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China curbs civil society
groups
By Qiu Xin
HONG KONG - Much has been made of signs that
Chinese President Hu Jintao's leadership of the
Communist Party, the government and the armed forces
would allow non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
to flourish, as the party would realize that
it needed to rely on civil-society groups.
But on March 21, Chinese authorities
ordered that all NGOs registered with industrial
and commercial administrative bureaus must report
promptly to relevant civil affairs bureaus for
review and approval. The move is widely regarded
as another measure to tighten the grip over public
opinion following Beijing's gag on bulletin board
systems (BBS) run by universities and the press.
Recent years have witnessed an NGO boom in
Beijing. Many of these focus on social-science
research. To sidestep civil affairs bureaus' red
tape and stringent vetting procedures, some NGOs
turned to the industrial and commercial
administrative bureaus for registration because
the process was easier and swifter.
One of
the most notable NGOs is the Beijing Siyuan
Research Center for Social Sciences; its
president, Cao Siyuan, is considered the father of
China's Bankruptcy Law and a champion of democracy
and pluralism. In 2003, this free-thinking scholar
convened an unofficial workshop to discuss
amending China's constitution, a private citizen's
move banned by the authorities. Cao was even
jailed in 1989, when Beijing suppressed
pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square,
according to the Hong Kong-based Singtao Daily.
Cao is not the only big name in the social
sciences who operates an NGO. Dr Xu Zhiyong, a
lawyer, has set up a non-profit law center called
the Open Constitution Initiative. Xu was one of
three law professors who jointly posted an appeal
on the Internet after a youth named Sun Zhigang,
due to lack of a temporary residence permit, was
beaten to death by guards in a prison in Guangzhou
in May 2003. That appeal finally led to a
significant revision of China's law on detention.
In October of the same year, Xu was the lawyer who
argued on behalf of Sun Dawu, a wealthy
entrepreneur who had been detained on allegedly
trumped-up charges.
In November 2003, Xu
declared himself a "self-nominated" candidate for
the local people's congress in Beijing's Haidian
district. By posting an appeal for support on the
Internet, he received 10,106 votes out of the
total 12,609. In China, most elections are merely
window dressing and winners are declared only
after rounds of backroom wrangling among different
interest groups - regardless of how many votes the
candidates receive. It is virtually impossible for
anyone to win without the backing of powerful
interest groups.
The Beijing leadership of course
cannot ignore these increasing calls for genuine
democracy and pluralism. On March 16, the Ministry
of Education ordered some BBSs to restrict
availability to authorized campus users, banning
their use by the general population. Now only
those with a student identification card can log
on to these, a strict requirement that makes it
easier for the authorities to monitor online
behavior and track down dissidents.
Meantime, a menacing sword of Damocles
hangs above the heads of reporters, as the
government demands that journalists' real names
must be provided in news reports. The government
order has generated wide protests as reporters
increasingly feel vulnerable to retaliation for
critical articles and say the press function of
monitoring government performance is at risk.
The
latest move for strict vetting and registration
of NGOs covers those with names containing
the words "social science", "research center",
or "research institute", and which
registered with industrial and commercial
administrative bureaus. The order also warned that
failure to renew registration with civil affairs
bureaus before March 30 would lead to the
offending NGOs being shut down. It was not known
how many NGOs are involved and how many failed to
register by the deadline.
As if to dispel
public concerns and suspicion of political
motives, Beijing authorities justified the new
procedure by explaining that NGOs, as people-run,
non-enterprise units, must abide by the nation's
provisional regulations for the Registration
Administration of People-Run Non-Enterprise Units,
promulgated in October 1998. Article 5 of the
regulation states that the civil affairs
department under the State Council and civil
affairs departments of local governments at all
levels above the county level are the correct
registration bodies for people-run, non-enterprise
units - NGOs.
The source or sources behind
this series of stifling moves was not known, but
they contradict Hu's positive recognition of NGOs
last year. When meeting with representatives at
the eighth national conference of the Red Cross
Society of China on October 27, Hu said that the
organization had bright prospects in the nation's
process of building a well-off society.
When presiding over a collective study
session of the politburo on December 27, Hu gave
his unreserved support to social and
public-welfare undertakings. "It's also important
to stick to the people-oriented policy, strengthen
the science and technology support to social and
public welfare undertakings and technological
troubleshooting ability in such fields as
medicine and health, family planning,
environmental protection, production safety and
social public security, which have a direct
relationship with people's health and life
quality," he said.
Sociologist Lu Shouxin
offered an interpretation of Hu's speech that
was quoted by the national paper Public Welfare
Times. According to him, market economy, social
autonomy and political democracy present the major
structural characteristics of a modern society,
and a market economy is the base for the other
two. As a force for promoting political democracy
and social autonomy, NGOs, however, have fallen
short of public expectations, because of
government restrictions.
Lu said that
NGOs' healthy growth would form a solid base for
China's stability and development. But as Beijing
curtails the freedom of NGOs, freedom for everyone
remains beyond the people's reach.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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