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Growth of Philanthropy Continues in China, Despite Government Dominance
 
 Author:Unirule  
Time:2010-04-17 14:12:54   Clicks:


The Chinese government last month announced it was banning Oxfam, an international network of charities that seeks to end poverty and promote social justice, from recruiting volunteers on Chinese college and university campuses. It said that the group was really a political movement opposed to the government, not a charitable one.

This action was of more than passing interest to me. In January I visited a nonprofit organization on the outskirts of Beijing called the Home of Workers. It sought to provide assistance to the large number of migrant workers in Beijing―people who have moved to the city from the impoverished countryside in search of better jobs. They perform most of the heavy labor in major Chinese cities, ranging from construction to domestic work, but have few legal protections and little access to social and health services. Unless families pay large fees, their children often cannot attend public schools.

Oxfam’s Hong Kong chapter played an important role in establishing and supporting this organization, as well as recruiting volunteers for it, such as the recent graduate of one of China’s aeronautics schools who showed me around. Last month’s action by the Chinese government puts its ability to continue doing so in doubt. And it also typifies the precariousness of China’s rapidly expanding civil society.

I was in China to meet with university faculty members and students in several new philanthropic studies and nonprofit-management programs that were created in response to the growth of the country’s nonprofit organizations. Although reliable statistics are difficult to find, the best estimates suggest the growth of these organizations has been rapid since the 1990s. More than 400,000 nonprofit groups are now registered, and many more unregistered ones are now thought to be operating in the country.

As the Chinese economy has prospered, philanthropy has increased, too. In 2008 giving in China reached the equivalent of $15.7-billion, according to a Chinese government study, three times the amount in the previous year, with donations to aid victims of the Wenchuan earthquake accounting for much of this growth. Moreover, a larger share came from Chinese-owned businesses and entrepreneurs, rather than foreign sources that dominated giving in the past.

Even though donation levels appear to have moved back to their pre-earthquake levels last year, many Chinese have called 2009 “the year of philanthropy” (along with its official title, “year of the ox”), reflecting the more pronounced awareness of the importance of giving and volunteering throughout China, especially on the part of its young professionals and students.

Yet the Chinese government appears to regard these developments with ambivalence, so it is unclear what the future may hold for Chinese philanthropy.

On the one hand, the government recognizes that it needs nonprofit groups to provide a wide range of services to the public. Spending on health and welfare programs in China has historically been low, while poverty and disease have been widespread. Not coincidentally, the growth of civil society has accompanied other changes designed to make the Chinese economy more competitive and reduce the influence over business by Communist Party officials in Beijing, making the efforts of philanthropic groups to assist the needy more urgent.

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