NGOs are a key component in a civil society to ensure the state's delivery of accountable governance. Yet the Chinese government's new draft regulations on NGOs seems to put the survival of civil groups in an authoritarian system in a more worrying state. Recently openMovement published an invited contribution from Dr Zhang on State-NGO relations.

In this article, Dr Zhang pointed out that 'China's heightened regulation of NGOs serves to pressure (global) civil society's activities back into the government's comfort zone. Compared to the loose network of homegrown NGOs which have been effectively pushed out of the government radar due to its high registration bar, foreign NGOs are easier to account for.'

But she also argued that there is room for optimism, for NGOs, both international and homegrown, have acted creatively in mitigating government constraints: 'While the government aims to bring NGO operations into its close supervision, NGO activities bring state accountability into public scrutiny. While 'Chinese particularities' have been a blanket justification for government agendas, NGOs challenge their banality and steer political attention to actual social needs.' It is through this contested symbiotic relations that the State and NGOs compete for influence.

For the full version of the article, please visit: https://www.opendemocracy.net/joy-y-zhang/contested-symbiosis-statengo-relations-in-china

openMovement is a platform dedicated to the global and public sociology of social movements. It aims at providing critical and empirically-based outlooks on social movements and new expressions of social and cultural transformations.