The Continuing Constraints on Overseas NGOs in China

• In Event: International Nonprofits and Philanthropy in China, and China "Going Out" Into the World: New Developments and New Perspectives

Abstract

Over the past decade, and particularly since the enactment of the Overseas NGO Law of the People's Republic of China in 2016 (effective 2017), China has embarked on an overall framework of constraint and control over overseas NGOs, foundations, thinktanks, and nonprofit business associations in China.

This new regulatory framework has affected the entire spectrum of overseas nongovernmental organizations working in China, including, by the terms of the Overseas NGO Law, those from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao as well.

This paper discusses developments in this important regulatory framework over the past several years, as well as new constraints on the overseas nonprofit community through data protection, anti-espionage, and other regulatory developments.

It also discusses the occasional proposals for some reforms in this system in China, and compares the Chinese framework with that in Vietnam, where overseas nonprofits are also significantly constrained.

Mark Sidel, Vietnam’s Closing Legal Space for Civil Society, US-Asia Law Institute, January 2023, at www.usali.org.
Mark Sidel, Managing the Foreign: The Drive to Securitize Foreign Nonprofit and Foundation Management in China, Voluntas, August 2019. 

Author

• Mark Sidel, University of Wisconsin-Madison