Why NGOs Can't Speak Chinese - Understanding the Political Opportunity Structure of Chinese Nonprofit Organizations

Why NGOs Can’t

Speak Chinese –

Understanding the Political Opportunity Structure of Chinese

Nonprofit Organizations

by

Mary Benke May 3, 2013

International Studies Thesis

Mary Benke April 2013

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2

Defining ‘NPO’ Between the East and West …………………………………………………………...4

Western Civil Society.…………………………………………………………………………………………...8

Application of Social Origins Theory in China………………………………………………………14

Fundamental Conflicts in Practice? .……………………………………………………………………18

Political Opportunity Structure .…………………………………………………………………………23

Formal Political Access – Institutional POS.……………………………………………....24

Formal Political Access – Actual POS………………………………………………………...28

Networking – Actual POS…………………………………………………………………………29

Stability of Political Alignments – Actual POS……………………………………………34

Potential Political Allies of NPOs………………………………………………………………35

No Registration or Illegal Branch Organizations….…………………………………….35

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………37

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………42

ACRONYMS

CCP Chinese Communist Party CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference GONGO Government Organized Non-‐Governmental Organization MOCA Ministry of Civil Affairs NGO Non-‐Governmental Organization NPC National People’s Congress NPO Non-‐Profit Organization POS Political Opportunity Structure SOE State-‐Owned Enterprise

KEY TERMS: Political Opportunity Structure; Civil Society; State Corporatism; Social Origins


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INTRODUCTION

There is a common misperception that civil society cannot exist in China, due to

the authoritarian nature of the current regime. The most obvious support of this

misperception was the crackdown on the Tiananmen Protests in 1989. The protests

were organized by student-‐led organizations. In the aftermath of Tiananmen,

Chinese civil society was effectively silenced for the next few years (Wu 2009);

multiple civil-‐social organizations were completely shut down, and individual

activism was fragmentary. The Chinese government’s continuing suppression of

political expression has been viewed as a suppression of civil society itself, as

protests are blatantly allowed only for their politico-‐diplomatic value (Chen 2006).

During the build-‐up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, numerous social organizations

were shut down in an attempt by the Chinese government to remove signs of

political and social instability to the Olympic audience and athletes (Spires 2011:

22).

Anthony Spires quotes Archon Fung when he writes, “there is a commonly held

view that ‘especially in political contexts of tyranny or deep injustice, the central

contributions of associations have been to check illegitimate political power, to offer

resistance, and to check official power’” (emphasis added; 2011, 3). Western society

assumes that civil society is political in nature, and that its purpose is to guide state

policy through opposition. However, such assumptions are based off a parochial

understanding of civil society. A major problem created by this misperception is the

failure of Western NGOs’ projects in China, and their choice in Chinese partner

organizations.


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Given the dependence of Chinese organizations’ existence on the political

climate, the question must be asked: How does China’s regime type affect the

Political Opportunity Structure (POS) of Chinese Non-‐Profit Organizations (NPO)?

And does the POS of Chinese NPOs influence the implementation of Western NGOs’

projects in China?

In answer to these questions, China’s regime type significantly affects the POS of

Chinese NPOs, resulting in a small civil society relative to Western expectations.

The Chinese POS and the criteria that affect it substantially influence how NPOs

operate, and should influence how Western NGOs choose their Chinese partner

organizations.

In the first section of this paper, I will define just what can be considered an

NPO, while the second section goes on to analyze the Social Origins theory. The

third section and fourth sections will examine how the Social Origins theory applies

to China, and possible conflicts in the theory. In the fifth section, I will explain the

concept of Political Opportunity Structures, and analyze the factors that influence

the size of Chinese NPOs’ POS. Specifically, I will analyze formal political processes’

accessibility, networking, the stability of political alignments in government, the

potential for political allies, and NPOs’ status as registered or unregistered

organizations. In conclusion, I note the resulting actual POS of Chinese NPOs

relative to US civil society, and suggest criteria for Western NGOs to apply when

researching local Chinese NPOs with which to partner.


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DEFINING ‘NPO’ BETWEEN THE EAST AND WEST

Within Chinese civil society, the use and definition of the term

Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) is different from in Western society.

According to a western source, “NGO” refers to an organization, nationally or locally

based, that raises money and organizes participation in international relief and

development activities (“NGO Structure, Authority and Standards” 29). The guide

qualifies this statement as referring mostly to NGOs based in Western or donor

countries. Within the United States, it is common to consider nonprofits and NGOs

to be synonymous, and the term ‘NGO’ simply a denotation of the extension of their

services beyond political borders. The Chinese organizations analyzed in this paper

are local, and I am only concerned with their operations in China.

In the west, NGOs are expected to be nongovernmental, in the sense that they

are not accountable directly to the government for their operations, and they are not

under contract to the government (“NGO Structure, Authority and Standards” 33).

This does not disqualify membership of government officials in NGOs, however, and

NGOs are generally expected to be legally established and recognized organizations

(31).

In China, being ‘nongovernmental’ means less that organizations have zero

relationships with the government, and more that they are “not part of the Party or

government systems and are relatively independent of Party and government

organs” (Yu 2011: 71). The Chinese state views civil society as state-‐led mechanism

that links the government to the citizen, a mechanism that facilitates instead of

opposes the state (Schwartz 45). In order to not mix terms and confuse readers


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about what I mean by ‘non-‐governmental’, I will use the term NPO to refer to the

Chinese organizations I will be examining.

Kerstin Martens (2002) provides a much more detailed definition of NGOs. She

defines them as “formal (professionalized) independent societal organizations whose

primary aim is to promote common goals at the national or the international level”

(280). Martens goes on to specifically define each term in this statement:

“NGOs are societal actors because they originate from the private sphere… NGOs promote common goals because they work for the promotion of public goods… NGOs can be professionalized because they may have paid staff with specifically trained skills, but they are not profit-‐oriented… NGOs are independent because they are primarily sponsored by membership fees and private donations… NGOs are formal organizations because NGOs have – at the least – a minimal organization structure which allows them to provide for continuous work. This includes a headquarters, permanent staff, and constitution” (2002: 280).

This definition places no emphasis on an organization’s geographic or political

origin, instead focusing on structural qualities and social orientation. Under

Martens’ definition, NGOs, as their title implies, cannot be initiated by the public

sphere, i.e., the government. This is not to say, however, that the government

cannot encourage the creation of NGOs with certain purposes through calls to action

or creation of funding opportunities. Furthermore, since individuals can cross

between private and public sphere, organizations can be created by public workers

(that is, current government officials) and can be considered NGOs if their issue

scope does not result from the public worker’s government role and affiliations. In

other words, Jane Doe, who works at the City Water Bureau test lab, cannot found an

organization that solicits funding in order to test public water samples for bacteria

and diseases, because the organization’s entire purpose is a result of her

government job—such an organization would simply be an outsourcing of Doe’s job.


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However, Jane Doe could found an organization that works to protect the

environmental quality of habitats near public water sources, and it could be

considered a NGO because its organization goals are not directly resulting from

Doe’s government job; they result, perhaps, from her individual interest in

preserving water and environment quality. In either case, if Jane Doe uses her

government position as leverage to gather otherwise inaccessible funds for the

organization, it is no longer a NGO.

Although Martens states that funds should primarily come from membership fees

and donations, she does allow for limited government funding, as long as such

funding does not significantly influence how or what goals are sought (280).

Significant influence would be if the funding forced an organization to exclusively

use certain data or methods, or caused the organization to obviously digress from its

stated mission in its projects or required cessation of certain projects. It is common,

in fact, that grants and other funding from outside groups require certain actions by

a receiving NGO. For example, in 2013 the Portland, Oregon-‐based Center for

Intercultural Organizing (CIO) received a grant from the city of Portland that

required them to host focus groups for the public to voice concerns or opinions on

housing issues. This requirement did not force CIO to change its organizational

purpose, but simply required an additional method of achieving the organization’s

goals while also providing the city of Portland with a compact chance to observe

constituents’ needs.1

1 This information was gathered from a conversation with CIO Board member Salomé Chimuku. She stated that the grant from the city of Portland, OR required CIO to “[work] on housing issues and coordinate focus groups that the city can come to observe”; CIO was already involved in housing issues at the time (Salomé Chimuku).


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The stipulation that NGOs need some minimum organizational structure has

legal implications. United States law requires that NGOs have a constitution of some

sort, have a board of directors (i.e., permanent staff) to take on legal accountability

for the organization, register with the government in order to receive tax-‐exempt

status, and be legally recognized by the government (“NGO Structure, Authority and

Standards” 31). By this interpretation, groups that are not registered with the

government are not considered NGOs. It is likely that Martens assumes the

presence of a constitution means the organization enjoys juridical entity status. A

juridical entity is an entity that is not a single natural person (i.e., it is an

organization), which is authorized by law to carry out certain duties and

responsibilities, and is recognized by the government as a legal authority having a

distinct identity (“Juridical Person”).

‘Constitution’ is alternatively called a charter, mission, or Articles of

Incorporation. In fact, the creation of a constitution does not imply juridical entity

status. In its true meaning, a constitution is a document that states how a group is

constituted—that is, how it is formed and organized. Whether the constitution

complies with the law is irrelevant. In order to become a juridical entity, most

governments require that organizations write Articles of Incorporation with specific

provisions. For example, within the United States, all 501(c)3 organizations—

501(c)3 refers to the section of legal code that regulates nonprofits in the US—are

required to be financially solvent, and upon dissolution, all organization funds must

be bequeathed to another 501(c)3 organization (Benke). Recognition by the

Additionally, more information about CIO’s organizational structure can be found on their website, <http://www.interculturalorganizing.org/who-‐we-‐are/board-‐of-‐directors/>.


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government requires the presence of this document, but it is not necessarily true

that presence of a constitution or Articles of Incorporation will lead a government to

grant an organization juridical entity status (Benke). The reason Martens includes

juridical entity status in her definition of NGOs is perhaps because she assumes that

without it, there is no legal accountability in the organization. On the contrary, even

if a government does not recognize an organization’s Articles of Incorporation and

consider it a juridical entity, the Articles are considered a contract among

organization members and remain individually enforceable (Benke).2 Therefore, I

will consider Martens’ inclusion of the requirement of a constitution literally, as

simply requiring that a document be created to state how the organization is

constituted, and which is legally enforceable among organization members, but not

necessarily requiring juridical entity status.

Overall, because of Martens’ focus on organizational structure and socio-‐

political nature, if we disregard the international scope requirement, Martens’

definition also provides a strong definition for NPOs. Therefore, NPOs are “formal

(professionalized) independent societal organizations whose primary aim is to

promote common goals” at the national level or lower (Martens).

WESTERN CIVIL SOCIETY

Since the 1970s, there has been a large amount of literature on civil society in

China, and much of the analyses regarding it have involved study of Chinese NPOs,

2 According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a contract is “an agreement between two or more persons which creates an obligation to do or not to do a particular thing” (“Contract”). In order for a contract to be enforceable by law, it is not required that the contract be written, only that there is evidence of an obligation between two parties, be it oral and witnessed by an outside party, or written. Further, all parties must be “competent”, that is, all parties must have “sufficient ability or authority” to enter into the agreement; thus, a contract is not enforceable if one of the persons was forced into the contract, or is legally not allowed to enter into contracts (“Competent”).


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though they are not called such by the authors (Knup 1997; Saich 2000; Ma 2002;

Schwartz 2004; Chen 2006; Wu 2009; Spires 2011). There have also been multiple

studies questioning whether the concept of civil society is even applicable to China’s

situation (Chamberlain 1993; Wu 2003; Yu 2011). However, an examination of

China’s regime type and civil society concepts quickly reveals that civil society does

exist in China, albeit in a different format from many western countries.

Before we can analyze and apply civil society theories to China, we must first

define the criteria that make up civil society. To begin with, let us define the

Western concept of “civil society”. Jonathan Schwartz (2004) cites a definition of

civil society, with three criteria:

“1) an intermediate associational realm situated between the state and the building blocks of society (individuals, families and [private] firms); 2) populated by social organizations separate from the state, enjoying a level of autonomy from the state; and 3) formed voluntarily by people to protect or advance their interests or values” (34).

By social organizations, Schwartz refers to both NPOs and NGOs. In the first

criterion, Schwartz makes clear that ‘space’ of civil society must be neutral, in that it

belongs neither to the state apparatus nor the multiple private interests in the

society that is ruled by the state. Because civil society is a neutral territory, it is

more difficult for any one party to co-‐opt it. The third criterion may seem to suggest

that civil society belongs in fact to the private sphere, as it advances interests of the

‘building blocks of society’, but it should be noted that the interests promoted by the

social organizations are not individual, private interests but social interests—the

common denominator interests.


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It should be noted that Schwartz does not explicitly reject the state’s ability to

participate in civil society as an outside party, but only requires that the non-‐state

actors be relatively autonomous. Were the state completely cut out of civil society,

there would be no point to civil society’s existence. The purpose of civil society is to

represent the common interests of the people to the state, as a mode of recourse. If

the state is cut out, there is no recourse via civil society to the state.

It is also important that the social organizations are only relatively

autonomous—were they completely autonomous, they would exist outside the law

and in complete contradiction to the role of the state as regulator. Although they

would have complete autonomy from the state, illegal social organizations would be

unable to represent their members’ interests because the state would or could not

recognize the existence of the organizations or the interests represented therein.

Having defined what civil society is according to the west, Lester Salamon, S.

Sokolowski, and Helmut Anheier (2000) write that civil society is most likely to

emerge when three criteria are fulfilled.

“[F]irst, a royal absolutism must be held in rough check by strong landed elites; second, the emergence of a vigorous and independent urban middle class to challenge the power of the landed elements themselves; and third, a solution to the agrarian problem that releases the mass of the population from the land.” (Salamon et al., 2000:16)

Specifically, the term “royal absolutism” is defined as a monarchy without

constitutional limits. In a modern context, royal absolutism is synonymous with a

government monopoly on power, without methods to redress public grievances—

the exact method of governance is less important. The first criterion states, then,

that an elite population must have political clout to hold the government

accountable, at least to them. If this criterion is not fulfilled, any “civil-‐social”


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functions will be controlled by the state, and extinguished if counter to the state’s

goals. The key implication here is that not all state goals are beneficial to the entire

public. With an unrestricted government, it can be presumed that most government

policies would be created to benefit the government and those in charge of the

government. Edward Shils writes, “The virtue of civil society…is the readiness to

moderate particular, individual or parochial interests and to give precedence to the

common good” (qtd. in Chamberlain 1993: 204).

The second criterion’s “landed elements” refers to the elites of the first criterion.

It is important that the middle class is independent from the landed elite, because

otherwise the well-‐being of the middle class is at the mercy of the elites. Without

the ability to push back on elites and control their own welfare, there is no redress

against the elites. Again, the issue is that elites’ interests are sometimes counter to

the public welfare. Without fulfillment of the second criterion, society would be

dominated by elite interests.

To restate the third criterion, the emergence of civil society requires a solution

to the fact that there’s not enough land for all the people (i.e., a large non-‐agrarian

population) and stands on the premise that the populace does not automatically

produce at a level that would serve society. For example, farmers produce just

enough food to support themselves, and not for the marketplace. Since there is not

enough land for every person to be a farmer, food scarcity appears, and the landless

people require someone to represent their common needs to the farmers and the

government. Without a mechanism to redress their needs, the middle class may

erupt in revolution. It is in the best interest of all parties, then, that the needs of the


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middle class be satiated. With the emergence of civil society, the state, elites and

middle class have methods to address grievances without turning to violence.

Following this argument, Salamon et al. state that civil society can be

categorized into 4 different regime models, based on the varying strengths of the

three criteria listed above (17; Table 3): liberal, social democratic, statist, and

corporatist. In the liberal model, low government welfare spending is coupled with

a comparatively large nonprofit sector. A prominent feature of this model is a

strong ideological and political hostility to extensive government welfare

protection; rather, there is a strong preference for a voluntary approach.

Theoretically, the liberal model has a rising middle class, and opposition from elites

or working class is limited or nonexistent (Salamon et al., 16). An example of this

model is the United States, which has low government social welfare spending and a

largely hostile view on federal involvement in social issues. In the US there has

never been an historically entrenched elite population, and the middle class is very

large, so middle class issues have remained paramount in government policy.

The social democratic model is the opposite of the liberal model; social welfare

protections from the state are extensive, and the service-oriented nonprofit sector is

inversely small3. Here, social classes, most prominently the working class, exert the

political force needed to induce the state, rather than elites (Salamon et al., 17).

Finland is a good example; it possesses extensive social welfare benefits provided by

3 Salamon et al. are quick to point out that, just because the service-‐providing sector is small due to lack of demand, the entire nonprofit sector may or may not be as limited. In fact, the extensiveness of government welfare spending might lead to an abundance of nonprofit organizations whose roles are that of popular expression, like acting as a concentrated political voice (2000: 17). An example of such an organization would be CIO; CIO does not provide direct welfare for its members, but organizes them politically to express their interests to the state.


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the government, and a relatively small nonprofit sector, with strong working class

political parties (Salamon et al. 2000: 19).

The statist model assumes limited government social welfare protections and a

small nonprofit sector. Although social welfare spending is low, the state retains

overall control of social policies. In this model, the state exercises its powers “on its

own behalf, or on behalf of business and economic elites, but with a fair degree of

autonomy sustained by long traditions of deference and a much more pliant

religious order” (Salamon et al., 17). Japan and Brazil both fit the statist model, with

limited government funding of social welfare and a small nonprofit sector. In Japan,

corporate welfare has become more prevalent, in part as a result of an almost

nonexistent middle class during the late 19th century (Salamon et al. 2000: 20).

In the corporatist model, the nonprofit sector is large and government social

welfare spending is high. This comes as a result of the state’s attempts to keep the

critical support of social elites while fending off more drastic demands from the

population, and is accomplished by intentionally preserving and cooperating with

nonprofit organizations (Salamon et al., 17). Philippe Schmitter provides a more

thorough definition of corporatism.

“[Corporatism is] a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organized into a limited number of singular, compulsory, noncompetitive, hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated categories, recognized or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted a deliberate representational monopoly within their respective categories in exchange for observing certain controls on their selection of leaders and articulations of demands and support” (qtd. in Spires 2011: 6).

The constituent units mentioned by Schmitter should be understood as still a part of

the state with respect to providing social welfare, because they were directly

created by the state, and are subject to political controls. An example of a corporate


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state is Germany. Again during the late 19th century, on the part of a weak middle

class, the church helped broker a state-‐dominated social welfare system with the

state, which was back by an entrenched elite population (Salamon et al. 2000: 19).

APPLICATION OF SOCIAL ORIGINS THEORY IN CHINA

Many scholars have suggested that China is a statist or a corporatist regime. To

reiterate the statist model, states use social policies to guide and control social

energy, with the goal of perpetuating state power, or the power of economic and

political elite who support the state. A large faction of Chinese politicians are part of

a dynasty—that is, their parents, relatives and spouses were or are government

officials, and posts are achieved through family connections rather than individual

ability (Ford; Chankaiyee2; “How the 1% is made in China”). As of March 2013,

children of CCP veterans composed one percent of the Chinese People’s Political

Consultative Conference (Choi). The CPPCC is a national organization that provides

political consultation and democratic oversight to the Chinese state, but it is not a

state organ (Wei). Financial corruption is common among CCP and government

officials, indicating the use of state power to support elite subjects. According to the

Economic Observer, an estimated 800 billion Renminbi has been stolen by

approximately 18,000 “Communist Party and government officials, public security

members, judicial cadres, agents of State institutions, and senior management

figures of state-‐owned enterprises” since 1990 (Xin 2011). According to the South

China Morning Post, the leaders of China’s 145,000 State-‐Owned Enterprises (SOE)

are handpicked by the CCP’s Organization Department, and these SOE bosses are

often the heads of the SOEs’ Communist Party committees (Ford; Bradsher). Clearly,


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government members and associates are helping themselves economically and

influentially through their positions and relations to government. This supports the

premise of statist regimes in that they primarily benefit elites.

Social policies are very much in the hands of the government—consider the One

Child Policy. This is a social policy, in that it dictates the forms of the individual

family, and fines those citizens who do not follow the policy. The goal of the One

Child Policy is to reduce China’s future population, i.e., China’s future social energy.

The fines for disobeying the policy are relatively meaningless to economic and

political elites who can easily pay, and may even benefit themselves by increasing

government (read: ‘their’) revenue (Zhang 2007). Another example is China’s

household registration system. In this policy, Chinese citizens are required to

register their home in their city or town, and may not migrate from that location

without prior government approval (RRT Research Response).

Certainly, China also seems to fit the corporatist model. Examples of

Schmitter’s ‘constituent units’ would be the Communist Youth League, the All-‐China

Women’s Federation and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration. The first two

are Leninist mass organizations, created by the Maoist party-‐state to channel

instructions from central government leaders to the general populace. The latter is

a State-‐Owned Enterprise (SOE), which functions as a for-‐profit enterprise. 35% of

all business activity in China is conducted by enterprises in which China’s

government owns a majority, and decisive portions of their profits often go directly

to support their local governments and the elites operating them; the profits pulled

in by these companies reach over 43% of all profits earned (Bradsher). All of these


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organizations have monopolies on their issue areas, but are subservient to the

state’s goals.

But the Communist Youth League and the All-‐China Women’s Federation are

also social groups. So China is not only establishing economic units that monopolize

their categories (i.e., SOEs), but also establishing monopolies in social categories. As

I mentioned above, the raison d’etre of these mass social organizations is to channel

instructions from the central government to the mass populations—that is, to

channel social policies, formal and informal.

Also consider the oxymoronic ‘Government-‐Organized Non-‐Governmental

Organization (GONGO). Due to the State Council’s Regulations for Registration and

Management of Social Organizations, GONGOs are essentially given a monopoly on

their specific functions. Section 3, Article 13.2 of the Regulations states that, “If in

the same administrative area there is already a social organization active in the

same…or similar… area of work, there is no need for a new organization to be

established” (People’s Republic of China, translated: Article 13).4 It is the Ministry of

Civil Affairs (MOCA) that decides what is a “similar” or “same” area of work, so the

establishment of a GONGO effectively creates another ‘constituent unit’, and then

uses it to send down social and other policies into society. Clearly, GONGOs suggest

that China could fulfill either the statist or corporatist model.

Finally note that, when establishing leadership for SOEs or the above-‐

mentioned social organizations, the people picked continue on and support the

political dynasty. In this way, the government is sustaining the power and finances 4 The original text of Article 13.2 is “在同一行政区城内已有业务范围相同或者相似的社会团体，没有必要成立的” (People’s Republic of China, 1998).


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of the economic and political elite. For example Li Keming, brother of China’s

current Premier Li Keqiang, is one of the deputies of the State Tobacco Monopoly

Administration (Bradsher).

China seems to be more fitted to a mutated regime model, that of a State

Corporatist. To borrow Schmitter’s words again, a State Corporatist regime can be

understood as a system in which “singular, noncompetitive, hierarchically ordered

representative ‘corporations’…[are] created by and kept as auxiliary and dependent

organs of the state” (qtd. in Spires 2011). By corporations, Schmitter refers to SOEs,

GONGOs, and other social organizations that are incorporated, i.e., legally

recognized by the state.

Salamon et al.’s statist regime model had a small service-‐oriented nonprofit

sector with the possibility of greater civil-‐social growth in areas such as political or

recreational expression. To fill the need for some type of welfare provision,

corporate welfare tends to be extensive. In China, SOEs were known for the “iron

rice bowl”, a system in which workers were promised wage, job and retirement

security for life (Gross and Dyson). In other words, a worker could always fill his

bowl with rice, and no one could break it—an “iron-‐clad” rice bowl. Since the 1980s

and Deng Xiaoping’s Economic Opening and Reform (改革开放), however, China

regime has shifted more towards corporatism. The corporatist regime model

possesses a large nonprofit civil sector and high government spending. With a

bigger emphasis on economic profit and growth, the iron rice bowl concept is being

left behind as companies slim down, and the government allows more enterprise


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autonomy. With that, social welfare duties have been shifted back onto government

and society.

However, the statist tendency to exercise power for political and economic

elites still holds—again, consider the dynastic qualities of the CCP’s regime—so

social welfare duties are pushed further onto civil society. Given how western

perspectives have defined civil society and nongovernmental organizations, we

should expect then, for China to have a large nonprofit civil society that is active in

providing social welfare protections. In fact, China’s civil society is smaller than

might be expected, and this is due to two factors. The first factor is the extensive

regulation of NPOs that have received juridical entity status, and the second factor is

that many, perhaps a majority, of organizations that qualify as NPOs are not

registered with the government at all, or have registered as for-‐profit businesses,

and so are not included in formal calculations of civil society size. The Political

Opportunity Structure (POS), of civil society in China is also affected by these and

other factors.

FUNDAMENTAL CONFLICTS IN PRACTICE?

Some possible problems appear when applying Salamon et al.’s argument to

China. One of the theories upon which they base their regime models assumes that

democracy follows on the heels of the emergence of civil society’s, because the two

concepts require the same criteria—royal absolutism checked by landed elites,

landed elites checked by a middle class, and a method to stop the mass population

from becoming non-‐agrarian (Salamon et al., 15). In the case of China, most of the

elites are not “landed”. During the civil war against the Nationalist party, the


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communists targeted landed nobility in the northwest, stripping them of their land

and confiscating it to the peasants (Snow 223). During the Great Leap Forward,

massive farm communes were established by the state, in order to prevent any

single farmer from unevenly profiting. Even today, farmers do not own the land

which they till; the village commune retains the rights of ownership, while the

farmers are given the rights to use (Mullan et al., 125).

Within China, land ownership has become less a factor of being elite, and more

a symptom. Since 1949, elite status tends to originate from political and military

connection. A study by Bjorn Gustafsson and Ding Sai indicates that military

experience “positively affect[s] the probability of being a political elite” (Gustafsson

and Sai 2010). Consider again the dynastic tendencies of Chinese politics,

mentioned by Choi; Jeremy Page notes how many government officials and their

relatives use their political sway to gain economically (Page). According to the

Hurun Report, in 2009 at least 15% of China’s 1000 richest individuals were

delegates to the National People’s Congress (NPC) or the China People’s Political

Consultative Conference (CPPCC) (“Hurun Clearwater Bay 2009 China Rich List”);

83 delegates to the 2013 NPC and CPPCC sessions were USD billionaires (Huang).5

This statistic does not include all the SOE bosses who also head their local

Communist Party cells, or similar situations in which economic positions are

5 The National People’s Congress is China’s unicameral legislature. It is constitutionally the highest state organ. “The primary functions of the CPPCC include conducting political consultation and democratic supervision, and organizing member parties, organizations and people from various ethnic groups to discuss and manage state affairs” (CPPCC FAQs). Membership is not limited to the Communist Party, and includes many celebrities such as basketball star Yao Ming.


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afforded by political connection (Ford).6 One news article cites increased economic

opportunities as a result of political affiliation.7

The strong affiliation between political connection and wealth indicates that

there is little incentive for elites to limit the government’s involvement in the

economic sector. Elite economic interests actually dominate the state interests.

In fact, this situation fits with the characteristics of statism, in which

government uses policy to benefit itself and elite supporters. To reconform Salamon

et al.’s civil society criteria, statism results in an elite population that populates the

government and uses government power to benefit themselves. China does fit the

statist model, but its fulfillment of the first criterion clearly does not suggest

imminent democratization.

The second criterion given by Salamon et al.—landed elites checked by a middle

class—also seems a bad fit for China. According to a 2012 Chinese Household

Finance Survey headed by Gan Li of the Survey and Research Center of Chinese

Household Finance, the per-‐capita urban annual income in China is 22,196

Renminbi (RMB) whereas the per-‐capita rural annual income is 7,045 RMB

(Findings from the China Household Finance Survey 2012: slide 9). Median

disposable income for urban residents was just 28,800 RMB, and the median

disposable income for rural residents was 10,580 RMB (Ibid; slide 20). At the 2011

USD-‐CNY exchange rate, those incomes are approximately $4,510 and $1657, 6 China’s Organization Department appoints the heads of State-‐Owned Enterprises, and those with connections to or involved in the CCP in local Party cells are more likely to be promoted. This follows the precedent of the political system, in which government officials elect one of their own to represent them at the next level of government. These are termed indirect elections and occur in all congress elections at or above the county level (“IX. The Election System”). 7 Peter Ford quotes a Chinese railroad employee, who states “If you get in[to the Chinese Communist Party], you have more chances to further your career” (Christian Science Monitor).


21

respectively (“Renminbi (Chinese yuan) exchange rates 1969-‐2011”). 75% of

China’s population averages an disposable income of only 44, 554 RMB, or $6977

(Findings from the China Household Finance Survey; slide 21). According to the

Asia Pacific Wealth Report, put out by Merryl Lynch and Capgemini, the average

income of China’s wealthy population is $5 million (34,150,000 RMB at the June

2009 exchange rate8)—wealthy Chinese were considered those who owned $1

million or more in property, excluding personal property (“Chinese Upper Class

Growing”). As of 2007, China had 415,000 individuals who qualified as wealthy.

According to a news report from March 2013, China’s super-‐wealthy class, with an

average wealth of $860 million, numbers 1,000; the wealthy class, valued from

$100,000 to $1 million each, numbers 10.26 million people (Crouch). China’s Gini

Index coefficient, a measure that indicates a nation’s wealth gap, has continued to

rise over the past decade (Hu). Clearly then, China’s middle class is unable to

financially “check” the elites. Given the interconnectedness of politics and economic

welfare already established as an aspect of statism, we can extrapolate that the

increasing wealth gap is an expected symptom of statism. Were the middle class

able to exert pressure on the elites, this would most likely transfer into political

pressure (since the elites and the government are almost synonymous) and

increased social welfare benefits for the middle class. Furthermore, the lack of

pressure from the middle class can be traced back to how the government is

conceptualized in Chinese society. According to Spires, many Chinese believe that

the current government system is necessary evil of sorts, and cannot be changed

8 CNY/USD exchange rate in June 2009 was 6.8319, according to Chinability.com.


22

positively to any great degree (2011: 34). Criticism of the government generally

does not translate into a wish to change it. Spires states that many NGO members

view and present themselves not as radicals trying to oppose or influence the

government, but as “patriotic progressives who dare to pursue the promises of

socialism that the government has seemingly abandoned” (35).

Unlike Western societies, which emphasize civil society’s role as an opposing

and mitigating force, the leaders of China’s civil society do not perceive civil society

as a means of opposing government but as an alternative means of facilitating and

organizing it (Chamberlain 1993: 203). In the corporatist model, the state “has

either been forced or induced to make common cause with nonprofit organizations”

(Salamon et al. 2000:17); the corporatist model very clearly follows the saying ‘keep

your friends close, and your enemies closer’ by attempting to co-‐opt the nonprofit

sector. Salamon et al.’s explanation of the statist model also assumes conflicting or

competing interests between the state and civil society; note that the state is said to

“[retain] the upper hand” and this power is specifically not exercised for the larger

population, which is the goal of civil society.9 Modern Chinese civil society is based

in cooperation.10 As a result, there is little incitement from the public or from civil

society to politically pressure or oppose elites.

Lack of middle class checks on elite power is a symptom of statism and Chinese

society’s concept of governance, and does not disqualify use of Salamon et al.’s

9 Refer back to Edward Shils in the section on Social Origins Theory. 10 Min Ma (1995) writes that early 20th century civil society in China did not have a confrontational purpose with regards to the government, but was meant to “harmonize the relations between society and the government, providing autonomy to assist government” (287; as quoted from Ma 2002). It is unclear if Min Ma is referring to the Qing dynasty that ruled until 1911, or Chiang Kai-‐Shek’s Nationalist government that ruled afterwards until 1949.


23

Social Origins theory in defining China’s civil society and regime type. However, as

the concept of democracy rests on the idea of rule by the masses11, this situation

does not suggest that democracy will appear in China.

POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE

Peter Eisinger defines POS as “a context [established by political environment

factors] within which politics takes place” (1973: 11); POS serves as a measure of

civil society’s ability to access the state. For NPOs, “politics” refers to their ability to

lobby government officials and influence policies. Eisinger notes a number of

possible factors that can affect POS—“the nature of the chief [government]

executive, the mode of aldermanic election, the distribution of social skills and

status, and the degree of social disintegration… the climate of government

responsiveness and the level of community resources” (1973: 11). With regards to

NPOs, the nature of the chief executive of the nation is not as relevant as the leading

government officials of local government agencies. Additionally, I will analyze the

legal strictures and actual strength of those strictures to determine NPOs’ POS. For

the distribution of social skills and status, I will address these within the NPOs and

Ministries of Civil Affairs offices as networking. Finally, I will address how each of

these factors actually affect NPOs’ ability to operate.

Hanspeter Kriesi offers a more theoretical explanation of POS, which can be

holistically measured by the “degree of openness or closure of formal political

11 The word democracy originates from the Greek words demos and kratos, which literally mean “people” and “rule”, respectively (“democracy”). Taking into account the historical meaning of “people” in ancient Greece, however, demos might be better translated as “citizen” (“Reconsidering the Etymology of Democracy”). Democracy is a rule of the citizens, then. Given that all elections in China from the county level up are not popular elections, emergence of democracy in China would require at least one major constitutional change.


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access, the degree of stability or instability of political alignments, and the

availability and strategic posture of potential alliance partners” (Kriesi 167). The

concept of POS can further be divided, however, into two sub-‐concepts, that of

institutional space and actual space. Institutional Space refers to the POS that is

afforded through legal methods, such as the election and judicial systems. Actual

Space refers to the POS that is created through non-‐legal methods. By non-‐legal, I do

not mean illegal, but simply that they are informal and do not actively exist in the

legal framework of a country. Actual Space can exist in legal methods when those

methods are not implemented exactly as stated by law. In other words, Institutional

Space is the POS that should exist according to law, but Actual Space is the POS that

does exist in practice. I will combine terms and refer to Actual POS and Institutional

POS. Below, I will analyze how the measures of POS given by Eisinger and Kriesi

show NPOs’ Institutional and Actual POS in China. Because there is no invariable,

tangible measure for POS, I will measure Chinese NPOs’ POS as relative to the US

civil society’s POS. Actual POS can differ between NPO types—registered NPOs,

unregistered, and NPOs registered as for-‐profit businesses—so I will also address

how each factor affects the different NPO types.

Formal Political Access – Institutional POS

Formal political access refers to the ability to influence politics via established

legal processes, and helps make up Institutional POS. Xie et al. (2010) states that the

more dispersed decisions are among political actors, the more open a POS is

considered (53). In 2012, the Political Bureau Standing Committee, a political organ

of the CCP, reduced its size from nine members to seven; there has also been


25

consideration to reduce the number of ministries from 28 to 18 (Lam; Orlik). The

Standing Committee is composed of the General Secretary of the CCP and other

handpicked members of China’s top leadership (Minemura and Hayashi). While the

National People’s Congress is comprised of over 3,000 deputies—70% of which are

CCP members—the NPC’s “functional purpose” is to write and approve national

legislation that is based on policies decided by the Political Bureau (“National

People’s Congress”). The NPC is often called a “rubber stamp” congress; while it has

recently gained some independence from the CCP—it now forces in-‐depth analysis

and redrafting of some legislation put before it—the NPC still requires CCP support

for any of its activities (Xie et al.: 55; Mu Cui). From this alone, we can determine

that political decision-‐making is highly concentrated, suggesting a very closed POS,

not just for NPOs but for all Chinese citizens.

Before NPOs can even attempt to influence top officials, however, there exist

strict guidelines for legal recognition of NPOs. One of the stipulations for NPO

recognition by the Chinese government is that “Social organizations must observe

the constitution, state laws, regulations, and state policy; must not…harm the unity,

security or ethnic harmony of the state, or interests of the state and society…”

(emphasis added, People’s Republic of China, translated: Article 4). The

requirement that NPOs observe state policy suggests that NPOs may not participate

in protests against government policies; the requirement that NPOs not harm the

unity of the state is much more explicit. Eisinger (1973) defines “protest” as

referring to any number of collective, disruptive actions that provide “relatively

powerless people” with greater political leverage (1973: 13). Protest at its core is


26

divisive, as it is a representation of those who are not benefiting from policies

against those who are benefiting from those policies. Therefore, Chinese NPOs are

legally limited to conducting non-‐confrontational work and may not protest. This

holds equally for registered NPOs, unregistered NPOs, and those NPOs registered as

for-‐profit businesses.

Another legal stricture comes in the form of local agency officials. All NPOs that

wish to gain juridical entity status with the Chinese government must first have

their applications approved and sponsored by a government agency at the

administrative level the NPO wishes to operate at. Article 3 of the Regulations for

Registration and Management of Social Organizations (translated; 1999) states, “To

be established, social organizations must be approved by the authorized

department”—this authorized department is also referred to as a “professional

leading unit” (Articles 6, 9). These professional leading units are government

agencies that operate in the issue area that a NPO wishes to operate in; they

function as “mother-‐in-‐laws” for NPOs, and are responsible for overseeing and

keeping their NPOs in line (Saich 2013: 129). For example, the Chinese NPO

Chengdu Urban Rivers Association registered with the Environmental Protection

Agency as its professional leading unit (Zeng). Like all registered NPOs, CURA is

required to submit an annual report of its activities to its professional leading unit,

and the professional leading unit must in turn “conduct an annual review… on the

social organization” (People’s Republic of China, translated: Article 27). NPOs

registered as for-‐profit businesses and unregistered NPOs do not have this annual

oversight, so have a larger POS in this regard.


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After achieving sponsorship by the professional leading unit, an NPO must then

have their application approved by the MOCA. Approval results in accession of

juridical entity status.12 However, Article 13 of the Regulations provides clear

premises for rejection of an NPO’s registration application. The Regulations

(translated) state that an organization will not be recognized by the government if

there already exists another organization in the same administrative area, which is

“active in the same or similar area of work” (Article 13). The definition of “similar”

is subjective and up to the MOCA official in charge. Additionally, “If the persons

applying of the intended persons in charge have ever received criminal sanction of

[or been] deprived of their political rights, or do not possess complete civil liability”,

then the application can be rejected out of hand (People’s Republic of China,

translated). Thus an NPO is legally restricted to non-‐politically active leaders; with

politically inactive leadership, the organization as a whole is less likely to act

aggressively on political issues. The geographic restriction is also important,

because it makes it illegal for organizations to grow and spread their influence. By

limiting the physical location of the NPO, their area of influence and communication

is also limited. This inhibits growth of nationwide movements and united

opposition, resulting in a more closed POS for NPOs. China’s strict regulations for

NPOs and highly concentrated decision-‐making suggest that NPOs’ Institutional POS

is extremely small.

12 Article 16 states that “Registration will be approved and a ‘social organization legal entity registration certificate’…issued if there are no grounds for exclusion”. Similar to US law and Martens’ definition of NGOs, the Regulations for Registration and Management of Social Organizations require an organization charter (Article 15).


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NPOs registered as for-‐profit businesses are regulated by the State

Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), must be independently audited

before their registration is accepted, must register with the State Taxation Bureau,

and register with the local police department, the local statistics bureau, and the

Social Welfare Insurance Center (The World Bank Group). NPOs registered as for-‐

profit businesses are also constrained by the taxes they are required to pay, which

reduces their ability to finance projects. Spires (2011) notes, however, that some

NPOs have been able to avoid paying taxes by leveraging personal connections at

the local tax office, so that the NPOs can sidestep the business charges (15). Should

they run politically afoul of any officials, they can be summarily shut down for

“fraudulently representing themselves as nonprofits to their founders and the

public” (Spires 2011: 11). So while NPOs registered as for-‐profit businesses are

subject to more stringent regulations, they remain under the same threat of

suppression as properly registered NPOs, even if they do not face the same initial

suspicion from government officials. NPOs registered as for-‐profit businesses have

a smaller Institutional POS than properly registered NPOs or unregistered NPOs.

Formal Political Access – Actual POS

Once NPOs have a professional leading unit and have registered with MOCA,

NPOs are required to submit annual reports of their activities to both agencies, and

both agencies are required to audit the NPO. In reality, professional leading units

tend to leave their sponsored NPOs alone, so long as they don’t incite political

trouble. According to one NPO leader, active oversight by their professional leading


29

unit is very uncommon; the most interaction the NPO has with the professional

leading unit is the required annual report (Spires 2011: 24).

Oversight by MOCA is similarly almost nonexistent, and Yu (2011) notes that

the double oversight by professional leading units and MOCA generally leads to both

agencies shrugging off their regulatory duties onto the other. Especially, if the NPOs

are willing to pay their professional leading units illegal supervision fees (People’s

Republic of China, translated: Article 28), the professional leading units allow the

NPOs to act autonomously; “The Registration Departments readily ignore routine

oversight duties of [NPOs] because these duties are the primary functions of the

Regulatory Bodies [professional leading units]” (Yu 2011: 86). Furthermore, the

Regulations for Registration and Management of Social Organizations (1998) are

technically not law; the Regulations are a State Council Order. This reduces the

formal legal implications of disregarding these Regulations. Attitudes toward law

enforcement also suggest a larger Actual POS than Institutional POS. According to

Spires (2011)’s research, the law in China is set up such that if an action is not

specifically stated as illegal, the action is implied to be legal (23). As a result, NPOs

have greater leeway in their activities than suggested by the Institutional POS, as

long as their activities allow local officials to maintain political face. In other words,

NPOs’ Actual POS is greater than Institutional POS suggests.

Networking – Actual POS

Because the Chinese state has become predominantly representative of elites

rather than the state or middle class, the lack of direct representation of non-‐elite

interests to officials results in lack of acknowledgement of these interests. With


30

regard to influencing government officials, legally established avenues tend to be

ineffective. Personal connections can afford opportunities to present non-‐elite

interests and personalize them to government officials. NPOs can both increase the

chance of their applications’ approval and their activity leeway through personal

connections to officials.

The approval of NPOs’ registration applications is limited not just by law, but

also by institutionalized mistrust of civil society by government officials. Most

government officials view NPOs as potential threats to their political power and

subversive to government control, and are unwilling to sponsor NPOs or approve

their registration (Spires 2011: 28).13 Spires notes that government officials are

almost completely dependent on their superiors for their political fortunes and

advancement, so officials’ main objective is to make their administrative area

appear as if it is problem free, and maintain their political face (19-‐21). Approval of

an NPO’s registration application can be seen as admittance of a problem that the

government is unable to handle. However, when an NPO leader or founder has

personal connections to high(er) ranking government officials, pressure from a

superior can force an official to accept the application, as cited by Spires on page 15.

So personal connections to government officials increases the likelihood of approval

of an NPO’s registration application, and thus, an NPO’s Actual POS.

Furthermore, local officials of potential professional leading units may fear that

NPOs will inadvertently showcase their failures in implementing government policy,

13 Spires (2011) explains that this mistrust of NPOs by government officials is due in part to a lack of understanding of what civil society is, and in part due to institutionalized mistrust in general created by the immense political turmoil of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution (26, 28).


31

through the NPO’s activities. As such, it is difficult for NPOs to find a government

agency that is willing to take on the liability of an NPO; should the NPO cause a

political stir or show the local government’s failures, the professional leading unit is

responsible for the results. This may result in a backlash against individual officials

by their superiors. If NPOs are able to conduct projects that support local

government goals and, at the same time, allow local officials to take credit for the

positive results, NPOs are in much less danger of appearing confrontational, are in

much less danger of being summarily shut down, and are more likely to find a

professional leading unit.

Personal connections can also translate into charismatic leadership. As

Schwartz (2004) points out, some of the most successful NPOs are those with

charismatic leaders with high personal status (39). Some factors that play into this

charisma are whether the founder is a former government official, and what kind of

contacts they have in government or society. Former government officials are more

likely to have the support of current government officials, who may be able to

influence the success of an NPO’s application and the amount of oversight applied.

They are also more likely to be able to navigate the political system and avoid

confrontation with local government officials.14

Finally, it is possible that, due to the NPO leader’s status as a former

government official, the NPO will have greater access to government information

14 Schwartz cites the case of Liang Congjie, leader of the NPO Friends of Nature in support of this point (2004: 40). Liang’s position as a member of the CPPCC Standing Committee and his numerous government contacts acts as a buffer for Friends of Nature against criticisms by hostile government officials and lends greater legitimacy, internationally and nationally, to the NPO. This in turn increases Friends of Nature’s ability to attract funding and increases the NPO’s POS overseas.


32

and funding (Schwartz 2004: 39-‐40). One NPO was able to extract additional

funding from the central government for its work; this was done by going through

back channels and using personal connections, which allowed the NPO to avoid

presenting local officials as unable to handle the issue causing political backlash

(Spires 2011: 13). Through greater access to information, it is possible for NPOs to

work more proactively in the community (Schwart 2004: 39) and conduct larger

projects in cooperation with local government.

Overall then, personal connections between NPO members and government

officials are very important in expanding POS. In the past two decades, it is likely

that this factor has caused NPOs’ POS to expand. This is due to increasing trust

between NPO staff and government officials. Spires (2011) writes that “While

China’s economic reforms have created new concerns about social stability, the

younger generations have lived largely free of the sorts of mass political

mobilizations that engulfed most of China in their parents’ and grandparents’ youth.

As a result, younger NGO participants may be more successful at making change in

the long run” (27). As younger generations enter the government and civil society

workforce, institutionalized distrust decreases. However, since personal

connections and charisma of founders varies among individual NPOs, personal

connections to officials do not significantly affect the total POS of NPOs.

Besides networking with government officials, networking among NPOs has

significantly increased the “survival” rate of environmental NPOs in China. Even

when NPO members themselves don’t have personal connections to government

officials, they may access those officials via other NPO leaders. Wu (2009) breaks


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down the success of the environmental movement in China into three forms of

networking: “First, consolidation of connections among [NPOs] and other social

groups. Second, coordinating collective actions and sharing experiences. Last [but]

not least, self-‐reflection on the whole community and articulation of shared

principles” (1). By consolidation of connections, Wu means simply that NPO

members are willing to share their connections and create a common network

among themselves and bring in other social groups. The second form, coordinating

collective actions and sharing experiences, refers to NPO members relating among

themselves successful methods of navigating the political climate and influencing

certain officials or government agencies and using their network to coordinate

popular actions at a given time. An example would be organizing a massive

volunteer effort to plant 20 acres of land with trees on Month X day Y, that is hosted

by multiple organizations. The third form refers to the formation of a collective self-‐

consciousness through constant communication within the network and reflection

on the principles underlining these NPOs’ actions. For environmental civil society,

this has resulted in an internal admission of democracy as one of their principles, a

discussion of what exactly comprises civil society and subsequent self-‐monitoring as

a movement (Wu 2009: 9-‐10).

China’s environmental civil society is the strongest in China because of these

qualities. Clearly, networking among NPOs in addition to networking with

government officials expands NPOs’ Actual POS. Overall, NPOs’ POS is small to

middling-‐small, relative to US civil society’s POS.


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Stability of Political Alignments – Actual POS

Historically, the CCP has held a firm grip on politics and politicians. There has

typically been little to no resistance from NPC deputies or CPPCC members on CCP

policy. However, since Deng Xiaoping initiated China’s economic reform in the

1980s, the central government has begun to devolve enforcement of its policies

down to local government. As a result, even though the central government

continues to control what policy is, the local governments are what NPOs actually

interact with, and it is the stability of local political alignments that affects NPOs’

POS. Political alignments in local government are likely to be vertical; officials will

align themselves on the side of their superiors, in order to gain the superior’s

support for political advancement and protection. Although there is some

instability in leadership among the central government officials, political alignments

are stable, and follow the lines of the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao factions. The Jiang

Zemin faction is composed primarily of ‘princelings’, those politicians with

hereditary ties to the original leadership. The Hu Jintao faction is composed mainly

of officials who rose up from the Communist Youth League, without hereditary ties

(Wishik). The loyalty of local officials to these central government factions is highly

dependent on the stability of government positions. Currently, the central

government is not conducting membership purges (Wishik); positions and

membership in the CCP is relatively stable; this leads me to believe that local

political alignments are also relatively stable. Such stability makes it easier for

NPOs to successfully navigate and predict political tides, which allows for a larger


35

POS. Based on this criterion, overall Chinese NPOs possess a middling-‐small POS in

terms of Actual POS.

Potential Political Allies of NPOs

According to Spires (2011), the lower the level of government an official is (i.e., the

more directly involved an official is in the community of the NPO), the more likely

that official will be supportive of NPOs and their work (14; 16). However, as noted

in the Networking – Actual POS section, even if officials are sympathetic to NPOs’

cause, their fear of political backlash greatly reduces the likelihood of NPOs finding

political allies in government. In high levels of government, where there are fewer

superiors, theoretical support for civil society is greater, but this tends not to

translate into ground action (Spires 2011: 13). Government allies are best found

through networking, rather than common political views. As a criterion, lack of

potential allies based on politics suggests a restricted POS. Overall, NPOs in China

likely have a small to middling-‐small Actual POS.

No registration or Illegal Branch Organizations

In some cases, Chinese NPOs decide to completely sidestep China’s Institutional

Space, and choose to operate without registering as social organizations with MOCA;

in other instances, NPOs’ registration application is denied. For these unregistered

organizations, their Actual POS is larger than registered organizations. Because they

are unregistered, NPOs can conduct their projects without official oversight from

MOCA or professional leading units. This allows NPOs greater leeway in their

project methods, and project goals. Since the NPOs are unregistered, it is easier for

local officials to claim the results as their own, because there is no official


36

organization to which the results could otherwise be attributed; local officials may

become more supportive the NPO and even facilitate their work. Spires (2011) cites

an unregistered LGBTQ organization that was sought out by a local government and

was invited to run a government program in cooperation with the local Center for

Disease Control (16, 17). In the case that an unregistered organization does run

politically afoul, because they are unofficial, rather than simply being suppressed,

they might instead be asked simply to move their location of operation, and give the

appearance of being shut down. This was true in the case of a labor NPO; when the

NPO’s work frustrated a local factory owner, the health department forced the NPO

to move but offered help in finding another location (Spires 2011: 33).

Where unregistered NPOs are not specifically sought out, they are well

tolerated. Says one NPO leader, “It’s not about policies, it’s about relationships” (qtd

in Spires 2011: 16); if an NPO can give a lot of political face, it does not matter

whether the NPO is properly registered. In fact, local officials may even prefer

unregistered NPOs in some issues. By refusing to allow an NPO to register, should

the NPO run politically afoul of MOCA or other high-‐ranking officials, local

government officials can deny knowledge and responsibility, saving their political

face. Clearly, local government will cooperate with unregistered NPOs because of

the social benefits that NPOs supply (Spires 2011: 24).

Although the Regulations on Registration and Management of Social

Organizations prohibits establishment of branch organizations in different

provinces (People’s Republic of China, translated: Article 19), NPOs can set up

informal but fully functioning branches by registering them as a “secondary


37

organization” or as a “subsidiary organization within an essentially dormant social

organization” (Saich 2013: 134-‐5). A secondary organization would be an

organization that is affiliated with an already established entity, such as a university,

but does not represent the primary objective of the established entity. As a

secondary organization, it is regulated not by MOCA but by the established entity,

and thus can have greater autonomy depending on the established entity’s approval.

A subsidiary organization, on the other hand, is literally part of the mother

organization (here, the dormant organization), and is not itself an entity. Because

subsidiary organizations do not enjoy juridical entity status, they too are not

regulated by MOCA. Rather, the professional leading unit of the dormant

organization would be required to regulate them; but as the dormant social

organization has already been established, it is unlikely that the professional leading

unit will provide much oversight. Thus, NPOs can gain great autonomy by failing to

properly register themselves and their branch organizations. Lack of registration

offers an expansion of NPOs’ Actual POS.

CONCLUSION

The characterization of NPOs and civil society in China are very different from

Western standards. China’s state-‐corporatist regime has resulted in little

government involvement in social welfare with strict social regulation that

constricts civil society from taking on social welfare issues. While the regime has

significantly restricted the political opportunities NPOs are legally allowed, informal

and sometimes illegal methods have expanded most NPOs’ actual POS.


38

Overall, NPOs in China have a middling-‐small POS relative to US civil society.

When distinguishing among the three types of NPOs analyzed in this paper, given

the POS criteria above, unregistered NPOs have the largest Actual Space in POS,

while NPOs registered as for-‐profit businesses suffer the smallest Actual Space in

POS, and properly registered NPOs are in the middle (see Graphs 1 and 2).

China’s regime type is highly uncommon in western countries, where most

regimes are social-‐democratic or liberal (Salamon et al. 2000). Based on this

difference in regime type, the Political Opportunity Structure also differs a great

deal. The failure of western NGOs’ projects in China is due in part to western NGOs’

failure to recognize these differences in Political Opportunity Structure; Spires

(2011) notes in his research that Western NGOs mistake inability to act with failure

to act on ability (18-‐19).

This second spectrum provides an expanded view of Chinese NPOs’ POS from the first spectrum.


39

Three questions that Western NGOs should ask when choosing a Chinese

partner NPO are: is there a charismatic leader present, with numerous NPO and

political connections? what is the issue that the Western NGO is attempting to

address? and what is the most politically sensitive issue in the area that the Chinese

NPO is operating in?

Unregistered NPOs are best for on-‐the-‐ground direct welfare projects that

require minimal funding. They are most often small, underfunded, and very local—

their lack of registration may result from lack of funding, proof of which is required

for registration with MOCA (People’s Republic of China, translated: Article 10). If

the issue to be addressed is extremely politically sensitive in the area of operation—

for example, addressing migrant health in Guangdong, a city with a high illegal

migrant population (Spires 2011: 18)—then unregistered NPOs are best, because

their actions are not directly monitored by a professional leading unit, and it is

easier for government officials to either ignore the existence of the NPO or take full

credit for the unregistered NPO’s work. Unregistered NPOs are less likely to have an

account for the NPO set up, due to lack of proper documentation (Zhang and Baum).

Registered NPOs are best for projects that require access to the legal and

financial system. Such projects might be rights advocacy or providing legal

consultation to the poor, and projects that require a large amount of funds be

transferred to the Chinese partner NPO. Because they are registered properly, their

own legal existence will not initially be called into jeopardy when representing

others. Registered NPOs working in large cities will likely not be under as strict

supervision as rural NPOs. This is due to local officials limited ability to monitor


40

multiple organizations; the larger the city, the more common NPOs are likely to be.

Therefore, in large cities, proper registration does not result is as much supervision

as in small cities or towns. Also, due to the larger population, networking among

NPOs and government officials is easier. If the project requires a large amount of

manpower, western NGOs will find it better to operate with NPOs that have many

connections. Registered NPOs, are required by MOCA to have a NPO bank account

set up.

NPOs registered as for-‐profit businesses are not the best fit for Western NGO

projects. Just because they are registered as businesses does not mean their NPO

issue scope covers business-‐related subjects, such as business legal consulting or

business organizing and associating. They will have a company bank account set up

due to business regulations in China (The World Bank Group). NGOS that require a

large amount of funding be transferred to the NPO for their project may find it

acceptable to partner with NPOs registered as for-‐profit businesses, if they cannot

find an unregistered or registered NPO in the same administrative area with the

same issue scope.

If Western NGOs are looking to implement politically-‐tinged projects in China, it

would be best to partner with a NPO that has a former government official as the

leader. Former government officials will better understand how to navigate the

political system and will have more political connections than non-‐former

government official NPO leaders.


41

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Why NGOs Can't Speak Chinese - Understanding the Political Opportunity Structure of Chinese Nonprofit Organizations

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