of many

donor agencies. Partly as a result of donor interest, many organizations and

individuals have been busy organizing training programmers for these NGOs.

However, as this paper has sought to demonstrate, the problems afflicting Chinese

NGOs cannot simply be removed by, say, teaching them some modern management

techniques, or the importance of working together with other NGOs. The situation is

far more complicated. To help Chinese NGOs to better fulfill their potential,

interested parties need to look beyond the NGOs themselves and to direct more

efforts at improving the general environment for the development of these

organizations.

According to the current development of Chinese society, which raises a

necessary and essential claim to NGO, puts forward the policy idea and suggestion

that Chinese NGO develops. During the government reformation ， theadvancement of the market economy and the coming globalization ,NGO is becoming

a more and more essential organization system which can solve many social

problems .Such as the new born profit unit，the transition of government capability，

the improvement of social adjustment. The external communication and the volunteer

service and so on, they all need the NGO to participate in. Especially in our country

which is now in the period of social transition, on one hand, the reformation of

Chinese government economic system needs a strong NGO to continue the function

which transfers from the government .on other hand, Chinese NGO due to the self

result can not continue this transformation .So how to develop the NGO positively

becomes the most currently important task.

However China is a developing country, economy system hasn’t consummated

and politics system is different from developed country. Chinese NGOs are also

different from other countries’. They have some problems like other new things, in all

these problems politics system’s unsuitability, law systems faultiness, lacking of

social self-identity and voluntary are the most important ones. Solving this problems

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need us admitting NGOs' independence and having cognizance of governmental

administration's validity. We must seek the balance between NGOs' running away and

NGOs' independence, search after scientific administration method and administer

with law.As a whole，China's Reform provides an unprecedented opportunity for NGOs in

China while well-developed NGOs will also promote development of the Reform.

However，according to the present situation of NGOs in China ，they still have

problems of incapability ，weak independence and mixture of the good and the bad

and thus being difficult to take over functions conveyed by the Government. Then ，

suggestions will be given as following：

Firstly ，perfect good governance and responsibilities and realize the subject

transition from the social groups to the community. According to relevant

investigations，though China's unofficial NGOs have governance as council，quite a

lot of NGOs' councils exists in name only. Few leaders and even leaders of governing

departments basically decide their important decisions. Besides ，in a tiny minority of

grass root organizations ， their leaders are a law onto themselves and lack

responsibility due to various kinds of causes. It is one of the major causes of NGOs'

bad decision making，corruption ，lack of social credit and difficulty in collecting

funds. Then ，first of all ，NGOs in China shall prefect good governance andestablish responsibilities to achieve development.

Secondly，Define the NGO’s function properly, prefects its independence and

establish supervision and evaluating system of a third part. Although some foreign

surveys show that NGOs have high efficiency（Hasan，1993），it is objectively easy

for NGOs to not efficient since they have no market competition and individual

benefit. In addition ，China lacks supervision and evaluation of the third part towards

NGOs and thus some NGOs and grass root organizations have low efficiency and

jumbled financial status and even serious corruption. Consequently，establishment of

supervision and evaluating system of a third party is an urgent task during the

developing course of NGOs in China.

Thirdly ，strengthen of capacity building to enhance NGOs' capability of

resolving social problems and meeting social demands. According to domestic and

international experience，only by resolving some long-term social problems and

meeting demands did not or could not be resolved by the Government and enterprises.

NGOs in China win identification of the Government and the public ，and acquire a

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real space of existence and development. As a result ，capability of NGOs in China to

resolve actual problems will decide their development in the future.

Fourthly，stability is the most important task of China. According to current

conditions in China，it is suitable to develop NGOs with developing objects but notwith so-called "pressure group” in the West. The Government's administration of

NGOs shall mainly include macroscopic leading and controlling of NGOs' direction.

Fifthly ，Establish and consummate the laws and preferential policy of the NGO

and perfect relevant legal system concerning NGOs as soon as possible. In today’s

China，the Government ，on the one hand，is trying to strengthen administration of

NGOs to maintain social stability ；on the other hand，some local administration of

civil affairs have no laws and regulations to go by[10].It leads to disordered

administration and even， to some degree ， losing controlling some aspects.

Accordingly，it is an urgent task to accelerate legislating process of NGOs in China

and make them undertake all activities in accordance with relevant laws and

regulations.

Sixthly, Pay attention to the study of NGO, Draft NGO's goal, arounding the

development of economy and society and Enhance the propagate degree

Finally ，actively foster and develop social intermediary organizations. After the

World Convention of Women （1995），more and more Chinese people knew aboutNGOs. However ，they lack an all around and objective understanding of NGOs since

their knowledge is one-sided and even concentrate on insufficiency of NGOs. As

matter of fact，most NGOs in China are good because they are playing an important

role in poverty alleviation ，resolving unemployment ，promoting social integration

and building up socialist spiritual civilization. Then，at the same time executing

supervision of public opinion towards NGOs，the media shall make corresponding

reports of the positive role of NGOs in China to raise all-around and correct

awareness of the public.

For Chinese NGOs, these methods are not enough, rebuilding social support is

more important. Social support is not only a kind of framework but also a kind of

social psychology. From the macroscopically way, the development of NGOs is

accompanied by the advancement of civil society. Both the role of the government

and the role of people need to be altered.

The development issue of Chinese NGO is a long and difficulty mission. During

this period, we should not only focus on the accordance with international standard,

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but also fully considers the different character. We should explore a development way

with Chinese NGO characteristics .It not only comes from government which makes

great efforts from top to bottom but also NGO from bottom to top.

NGO's China

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Transcript of NGO's China