Many non-governmental organisations trying to be effective in China find it difficult to be … non-governmental

China has a civil society system that is markedly different from those of most other countries. The past few years have seen a proliferation of NGOs, both international – which are establishing operations in mainland China – and local, which are often small organisations run by wealthy people to promote their particular interests (often themselves).

Most NGOs come under some form of direct government control, and are known as government operated NGOs, or Gongos. They include the biggest NGOs, such as the Red Cross.

Without doubt the main issue for NGOs in China in 2011 was corruption. It seems that the year saw a constant stream of scandals about misplaced money, NGO officials using donations to buy flats or cars and donations not going to the causes they were intended for. Despite some attempts by Beijing to censor reporting, many of the scandals are widely known in China. Perhaps the three most highlighted were:

§ Guo Meimei, the 20-year-old who claimed to be business general manager of Red Cross Commerce who flaunted her luxury lifestyle on a Sina microblog, annoying Chinese netizens.

§ Lu Xingyu, the inexperienced 24-year-old executive chairman overseeing a 1.5bn yuan ($150m) fund at the China-Africa Project Hope.

§ The Soong Ching Ling Foundation in Henan that reportedly made large loans to several companies and converted a charitable construction project into a luxury apartment.

There is no avoiding the fact that these controversies have tarnished charity in the eyes of many ordinary Chinese people. As a direct consequence, donations to charities have fallen from their 2008 high – by as much as 50%, according to the China Charity and Donation Information Centre, which tracks donations to 1,850 charity groups, including the two major contributors, the Red Cross Society of China and the China Charity Federation.

Still, it seems that many genuine workers in the field see the current level of distrust as an inevitable part of the development of the NGO, charity and philanthropy community in China.

New in town

Carma Eliot is a former British consul-general in Shanghai and now China director of Half the Sky, an NGO that works with poor children and orphans in China. Speaking at a forum in Beijing in November, discussing the rash of scandals in the NGO community, she echoed the views of many, saying: “I do not think it is so much a crisis as an evolutionary process. [NGOs are] quite new in China. They only really started seven years ago as the yawning gap between rich and poor became a chasm.”

Battle for autonomy

Continued problems for international NGOs remain. Beijing’s regulations have remained tight and there have been some problems for several big organisations. Usually trouble comes when an NGO’s aims appear either to be at odds with central government policy or in some way highlight aspects of Chinese society that Beijing would prefer not broadcast.

Environmental NGOs, such as WWF, experienced problems last year following the announcements of the blueprints of the government’s 12th five-year plan for China’s development running through to 2015 and its energy goals (or more specifically renewable energy and pollution reduction goals).

As an example of an international NGO getting into trouble, a problem arose with an internship programme that Oxfam has been running since 2006. It had placed 40 mainland Chinese students with NGOs that are supporting China’s vast number of migrant workers.

Oxfam recruits the interns through adverts at graduate recruitment fairs held on China’s university campuses. All had apparently been running smoothly until an official notice from the education ministry appeared on a graduate recruitment website at Beijing’s Minzu University. It said: “All education departments and institutions of higher education must raise their guard and together recognise and take precautions against the unfriendly intentions of Oxfam Hong Kong’s recruitment of college volunteers.” Migrant worker issues were deemed by the government an interest too far for Oxfam.

The question for the future is really how far NGOs, Gongos, charities and philanthropic institutions will be able to develop unhampered by government interference.

Certainly there is little to no prospect of Beijing simply exiting the NGO/charity field. The authorities will stay involved and continue to try to control and constrain the activities of organisations. At the same time there has been no emergence of business associations in China, except the traditional state-run organisations; similarly with trade unions where the government-run union remains the only game in town.

Under the radar

So how exactly can NGOs operate in China effectively? A major topic of conversation in China among organisations, both foreign and domestic, is how to remain effective and yet under the radar, avoiding government interference.

This is harder for larger NGOs with an international presence, which will not only be more visible in China but will also have various overseas offices often commenting on China too. The situation is similar for large Chinese NGOs that attract a lot of government attention.

Sometimes, then, it pays to be small. Ethical Corporation has spent time with several smaller NGOs set up in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Many of them argue that they have been able to be more responsive. They can move “between the cracks”, says Peter Goff, head of Sichuan Quake Relief (SQR), a group established in the city of Chengdu almost immediately after the quake.

Goff’s plan has always been to work in areas not covered by the large and volunteer-heavy NGOs. This may be as simple as distributing blankets, something larger NGOs forgot about in some cases, or going to more remote towns affected by the quake. SQR has also been involved in rebuilding a school, something that might have been a contentious issue for some larger Chinese NGOs, due to political sensitivities about sub-standard building materials used in many schools that had led to fatal accidents.

Again, where larger NGOs may not have been able to operate due to lack of permission or the government’s fear of embarrassment, smaller and more nimble organisations, such as SQR, often can operate under the radar.

The online dimension

It would be nice to think that Chinese companies were being held to account by Chinese courts and the judicial system. However, this does not appear to be the case. The perennial problem with the Chinese legal system has been a lack of enforcement of judgments. This has meant that citizen protests, boycotts and online anger have developed as the main checks on some companies.

Of course the government has been able to manipulate this. During the recent Wal-Mart organic pork scandal in Chongqing a Chinese journalist told Ethical Corporation that he was forbidden from writing about any other supermarket chain that may have also mislabelled products.

The government wanted the media anger focused on Wal-Mart. Following a rash of publicised bad corporate behaviour by Chinese companies – so the government thinking went – the people needed to be shown that foreign companies were bad too.

However, the government has not been able to contain citizen anger on some issues. The outpourings of internet rage and demands for someone to accept responsibility or accountability for the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash and the Shanghai subway crash have shown this.

The online soul-searching that much of China engaged in after the high profile incident of a young child being knocked down and then ignored by many passersby in a Guangdong town led to a national debate on morals and ethics. Similarly there have been large protests around environmental issues in Shanghai, Dalian and other cities.

Greenpeace’s China detox

There have been accusations, such as in the CASS Blue Book, that foreign companies are not doing as much as they could or being as transparent as they could in their corporate responsibility activities in China. Similarly, there have been accusations that international NGOs have been quicker to target and demonise domestic Chinese companies than foreign ones.

Greenpeace’s recent Detox campaign in China is an example of an initiative by an international NGO that specifically targets foreign clothing brands manufacturing in China.

Toxic chemicals in China’s textiles supply chain have long been an issue of concern, and Greenpeace highlighted the issue initially in a July 2011 report, Dirty Laundry.

Greenpeace’s Ilze Smit says the Detox campaign aims to get major brands to remove toxic chemicals from their China supply chains by 2020. This may seem a long way off but, as Smit notes, “it means action by the companies in the short term to meet that goal”. It is also possible to rank the dangerousness of the chemicals to be phased out, and Greenpeace works with brands to do that.

Puma was among the first international brands to sign up to Detox in China. Nike, Adidas and H&M have followed this lead. Greenpeace’s China toxic campaigns director Zhang Kai says that before Detox, “no brands had a policy to ban these chemicals in China”.

The campaign has used Facebook and other online platforms to lobby brands both in China and elsewhere, using the slogan “Detox our Future”. The campaign is relatively new in China but is looking to work to meet those 2020 targets and bring more international brands manufacturing in China on board.