By Yu Fangqiang

The other night, a little after midnight, I was about to turn off my computer and go to sleep when
I noticed, with surprise, an article in China Development Brief’s Community Times: “Droughts in the Southwest
Test Emergency Response: Where are the NGOs?”

China has recently been hit by a number of natural disasters, including the epic
drought in the southwest and an earthquake in Qinghai. After reading this
article, I had a few thoughts I had to share.

Certainly, NGOs were very visible and powerful during the Wenchuan earthquake. While the public could
not see the challenges China’s NGOs face, they could definitely see the impact
they can have. But droughts raise another set of challenges. What exactly
should NGOs contribute in these circumstances?

First of all, we need
to bear in mind that not all NGOs have the technical ability to respond to a
disaster like the current drought. Second, of those NGOs that have the capacity
to respond, not all can dedicate their limited time and energies to the
drought. And third, even those NGOs that have the ability and the capacity can’t
measure up to the ability and capacity of the state. NGOs do not exist to
replace the state, but to widen the competitive environment for public interest
work. Within this environment, NGOs can monitor official organizations and
government departments in order to improve their effectiveness, and urge them
to work more efficiently. If NGOs were better at everything than the
government, we wouldn’t need the government.

In the response to
the southwestern drought, we do indeed see the government playing a positive
role. However, has this response been efficient and effective? What we see are
an increase in state funding while the drought continues. The state’s response
has largely channeled mandatory donations to the same old officials,
institutions and cronies as in the past. In a particularly outrageous instance,
school teachers have compelled students to donate at least 2 yuan (about 30
cents) each to drought relief efforts – an immoral and illegal action.

Getting back to the
NGOs, however: most NGOs are grassroots organizations in a state of
malnutrition. To start with, most cannot register in the Bureau of Civil
Affairs. After struggling for several years, they began to register in the
Industrial and Commercial Bureau, which compelled them to pay taxes. After a
few years of continuing with program work while paying taxes, the Bureau of
Civil Affairs and Trade and Industry Bureau began to launch investigations into
the discrepancy between the commercial names these groups used to register, and
the names they used to do their NGO work. Those NGOs that survived this process
now have to deal with the new foreign exchange regulations. In addition, we had the shutdown
of migrant workers’ schools in Beijing, in advance of China’s Two Sessions,
the shutdown of the Chongqing Sensen orphanage on March 15, and the
restrictions on civil charity activities during the Shanghai World Expo.

Some groups have attempted to resist the restrictions on NGOs, as in the case of the tax
resistance campaign which some two dozen organizations signed onto earlier
this year. As of late April, I do not know what the results were of this effort;
even if they are successful, this will be a long, hard fight. And of course,
the case of Oxfam’s
treatment as a class enemy by the Ministry of Education, which recently warned
colleges not to participate in Oxfam programs. Oxfam has carefully managed its
government relations, and must have felt like a woman whose lover refuses to
marry her after making love to her for twenty years. Oxfam is one of the few
NGOs with the capacity to respond to the drought crisis – but unfortunately,
they’re otherwise occupied now.

We cannot accuse NGOs
of failing to help respond to the drought when their difficulties are caused by
the state. NGOs have no funds to donate, no institutional capacity to respond
to crises, and struggle with all kinds of internal and external challenges. But
nonetheless, I recently saw a report online which said that “more than twenty
NGOs called for water conservation in the north”. Does this make us feel
better? It is simply not true that NGOs are unconcerned about the drought. The
truth is that their movements are hampered.

Yu Fangqiang is chief coordinator of the Chinese civil rights organization, Yirenping. This article is translated and adapted
from the Chinese original at https://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.org.cn/ngo_talkview.php?id=1245.