Regime Dominates China's Charity Sector

Since the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, numerous charitable organizations have sprung up in China. The trouble is most of these organizations have found it hard to get officially registered and operate illegally. Founders of these charities say it’s because the Chinese regime is dominating the charity sector.

[Fang Hong, Founder of Puyang Enlai Aixin Association]:
“We have no way to register, so some of these organizations rely on other registered organizations to carryout their operations, but even more operate illegally. So first of all, registering is hard, funding is difficult, and thirdly finding people, the salary is low, many founders of charities have lost money. China only has 15 official charities that can receive donations. Because it is hard to get officially registered, this makes it hard to raise funds.”

Charity the Aixin Union has 40 thousand members, yet the founder says that space to operate is being squeezed by the Chinese regime and similar charities are also closing down.

[Liu Zongyong, Founder, Aixin Union]:
“For the past three years I have relied on my own income to support this team. We haven’t been able to become officially registered, so haven’t had the right to collect funds, we cannot write receipts and no businesses are willing to work with us. So we have, ourselves, become a disadvantaged group, with people monopolizing over us. The government warned our volunteers, that whatever we want to do, we have to first go through the government. These charitable organizations are becoming fewer and fewer, many people cannot continue to support them.”

Charities have described this as a bubble effect, where many that were created in response to the 2008 earthquake have since shut down.