Regulation as Political Control: China’s First Charity Law and Its Implications for Civil Society

Spires, Anthony J.

doi:10.1177/0899764019883939

Cited by 53 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While there is a textual route to registration and legalization in the Charity Law, in practice that has been very difficult for many Chinese groups. The number of registered groups since 2017 is considerably below what many Chinese social organizations and leaders had hoped (Spires 2020).…”

Section: Civil Society In China In the Current Eramentioning

confidence: 87%

“…That process had begun back in the 1990s, and some would date it to the late 1980s, when initial, short regulatory documents on the sector began to appear. By 2014 and 2015, what had emerged after fierce debate over many years was a draft law that cheered proponents of more flexibility and autonomy for social and charitable organizations (Spires 2020). Under that draft, and under the text of the Charity Law that emerged from it in 2016, registration and activities were made textually easier; fundraising was better established as a prerogative for some social organizations; and ideas of self-governance (to go along with state regulation) were more advanced.…”

Section: Civil Society In China In the Current Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Party, State, Civil Society and Covid-19 in China

Sidel

2021

Nonprofit Policy Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In China, the story of Covid-19 and the relationship between government and civil society is not a sharp break from the past. China has long guided and controlled the development of civil society organizations, and that has not changed in the Covid era. Instead, the Covid era is a story of a continuation in restrictive policy, and responses to Covid have utilized those existing policies and regulatory framework rather than developing new policies for the Covid era. The Chinese story may thus somewhat different from others in this special issue. China is certainly not a story of, in the words of our issue editors, when “pluralist and social democratic visions fade.” The Chinese Party-state’s permission for the reemergence of some kinds of civil society organizations in China since the early 1980s has never been marked by pluralist and social democratic visions. Instead, it has been marked by Party and state control, and clear choices on what kinds of organizations to facilitate and which kinds to repress. That control-based framework has accelerated since the current administration came into office in 2012. Covid has neither upset that restrictive framework nor substantially altered it. Instead, the framework of differentiation and constraint employed by the Chinese state has adapted, in some ways, to the need to control Covid and to control public mobilization on it and against the Party-state. In this brief article we outline the framework of differentiation and constraint that the Chinese Party-state uses to control the Chinese nonprofit sector, and mention a few ways in which that framework has been used in the Covid era.

show abstract

Section: Civil Society In China In the Current Eramentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Civil Society In China In the Current Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

Party, State, Civil Society and Covid-19 in China

Sidel

2021

Nonprofit Policy Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…During the past five years, there has been a volume of literature studying the transparency and associated factors of CFs in China [3,[25][26][27][28]. More recently, there has been a surge of studies focusing on the political connections of Chinese foundations [29,30]. However, we have found no literature focusing on the empirical study of tax-exempt status of contemporary CFs in China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Tax-Exempt Status and Associated Factors among Charitable Foundations in China

Wang

et al. 2021

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tax exemption plays an important role in the sustainability of charitable organizations (COs). The 2016 Charity Law of China provides stronger tax incentives for charity donations. Using 767 observations of Chinese charitable foundations (CFs) during 2010–2018 from the China Foundation Center database and manually collected tax-exempt status data, this study applies multivariate logistic regression analysis to examine the association between tax-exempt status and related key factors, such as transparency and donation dependency. This study found that a one-point increase in the transparency score of a CF is associated with a 3.9 percentage points higher likelihood of having at least one type of tax-exempt qualification (OR = 1.039, p < 0.01). There is in general a significantly positive association between tax-exempt status and donation dependency of CFs in China. After 2016, the CFs responded actively to the tax incentive provided by the Charity Law, which in return requires a higher level of transparency. These results suggest that taxation under the legal system may effectively function to promote the sustainability of charity foundations in China in the long run. Further studies are needed to explore in-depth why CFs with advanced tax-exempt qualifications concentrate in Beijing and Shanghai.

show abstract

“…Starting with strictly restrictive measures, the state gradually developed a "graduated control" regime in the 2000s, which differentiated government measures for CSOs according to the type of the public goods they provide and their capacity in challenging state power (Kang & Han, 2008). Recent years have seen the return of the state's direct control on all types of CSOs by establishing Chinese Communist Party groups in CSOs, issuing more rigorous laws and regulations, advancing government procurement through CSOs, and other means (Spires, 2020). In the past decades, major natural disasters and epidemic crises seemed to have created some space for civil society development.…”

Section: A Brief Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civil Society and COVID in China: Responses in an Authoritarian Society

Sidel

2020

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Can civil society play a useful role in response to a pandemic like COVID-19 in a one-party state? We explore that issue based on the role of civil society and philanthropy in responding to COVID in China, where a large and innovative—and restricted—civil society and philanthropy sector has developed. Our preliminary findings are that while restrictive policies toward civil society significantly limit the role that civil society organizations and philanthropy can have in response to the pandemic, civil society still shows strength and vitality in emergency service, funding, volunteering, mutual aid, in-kind donations, and even policy advocacy. While the prospects for civil society in China are uncertain because of political restrictions before and during the COVID crisis, civil society continues to build capacity and show its capabilities to Chinese citizens and its governance institutions.

show abstract

Regulation as Political Control: China’s First Charity Law and Its Implications for Civil Society

Cited by 53 publications

References 35 publications

Party, State, Civil Society and Covid-19 in China

Party, State, Civil Society and Covid-19 in China

Tax-Exempt Status and Associated Factors among Charitable Foundations in China

Civil Society and COVID in China: Responses in an Authoritarian Society

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About