Editor’s Note
This article was originally published by the Office for Overseas NGOs of the Ministry of Public Security, and translated into English by CDB. Some parts have been cut out from our translation. You can find the original here.
By the 31st of December 2019, 511 overseas non-governmental organizations (ONGOs) had registered their representative offices in China and 2, 442 temporary activities had been filed.
1. National and regional distribution
The United States, the Hong Kong SAR (China), Japan, South Korea and Germany are home to 65.95% of the 511 registered ONGOs.
2. Place of registration
Out of the 511 registered representative offices, 68.30% are registered in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Yunnan and Sichuan.
3. The professional supervisory unit (PSUs) of the ONGOs
a. Overview
Out of the different branches of the Chinese administrative system, the five branches with the most PSUs are the departments (部门) of Commerce, Education, Civil Affairs, Health and the people’s organizations (人民团体, a form of government-run civic association), accounting for the PSUs in charge of 72.02% of the 511 ONGOs that registered.
b.Ministerial level PSUs
93 out of 511, or 18.16%, of the ONGOs have ministerial-level PSUs. The remaining 399, or 77.93%, of the ONGOs are supervised by provincial authorities. The top five PSUs at the ministerial units are the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the National Forestry Administration, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, accounting for 55.91% of all ONGOs with ministerial-level PSUs.
4. Fields of work of the registered ONGOs
The top 5 fields of work are the economy, education, poverty alleviation and disaster relief, health and environmental protection, accounting for 83.17% of the total.
5. Location of activities of the representative offices
194 organizations (37.96% of the total) have activities in the whole of China, while the others cover one or more provinces. So far, 148 organizations (28.96%) out of the 511 ONGOs cover more than one province, while 169 (33.07%) only have activities in the province where they are located.
6. Place of origin of the ONGOs which have filed temporary activities in Mainland China
Among the 2,442 filed activities, 86.27% were filed by organizations from the Hong Kong SAR (China), the United States, Macao, Germany and the United Kingdom.
7. Registration of representative offices and temporary activities by month
The average number of ONGO registrations by month was 14. The month of May (2017) witnessed the highest number with 47.
Overall the record for temporary activities shows an upward trend, peaking in November with 129.
