Session 34: A New Civil Society since the 1990s? Opportunities and Challenges Facing Non-Governmental Organizations in China

Organizer: Guobin Yang, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Chair and Discussant: Ellen R. Judd, University of Manitoba

Keywords: NGOs, civil society, China.

The 1990s was a decade of profound transformations in China. With the suppression of the student movement in 1989, the fledgling yet robust urban civil society that had emerged in the 1980s floundered, only to be reborn several years later. While many older social organizations from the 1980s found a new lease on life, new organizations self-identified as NGOs appeared in the 1990s to take on a range of new issues such as HIV/AIDS and endangered species.

What are these NGOs? How do they differ from or resemble their predecessors in the 1980s? What new social conditions influence their development? Do they mark new developments in Chinese civil society? This panel addresses these questions with an emphasis on historical-comparative analysis. Such an approach is essential for understanding the new developments in Chinese civil society and yet it is missing from current scholarship.

Jean-Philippe Béja will set the analytic framework for the panel by comparing the "combative" civil society of the 1980s with the "third sector" of the 1990s. Jennifer Turner and Timothy Hildebrandt will explain why the very successes of some environmental NGOs can paradoxically constrain their growth. Guobin Yang will examine how NGOs seek growth by creatively responding to technological change. Finally, Qiusha Ma will compare the private chambers of commerce and the officially promoted trade associations and assess dominant theoretical models for explaining the development of Chinese civil society.

The Evolving Concept of "Civil Society" in China

Jean-Philippe Béja, CNRS-CERI, Paris

The struggle for a more autonomous society and a public space started after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. In the late seventies, autonomous political groups appeared on the Democracy Walls of the big cities. It is after the repression of this movement that the rising social forces opted for the struggle for an autonomous society. This struggle occurred under the protection of the radical reformist wing of the Party. Although the term "civil society" was not used at the time, it had a lot in common with the "combative concept" that had emerged in Eastern Europe in the seventies and eighties. Autonomous research centers, semi-autonomous media, and specialists’ associations acted together towards democratization, in accordance with their protectors inside the Party.

After the June 4th massacre, these organizations, which had not obtained institutionalization, were crushed by the Party. Since the mid-90s, civil society has reappeared in China, and its importance has been at the center of discussions by foreign experts, and foreign NGOs. But the concept of the "Third Sector" is quite different from the one that had developed in the eighties. The Party State tolerates its existence in very special circumstances: it is mainly composed of NGOs which operate under government organizations, and act in sectors selected by the authorities: poverty alleviation, rural education, basic health, etc. In a way, one could say that they operate in sectors where the State does not want to be involved anymore. But as opposed to what happened in the eighties, NGOs are not in a position to become actors in a dialogue with the Party State. Although they are much more numerous than during the previous decade, the scope of their action is more reduced.

Environmental NGOs in China: Public Participation and the Paradox of Success

Jennifer L. Turner, Woodrow Wilson Center; Timothy Hildebrandt, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Although all legally registered nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in China operate with the approval and watchful eye of the central government, environmental NGOs are unique in that they often do work at the tacit or explicit behest of the government. Specifically, many Chinese environmental NGOs perform duties that the government cannot do because of inadequate resources, insufficient expertise, and/or a lack of political will. Over the past ten years, domestic environmental NGOs have been quite successful in furthering environmental awareness and education, which are activities that do not threaten the government. However, Chinese green groups have sparked greater public participation, which is promoting greater voice for citizens to challenge or correct poor environmental performance by government and industry.

After offering a brief history of environmental NGOs in China, this paper will chronicle several cases where public participation has played a key role in the work of green groups in China. By successfully increasing public participation, green groups empower themselves to resolve environmental problems and influence government policies. Ironically, as environmental NGOs resolve problems, their ability to expand their activities could be limited by the government, which wishes green groups to serve a narrowly defined purpose. In some areas, NGOs are given no space for their work when the local government is successful in protecting the environment. This paper will examine another paradox of success for environmental NGOs: NGO leaders worry that China’s growing economic success will drive away the international support and bilateral aid on which most Chinese green groups depend.

The Informatization of NGOs in China

Guobin Yang, University of Hawaii, Manoa

In recent years, much attention has been devoted to how national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use new information technologies (IT) to promote social, political and economic sustainability. The development of NGOs and the internet are two important recent phenomena in China. The two phenomena have attracted much interest independently, but their interactions have not been explored. Scholars of Chinese NGOs have not explored the relationship between new technological change and organizational development. Analysts of the socio-political impact of the internet in China have focused mainly on internet use at the individual level and not at the organizational level.

Grounded in organizational theory, this paper addresses the question of organizational response to technological change through an empirical analysis of the causes and consequences of the informatization of NGOs in China. Informatization (xinxi hua) is a Chinese government policy designed to enhance the information and communication capacity of government and business agencies and Chinese society at large. In this article it refers specifically to the level of IT capacity and IT use, while IT refers narrowly to computers and computer hosts connected to the internet. After examining the background of China’s informatization policy, the paper explains why different types of NGOs appear to have different levels of informatization. Data for this study come from a pioneering survey of 140 Chinese NGOs conducted at the end of 2003 and beginning of 2004.

Chambers of Commerce in Wenzhou: A Bottom-Up NGO Development Pattern

Qiusha Ma, Oberlin College

The civic associations in economic realm compose a vibrant part of the uprising of NGOs in post-reform China. This paper is a case study of the private chambers of commerce in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, which is well known for its highly developed private businesses and the increasingly influential entrepreneurs and their associations. The study intends to answer the following questions: What are the socio-economic and historical backgrounds of the rapid growth of civic associations in China in general and in Wenzhou in particular? What is the significance of these organizations in China’s economic development and social transformation? What are the differences between the private chambers of commerce and the officially promoted trade associations? Theoretically, scholars of modern China have applied the concepts of "corporatism" and "civil society" in analyzing China’s current state-society relationship, and these studies led to the debates over which set of concepts is most useful in the study of China’s NGOs. Wenzhou’s chambers of commerce represent a bottom-up growth pattern. With a brief comparison of these organizations with top-down economic associations, this paper explains why NGOs are developing simultaneously along the lines of corporatism, civil society, and other patterns, and it concludes that the civic associations are facilitating the emerging of a civil society in China.