When Nick Young started off China Development Brief in 1996, the organization was one of a kind. The idea was to provide periodical print publications (“briefs”) with independent reporting on civil society, NGOs and social developments in China.
Since then CDB has gone through numerous transformations, moving from Kunming to Beijing, starting “sister” websites in Chinese and English, and officially registering as a Chinese social organization in 2017. Chinese civil society has gone through at least as many changes as we have, and it is now completely unrecognisable from what it was 1996, but throughout the years we have stuck to our mission of serving this sector through our reporting and our ever-expanding database of information on NGOs in China. We are proud to remain the one and only independent Chinese platform for civil society and philanthropy.
In spite of our name, the paper briefings have long been replaced by our two websites as the main medium we use to share our material with our readers. However, we have now decided to go back to our origins and start producing periodical paper roundups of the best content that we publish online. This biannual roundup you hold in your hands includes some of the most significant and most appreciated articles published on our English-language website over the last two years. Over the following pages you will find interviews with people doing important work in the Chinese NGO sector, analysis on the state of civil society in China, contributions from external experts and profiles of Chinese NGOs doing important work overseas.
In the future we plan to publish a similar roundup every year, in the hope that it will help spread our work to more people with an interest in China’s civil society and charity scene. For now, we hope you enjoy the read!
