A New Chapter in the History of NGO Regulation China? Implications of the Recent Changes

To some observers of Chinese civil society, year 2016 marked a drastic departure in the regulatory history of China’s non-profit sector in that two national laws-namely, the Charity Law and the Overseas NGO Law-were passed in April and May each. Furthermore, the government issued draft revisions of the regulations for the registration and management of various types of social organizations, which constitute non-governmental organizations in this authoritarian regime setting. This study places these developments in the history of China’s regulatory regime governing the domestic and international NGOs and discusses the significance of the aforementioned changes in light of such historical evolution. The Chinese government has introduced a series of regulatory regimes since the late 1980s when it saw the rapid emergence of various types of NGOs and social organizations and has since strived to define their relationships with the party-state via legal and institutional mechanisms. This study examines what elements of continuities and changes the newly introduced laws and regulations exhibit and what they might imply for NGO operation and activism in China.