PRE-ANNIVERSARY TIGHTENING OF CONTROLS ON NGOS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 002733 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/24/2034 TAGS: PHUM PGOV SOCI CH SUBJECT: PRE-ANNIVERSARY TIGHTENING OF CONTROLS ON NGOS REF: A. BEIJING 2429 ¶B. BEIJING 2123 ¶C. 07 BEIJING 4799 Classified By: Political Section Chief Aubrey Carlson Reasons 1.4 (b)(d) ¶1. (C) Summary: In the run-up to the October 1 sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese authorities have tightened control over civil society groups, according to contacts. In recent months, many NGOs have encountered official harassment, ranging from office visits by state security agents to forced closure. The increased pressure appears limited to NGOs that have been involved in sensitive legal and human rights issues. NGO leaders report that the closure of the Open Constitution Initiative (OCI, also known as Gongmeng) in July and the four-week detention of OCI founder Xu Zhiyong (ref A) had a chilling effect on the NGO community. In this environment, many NGO leaders have voluntarily scaled back or suspended activities through the early October celebrations to avoid further scrutiny. Most of our NGO contacts believe that, while the coming October 1 anniversary provides a pretext for the current crackdown, the government's actions are part of a broader effort to rein in the growth of civil society. Many doubt that the atmosphere for NGOS will improve significantly after the anniversary. Representatives of NGOs operating in non-sensitive sectors told us they continue to operate as normal. End Summary. Heightened Scrutiny -------------- ¶2. (C) In the wake of the July 17 closure of the Open Constitution Initiative (OCI, widely known by its Chinese name "Gongmeng," see ref A),contacts in the NGO community have expressed concern that the closure of other organizations would soon follow. Tax authorities this year investigated two other Beijing-based NGOs, the economic think tank The Transition Institute and the HIV/AIDS NGO Aizhixing. A third, Yi Ren Ping, an NGO working to raise awareness of disability discrimination, reported that authorities came to their office and confiscated copies of its newsletter. In another case, Filip Noubel (protect),director of Internews (the Beijing office of the International Center for Communication Development (ICCD),an international NGO working to promote media freedom),told PolOff August 14 that government officials had visited his office to "dig around" in his files. (Note: Noubel's organization receives funding from the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Rule of Law, and Labor.) ¶3. (C) Pei Bin (protect),a director at the Beijing office of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) (an NGO providing research and consulting services to multinational companies on corporate philanthropy programs),told PolOff August 27 that she had received a visit from state security officials. Pei, who worked for the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA) for twelve years before moving to the private sector, said she enjoyed a cordial relationship with both law enforcement and central government authorities. State security officials told Pei that they would be "busy in September," which she took to mean they would be paying similar visits to other NGOs in the run-up to the October holiday. Pei credited her "insider status" for allowing her to convince the officials that there was no need to monitor her organization because it was doing "good" (i.e., politically non-sensitive) work. Legal Limbo -------------- ¶4. (C) Most domestic and foreign NGOs are unable to obtain legal status inside China as non-profit organizations. Therefore, fully independent NGOs operating in China remain vulnerable to government harassment or closure. In order to successfully register with MOCA, NGOs must have a PRC government sponsor. NGOs that obtain legal recognition, such as official charities, are usually granted permission to operate under the direction of government agencies. BEIJING 00002733 002 OF 003 ¶5. (C) Jia Xijin (protect),associate Professor of Civil Society and Governance at Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management, told PolOff that the current NGO crackdown was a government reaction to recent social unrest in China. Jia explained that the pairing of NGOs with government sponsors was a tactic to maintain control of NGO activities. This practice forced independent NGOs to operate as for-profit companies, making them subject to corporate taxes. Migrant Worker NGOs Report Few Problems -------------- ¶6. (C) In contrast, representatives of NGOs providing services to Beijing's migrant worker population report that they have not experienced harassment. Huang He (protect),chairman of Xinzhiguang (an NGO that operates a school for children of migrant workers),told PolOffs August 28 that NGOs could survive provided that they were not active in sensitive areas such as rule of law, religion or human rights advocacy. In fact, Huang said, local governments generally welcomed projects that delivered social services such as education for migrant children or assistance to poor women. Wei Wei (protect),director of Little Bird, a Beijing NGO that provides legal advice to migrant workers involved in wage disputes, reported the he had not encountered any recent trouble with authorities. Wei Wei said his group, like most NGOs, was registered as a private company. However, unlike other NGOs such as OCI/Gongmeng, his organization was not required to pay taxes. Beijing municipal officials, he said, had advised him to report zero revenue and zero profits on his corporate tax returns. Wei Wei said municipal authorities extended him this tax treatment (which is technically illegal) because they viewed his NGO as contributing to social order. Wei Wei said that for non-sensitive NGOs like Little Bird, the primary obstacle to growth was the difficulty of finding steady funding, not the political environment. Avoid "NGO" Label, Stay Clear of Sensitive Areas -------------- --- ¶7. (C) Xinzhiguang's Huang He told PolOffs that because of the political sensitivity surrounding the term "NGO," he preferred to describe his group as a "social enterprise." Huang said he avoided NGO meetings and conferences because he did not want to be perceived as an "NGO leader" by government officials. Other contacts said avoiding sensitive regions in China was also an important survival tactic. Noubel, a French citizen, was concerned about keeping his residence status in China. As a result, Noubel said, he would not consider operating programs in Xinjiang or any other politically sensitive region. The situation was particularly acute in Beijing, Noubel said, where a "lockdown mentality" continued to pervade the NGO community. He said the atmosphere for NGOs was less pressurized in southern provinces such as Guangdong and Yunnan. As a cautionary measure, Noubel said, his organization was not planning any activities through October 1. After October 1 -------------- ¶8. (C) Only one contact, Pei Bin of BSR, believed that the current tightening was linked only to the sixtieth anniversary. Pei said that state security officials had assured her that everything would be "okay" once the anniversary passed. Although she predicted a second tightening on civil society would likely occur in connection with the six-month-long 2010 Shanghai Expo, Pei argued that the long-term trends in civil society development were positive. She asserted that civil society in China had already reached the "point of no return." Corporate charity was beginning to gain momentum, and private charities were growing quickly. ¶9. (C) Other Chinese and foreign NGO leaders were more pessimistic and believed the recent tightening represented a permanent shift in the government's policy toward civil society. In reference to the OCI/Gongmeng closure, Noubel, drawing on his BEIJING 00002733 003 OF 003 experiences in Russia, stated that by regulating or fining NGOs out of existence the PRC was employing the same tactics used by the Russian government to shut down NGOs it deemed threatening. Referring to Xu Zhiyong's detention on tax evasion charges, Noubel observed that selective prosecution was a powerful tool to choke off civil society growth. The sixtieth anniversary, he asserted, was simply a pretext for a longer-term effort by the Communist Party to rein in NGOs. Xinzhiguang's Huang He concurred. Civil society in China was "going backwards," he said, and the government was unlikely to liberalize the registration of NGOs. The current regime would never accept real NGOs and an independent civil society. Huang said the only way for NGOs to survive was to concentrate on charity work and eschew efforts to change China's political system. ¶10. (C) Tsinghua professor Jia Xijin predicted that authorities would take a tougher line on NGOs in the next few years because of increasing social tensions. Ironically, she noted, NGOs could help improve social cohesion and stability in China but would not be allowed to do so. Although NGOs often provided social welfare services that the central and local governments could not, political leaders recognized that NGOs were a potential catalyst for social and political transformation. These competing interests had led the government to adopt a "selective control and selective promotion" approach toward NGOs, Jia said. Advocacy groups such as OCI/Gongmeng faced closure, while social service providers and charities were allowed to operate. This model, Jia added, would remain in place unless there were substantial "innovations" in the political system. HUNTSMAN