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2 Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 44, No. 3, , March 2008 Civic Environmental NGOs, Civil Society, and Democratisation in China SHUI-YAN TANG & XUEYONG ZHAN School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, USA Final version received May 2006 ABSTRACT This paper examines the potential role of civic environmental NGOs in China s democratisation. Based on interviews with 31 NGO officials, the paper examines the origins, structures, and functions of civic environmental NGOs in China. It also examines how various political and resource constraints have shaped their development. While having made progress in organising educational campaigns and specific conservation projects, civic environmental NGOs have been less successful in influencing government decisions and official behaviours. Most recently, some NGOs have made limited progress on these fronts by maintaining a largely nonoppositional stance towards government and by utilising various formal and information channels for influencing government decisions. NGO leaders will have to negotiate with different partystate entities in defining their precise roles in the political process. I. Introduction While enjoying rapid economic growth in the past two and a half decades, China has experienced rapid deterioration of its environment. Leaders in the Chinese central government recognised early on the need to take steps to protect the environment. Since the adoption of the Provisional Environmental Protection Law in 1979, the central government has passed many sets of pollution control regulations and environmental impact assessment requirements. Environmental protection bureaus (EPBs) have also been established at different administrative levels to enforce various environmental regulations (Sims, 1999), and a sizable number of service organisations were subsequently established to help strengthen the organisational capacity of these local EPBs (Lo et al., 2001). Despite these government efforts, China s environment has continued to deteriorate (Economy, 2004). It is in this context that environmental NGOs began to emerge. While some of them are governmentsponsored, most are initiated and run by private citizens. They range from relatively well-established organisations funded by international foundations to web-based Correspondence Address: Shui-Yan Tang, School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA , USA. stang@usc.edu ISSN Print/ Online/08/ ª 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: /

3 426 S.-Y. Tang & X. Zhan organisations and informal associations among students in college campuses (Ho, 2001; Xiao and Zhao, 2002; Yang, 2005). According to a recent study conducted by the All-China Environment Federation, China was home to 2768 environmental NGOs with 224,000 members by the end of Diversified in their missions, structures, degree of autonomy and influence (Ma, 2002), Chinese environmental NGOs can roughly be classified into three major types student environmental groups, government-organised NGOs (GO-NGOs) and civic environmental NGOs (Jin, 1997; Knup, 1997; Xiao and Zhao, 2002; Schwartz, 2004; Cooper, 2006). 2 Different types of environmental NGOs are structured and function differently. Student groups, for example, rarely participate in policy making and have a weak relationship with EPBs (Xiao and Zhao, 2002: 67). Being directly or indirectly overseen by the university administration or the Communist Youth League, it is difficult for student environmental groups to become political activists in environmental issues. GO-NGOs are usually controlled, directly or indirectly, by governmental agencies, even though they have shown increasing independence in recent years (Wu, 2003). The prestigious and well-connected leadership of GO-NGOs helps to raise the prominence of environmental issues in government circles (Knup, 1997). Yet some GO-NGOs have been criticised for being oriented primarily towards fundraising from international organisations or for cushion[ing] the downsizing of the bureaucracy (Ho, 2001: 915). They have also been criticised for playing only a very limited role in being a watchdog of government policies, 3 for not being grassroots oriented and for not effectively using funds at their disposal. 4 Different from student groups and GO-NGOs, civic NGOs are founded and run entirely by private citizens; they are more independent and grassrootsoriented. In this sense, civic NGOs are more similar to the environmental NGOs in the West. Since their first appearance about a decade or so ago, the vast majority of civic environmental NGOs in China have been careful to avoid undertaking activities that could be considered by government authorities as oppositional in nature (Ho, 2001). Yet, in recent years, there are signs that some civic environmental NGOs have strived not only to maintain their legal status but also to seek patronage from governmental agencies and to engage in some, though limited, degrees of policy advocacy. 5 These features of Chinese civic environmental NGOs set them apart from both student groups and GO-NGOs in China, as well as those in other Asian polities such as Taiwan and South Korea where environmental NGOs have been actively involved in political opposition to the ruling regime and in directly promoting political democratisation (Tang and Tang, 1997; Lim and Tang, 2002). Civic environmental NGOs in China are also different from the 1989 student protest movement and spiritual organisations like Falun Gong, which were prepared to defy government restraints and to exert their autonomy from state control. These features of Chinese civic environmental NGOs make them a good window for assessing China s prospect for developing a more vibrant civil society, which many theorists have hypothesised to be key for democratisation (Diamond, 1999). Chinese civic environmental NGOs represent a viable forum for cultivating voluntary civic engagement. Yet the relationship between the state and civic environmental NGOs is likely to remain fluid and ambiguous. On the one hand,

4 Civic Environmental NGOs in China 427 government authorities are generally interested in drawing upon help by civic environmental NGOs to implement some of their programmes and they are, in general, tolerant of environmental activities by NGOs that are believed to be nonoppositional in nature. On the other hand, the same authorities may be concerned about attempts by these NGOs to participate in policy making or to act as agency watchdogs. It is within these often ambiguous political parameters, that environmental NGOs as civil society organisations have to develop and search for an appropriate mission and method of organisation for themselves. As argued by Economy (2004):... environmental NGOs in China are at the vanguard of nongovernmental activity. Thus the question is not only whether nongovernmental actors can shape the future of environmental protection in China but also whether they may play a role in effecting broader political change in the context of the ongoing transformation of state-societal relations. (Economy, 2004: 131) Economy s argument underscores the potential significance of civic environmental NGOs as vehicles for bringing about broader political transformations in China. As suggested by Yang (2005: 64), environmental NGOs in China may also work as both sites and agents of political change. Yet, specifically in what ways may civic environmental NGOs, as civil society organisations, contribute to transforming state-society relations in China? In this paper, we examine the political, economic and institutional factors that have shaped the development of civic environmental NGOs and, how these NGOs can potentially play a role in China s democratisation. In addition to drawing on published documents and scholarly papers (in both English and Chinese) on the subject, we have conducted interviews, either in person or on the phone, with officials/administrators from 31 environmental NGOs between August 2003 and May Twenty-eight of them are civic environmental NGOs; one is a government-organised NGO; and two are international NGOs. Among the 28 civic NGOs we interviewed, 10 are located in Beijing, and 18 are located in various provinces. 6 One GO-NGO and two international NGOs are located in Beijing. Although the sample is non-random and limited in size, it provides a diverse picture of civic environmental NGOs in China. In particular, it provides an increased variety of organisational forms, registration types, experiences and locations, in contrast to several existing studies, which drew their samples exclusively from NGOs in Beijing or specific regions and did not focus on civic ones (for example, Ho, 2001; Ru and Ortolano, 2004; Schwartz, 2004; Cooper, 2006). In the rest of the paper, we first provide a brief overview of some key theoretical and definitional issues about civil society in China. Then we examine the main features of civic environmental NGOs in China focusing on how they are financed and structured and, what activities they are engaged in. Then, we analyse the developmental dynamics of Chinese civic environmental NGOs and how they compare with their counterparts in other countries. Finally we discuss what the experiences of civic environmental NGOs illustrate about the nature of civil society in China and its potential contributions to China s democratisation.

5 428 S.-Y. Tang & X. Zhan II. Some Theoretical and Definitional Issues about Civil Society in China In the past two and a half decades, as China has been transforming itself from a command to a market economy, it has experienced tremendous economic growth and witnessed an emerging middle class, especially along the prosperous coastal regions. According to a study conducted in 2001 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, about 25 per cent of the working population can be considered as belonging to the middle class in terms of household incomes. 7 Among them, many are government officials, company managers, business owners, intellectuals/technicians and employees of government-sponsored service organisations. Political scientists have long considered the rise of a solid middle class a favourable social condition for democratisation (Pye, 1991). In many non-western, authoritarian political systems, members of the middle class are those in society most influenced by Western ideas and, due to their relative economic security, have the strongest aspiration for political rights and liberalisation (Moore, 1966; Inglehart, 1997). Compared with those of other social classes, members of the middle class are also more likely to participate in various civic organisations, which have played an important role in the breakdown of authoritarian regimes in the Third Wave of democratisation (Huntington, 1991; White et al., 1996). China s political development in the past two and a half decades has so far remained an exception to this pattern. Despite the development of a market economy and the rapid emergence of an urban middle class, the Chinese political system has to a large extent remained authoritarian. One possible reason is that China s capitalist development has been an artifact invented by the communist state and the middle class must rely heavily upon arbitrary political power to survive and prosper (Chen, 2002: 421). In addition, the business class in China has benefited disproportionately from the current political system and has little incentive to change it (Pearson, 2002). As a result, the middle class has not been able to act as a catalyst for political liberalisation in China. Another possible reason why the middle class has not played an active role in promoting democratisation is that there has been a lack of the requisite social infrastructure that is, a striving civil society for mobilising collective civic action outside of state control. Howell and Pearce, for example, argued that the current intermediary sphere of mass organisations and registered intermediary organisations is unlikely to provide organisational basis for democratic ideas and demands (2001: 143). Questions about the role of civil society in China s demcoratisation have increasingly been asked by social scientists, China watchers, as well as international development organisations. White et al. (1996), for example, identified two major dynamics in the context of post-revolutionary China one relates to the tension arising from attempts by social groups to gain autonomy from the totalistic state and, the other, relates to the market dynamic that gives increased social power to new social and economic strata. Others have shown that factors like governmentimposed restrictions, the dominance of market forces, increased marginalised interests in society, the emergence of the Internet and international aid have affected, in one way or another, the development of NGOs and civil society in China (Ho, 2001; Moore, 2001; Howell, 2004a; Yang, 2005).

6 Civic Environmental NGOs in China 429 Scholars have also long debated the meaning of civil society and its applicability for studying social and political developments in China. Some, for example, question whether as a concept originally developed to examine the social and political development in Western Europe, civil society can be fruitfully applied to China (Chan, 1997). Others have pointed out the differences in which Western and Chinese scholars have understood the concept, with the former stressing the bottom-up individualist character of civil society and the latter stressing its top-down moralintellectual dimension (Metzger, 1998). In this paper, we do not intend to settle any of the essentialist debates on civil society. Instead we adopt a definition proposed by Larry Diamond (1999) and use that as the basis for an empirical study. In writing about the potential contribution of civil society to democratisation, Diamond (1999) defines civil society in the following way: Civil society is the realm of organised social life that is open, voluntary, selfgenerating, at least partially self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules. It is distinct from society in general in that it involves acting collectively in a public sphere to express their interests, passions, preferences, and ideas, to exchange information, to achieve collective goals, to make demands on the state, to improve the structure and functioning of the state, and to hold state officials accountable. (Diamond, 1999: 221, original italics) Diamond makes a distinction between civil society and civic community. Based on Putnam et al. s (1993) work on social capital in modern Italy, Diamond refers civic community to the realm of civic associations structured horizontally, around ties that are more or less mutual, cooperative, symmetrical, and trusting (Diamond, 1999: 226). Based on this definition, civic community clearly supports democracy by reinforcing reciprocal social and political relations. Yet there are organisations in the broader civil society that are not civic in Putnam et al. s sense. These civil society organisations may be highly hierarchical and based on asymmetrical, clientele relationships between leaders and followers. Similarly, other scholars have pointed out that some forms of social capital and civil society organisations may reinforce reciprocal social relationships only among members in exclusive groups, often at the expense of the larger society and may, in fact, undermine freedom and democracy (Ostrom, 1997; Putzel, 1997). There are also circumstances in which civil society organisations may originally emerge as oppositional forces to the authoritarian regime but they may lose the character of being a force for democratic inclusion once they are co-opted into the formal governing institutions and are bounded by what Dryzek (1996) called the state imperative. As evidenced by the experience of post-socialism in Eastern Europe, although civil society organisations have played a positive role in fostering the collapse of the socialist regimes, they have in general been less effective in promoting greater inclusivity of society, especially the marginalised groups, into political processes (Herrschel and Forsyth, 2001). Thus, depending on the types of organisations in existence and their dynamic interactions with existing and emerging political and socio-economic institutions, civil society may have different effects on democratisation.

7 430 S.-Y. Tang & X. Zhan It is not meaningful just to ask if a country has a civil society but to ask what types of civil society organisations it has, how they are structured, what activities they are engaged in and how they interact with other political and socio-economic institutions; and to what extent such interactions are conducive to more open and inclusive democratic processes. With these issues in mind, we next examine the key features of civic environmental NGOs in China. III. Chinese Civic Environmental NGOs: Origins, Structures and Functions China s formal environmental governance system has helped to slow down environmental deterioration but, not to stop it (Ma and Ortolano, 2000: 8). There is considerable evidence showing that many environmental regulations have not been effectively enforced at the local level. A number of factors contribute to this outcome. One has to do with the institutional arrangements in which local EPBs, while officially subject to the policy leadership of the environmental protection agency at a higher level, are parts of the local governments, which provide them with personnel and financial resources. As has been documented extensively in the literature, enforcement work of municipal EPBs can easily be hindered by powerful pro-growth economic interests in the local party-state establishment (Tang et al., 1997; Ma and Ortolano, 2000; Lo and Tang, 2006). Another factor has to do with a lack of adequate agency transparency and public participation in environmental policy making and implementation. Such inadequacies contrast with most other Western, democratic countries in which environmental organisations and concerned citizens can serve simultaneously as partners in policy implementation, critics of agency enforcement slack, supporters of agencies against powerful pro-growth and business interests, as well as watchdogs against localism and departmentalism within the government system (Howell, 2004b: 230). As shown in many public opinion polls, the general population in China still has relatively limited environmental knowledge and awareness. 8 Yet ordinary citizens, especially those in urban areas, have begun to feel the damaging effects of various types of environmental degradation. Increasing numbers of citizens began to feel distressed by the ever-increasing amount of noise, air and water pollution which they experience daily. In response, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has in recent years established a telephone hotline for citizen complaints against specific pollution incidences. 9 Many local EPBs have also established their own hotlines within their jurisdictions. Meanwhile, some local EPBs have begun to collect citizen opinions and conduct public hearings as part of the environmental impact assessment process and, to a limited extent, draw on a few NGOs to implement programmes like environmental education campaigns (Tang et al., 2005). As the economy of China continues to prosper, the environment continues to deteriorate and the totalitarian tendency of the party-state continues to subside, there has been a continual growth in the number and diversity of civic environmental NGOs. Also called individual-organized NGOs (Knup, 1997) or grassroots NGOs (Ho, 2001), civic environmental NGOs draw their members and volunteers from the general public. Being more formalised than student environmental groups and more autonomous from the party-state than GO-NGOs, civic environmental NGOs

8 Civic Environmental NGOs in China 431 resemble environmental NGOs in Western countries. However, their structures and functions are different from their Western counterparts in many aspects. Lacking a large base of due-paying membership and funding from philanthropic and government sources like their Western counterparts, most civic environmental NGOs in China lack stable financial resources and are run by a handful of dedicated individuals who often have to suffer personal financial hardship to sustain the organisation. Individual founders of civic environmental NGOs often have to struggle to keep their organisations running with a small and unstable staff and extremely limited financial resources, some of which may come from personal sources. As shown in Table 1, among the 28 civic NGOs studied in this research, 14 reported that personal funding has been the major financial resource to support organisational operations and activities, which constitutes the number one funding source for NGOs in our sample. One of the interviewees, for example, said that she used incomes from her own commercial rental property to support her NGO. 10 Among the civic NGOs we have interviewed, those in Beijing appear in general to be financially stronger: only 2 out of 10 Beijing civic NGOs reported limited financial resources as one of their major difficulties, while 14 out of 18 non- Beijing civic NGOs reported so. As shown in Table 2, all Beijing-based NGOs in our study have paid full-time staff, while only 6 out of 18 non-beijing NGOs have paid full-time staff. 11 While funding from domestic sources has been limited, more funding has become available from international sources, especially for those NGOs that have a stronger reputation and greater organisational capabilities. 12 Among the civic NGOs we interviewed, Beijing-based NGOs are more likely to have international funding as their major funding source 7 out of 10 in our sample. Among non-beijing NGOs, 4 out of 18 mentioned that international funding is among their major funding sources and six other non-beijing NGOs reported that they have not received any international funding before. As mentioned by several of our non-beijing interviewees, Table 1. Major financial resources of civic environmental NGOs Personal funding International funding Business funding Governmental funding Beijing-based NGOs Non-Beijing civic NGOs Table 2. Human resources of civic environmental NGOs Fulltime staff with pay Fulltime staff without pay No fulltime staff Beijing-based NGOs Non-Beijing civic NGOs 6 6 6

9 432 S.-Y. Tang & X. Zhan a major difficulty has been their limited ability to communicate in English with international organisations. 13 Funding availability has led some civic NGOs to play a more active role in the international community. For example, some Chinese environmental NGOs have begun to promote concepts like biodiversity and sustainability, which were originally not very popular in China but a favourite area of support from international funding. As argued by Liang, there are signs that some Chinese social organisations have to conform to these (international foundations ) requirements and expectations (Liang, 2003: 15). One of our NGO interviewees also commented that:... some international organisations don t understand China s context and are not interested in what local people really need. Instead, they only care about things that they are interested in, and they like to pursue superficial successes, such as sponsoring conferences and events. 14 Civic environmental NGOs also face various legal restrictions. According to the 1998 regulation by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, for example, an NGO can register as a social organisation (shehui tuanti) only if it has a sponsoring institution (zhuguan bumen) and, within the same administrative area there can be no other organisation applying for registration (Ho, 2001: 903). In addition, while a social organisation registered with the Ministry is allowed to conduct activities nationwide, it is not allowed to set up a network of local chapters. Those that are registered with local civil affairs offices are allowed to operate only within a specific local jurisdiction (Ru and Ortolano, 2004). As a result of the strict registration requirement, not all civic environmental NGOs can be registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs as social organisations. Many others are registered as either private, non-profit organisations (minban fei qiye jigou) with the Ministry of Civil Affairs or corporations (gong si) with the Administration Bureau of Industry and Commerce. A few are registered as an affiliate with other government agencies. Some are not registered at all, which is the case for 3 of the 28 civic NGOs we studied. Table 3 shows the distribution of registration types of the 28 civic environmental NGOs in our study. The data show that, within our sample, non-beijing civic NGOs are more likely to be registered as Table 3. Registration types of civic environmental NGOs Social organisations Private non-profit organisations Corporations Registered with other governmental agencies Nonregistration Beijing-based NGOs Non-Beijing NGOs 2* Notes: *These two Beijing-based NGOs are affiliated with two national NGOs that are registered as social organisations with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

10 Civic Environmental NGOs in China 433 social organisations, while Beijing-based NGOs are more likely to have alternative registration types. 15 Civic environmental NGOs in China have diverse organisational activities. As shown in Table 4, a major organisational activity of most civic environmental NGOs, both Beijing and non-beijing ones, is environmental education such as promoting garbage classification, encouraging community action, providing environmental education to elementary and middle school students, and so forth. Yet environmental education is not their exclusive focus a total of 14 mentioned some form of environmental advocacy as a major activity and 10 mentioned assisting pollution victims as a major activity. Interestingly, as compared with their counterparts in Beijing, non-beijing NGOs are more likely to have environmental advocacy and assisting pollution victims as their activities. Although government regulations mandate that NGOs must not engage in political activities, some environmental NGOs in our sample did engage in activities that are political in nature. 16 As shown in Table 5, most civic environmental NGOs in our sample have attempted to influence government decision making in environmental issues. All of them reported using informal channels such as writing letters to government agencies or using personal contacts with government officials. Another frequently used method was the use of the media to attract public or government officials attention to certain environmental issues. Interestingly, a few non-beijing NGOs were directly involved in government-organised public hearings Table 4. Organisational activities of civic environmental NGOs Environmental education as a major organisational activity Environmental advocacy as a major organisational activity* Involved in helping pollution victims Beijing-based NGOs Non-Beijing NGOs Notes: *Data reported in this column must be interpreted cautiously because some NGO officials might not have reported their environmental advocacy activities during our interviews. Table 5. Political participation of civic environmental NGOs Having experience in political participation Using the media Methods of political participation Informal channels* Participating in public hearings Proposing bills in legislatures Beijing-based NGOs Non-Beijing NGOs Note: *Informal channels include personal contacts with officials, letters to agencies and so forth.

11 434 S.-Y. Tang & X. Zhan and formal legislative processes. These activities were often aided by the fact that many NGO leaders used to hold important positions in the party-state establishment 3 among the 10 Beijing-based and 8 among the 18 non-beijing NGOs in our sample. 17 IV. Chinese Civic Environmental NGOs Compared With Those in Other Countries As mentioned earlier in this paper, civil society organisations may have different impacts on democratisation depending on their internal characteristics, as well as their patterns of interactions with larger political and socio-economic institutions. To appraise the potential contributions of civic environmental NGOs to China s democratisation, one must understand their developmental dynamics in the context of China s unique political and socio-economic circumstances. In this section, we examine a number of driving forces for the emergence and development of environmental NGOs in China and how the Chinese experience differs from those in other countries. First, unlike their counterparts in the West, civic environmental NGOs in China mostly lack a strong middle-class support network. In many advanced, industrialised countries, as society moves into the post-modern phase (Inglehart, 1997), more and more individuals become concerned about quality-of-life issues such as the environment rather than economic development issues. As many of them demand more collective action in protecting the environment than what is being provided by government policies, they become contributors and supporters of environmental NGOs that can act as advocates for greater environmental protection efforts. As the Chinese society is still at the modernisation phase, the majority of the people are more concerned about material well-being (Lollar, 1997). There has been an increasing number of major metropolitan areas, especially those along the coastal regions, where residents are becoming more educated and affluent. 18 Many civic environmental NGOs emerged from the more affluent metropolitan areas, as in the case of Beijing, which also happens to be the national capital and is home to many intellectual elites. Although we do not have any systematic data about the distribution of environmental NGOs nationwide, it appears that they are not flourishing in every major metropolitan area. 19 Guangzhou, for example, is one of the most prosperous cities in China but it is not known to have many environmental NGOs. 20 On the contrary, there has been an increasing number of environmental NGOs in some but, not all, parts of the nation that are less developed (Economy, 2004). From more or less developed regions of the country, however, almost all the NGO officials we have interviewed can be considered as social and political elites some are college professors; some started environmental work while they were students on university campuses. In addition, most of the leaders of non-beijing NGOs have strong political connection with the local party-state system. These facts, however, do not imply that Chinese civic environmental NGOs have a solid middle class foundation. In our sample we find only two civic NGOs in which membership fee is among the major financial sources. The vast majority of civic NGOs are highly reliant on either personal funding of the NGO founders (leaders) or international funding. Overall, civic environmental NGOs in China still lack widespread middle class support.

12 Civic Environmental NGOs in China 435 Second, many Chinese civic environmental NGOs rely heavily on international funding. As shown in Table 1, 11 civic NGOs reported that international funding is among their major financial sources, while none of them reported funding from domestic foundations. In the United States, philanthropic foundations play an important role in supporting environmental NGOs by grantmaking. Environmental NGOs pull together funding from multiple sources foundations, governments, individual membership dues, and donations to support their programmes. In recent years, there have occasionally been criticisms on some larger foundations that they have been too prescriptive in their funding strategies and tended to steer environmental NGOs away from politically controversial issues like environmental justice (Dowie, 2001). In the case of China, international organisations and foundations have, in recent years, played a rather prominent role as major funders for environmental NGOs. As mentioned earlier, many GO-NGOs were established with the explicit purpose of receiving funding from international organisations and foundations. Some civic NGOs have also been the beneficiaries of such international funding. 21 Yet international foundations, not unlike philanthropic foundations in the US, are usually reluctant to fund Chinese environmental NGOs that may potentially create political controversies. 22 Furthermore, most international funding has gone directly to government agencies and NGOs were receiving only a tiny portion of total funding. According to a research conducted by WWF China on internationally funded projects between on clean transportation, energy efficiency, renewable energy and climate change, central government agencies received US$ million, while local governments, GO-NGOs and civic NGOs received US$ million, US$5.9 million, and US$3.33 million respectively (Zhang et al., 2003). Despite the relatively small amounts of funding that went to NGOs, international funding did play an important role in the emergence and development of Chinese environmental NGOs. On the one hand, since only NGOs were eligible for receiving funding from certain international programmes, some environmental NGOs were established as a result of this requirement. On the other hand, international funding constituted the majority of donations to some Chinese civic environmental NGOs. The first donation to Greenearth, for example, was from the Virtual Foundation of the United States (Jin, 2001b). Another example is Farmer s Biodiversity Protection Association of Gaoligong Mountain in Yunnan Province. It was initiated by a researcher who conducted a research project Forestry Resource Management and Biodiversity Protection in Gaoligong Mountain funded by the MacArthur Foundation (Kang, 2002). In our interview results, NGOs that are supported primarily by personal funds are more likely to report financial difficulties. Among 11 NGOs for which international funding constitutes the primary financial resource, only three reported financial difficulties. On the contrary, among 17 NGOs for which personal or business funding constitutes primary financial resource, 13 reported financial difficulties. This is especially true for those non-beijing based NGOs that lack effective channels to international funding. Among 10 Beijing NGOs, only one reported that financial difficulties, in contrast to 15 non-beijing NGOs reporting financial difficulties. Thus, it is not a surprise that international funding has played a significant role in stimulating the emergence of China s civic environmental NGOs.

13 436 S.-Y. Tang & X. Zhan Third, helping pollution victims is yet to be a major focus of most civic environmental NGOs in China. In other countries, many civic environmental NGOs are established in response to victims of environmental degradation who sought to redress their grievances or seek compensation by collective means. This factor, for example, has been key to the development of environmental NGOs in Taiwan and South Korea in the past two decades (Tang and Tang, 1997; Kim, 2000; Lim and Tang, 2002; Tong, 2005). Environmental NGOs in these two countries, as well as those in several Eastern European countries during the 1980s, have also played a role in challenging authoritarianism and in promoting political liberalisation and democratisation (Hicks, 1996). In China, the majority of civic environmental NGOs have environmental education as their key mission. In the last several years, some have begun to move beyond a narrow educational focus to policy advocacy and to helping pollution victims. 23 As mentioned earlier, 10 of the 28 civic NGOs in our sample were reported to have been involved in helping environmental victims. Four of them reported helping pollution victims as their primary mission. One example is the Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, affiliated with the China University of Political Science and Law, which specialises in providing legal services to pollutant victims, mainly peasants, in western and central provinces. Funded by the Ford Foundation, it provides an environmental hotline, free legal consultation and, sometimes, legal fees to victims, helping them seek compensation. Another example is the Huai River Guarders, which works at the local level and focuses on providing information, legal and medical assistance to poor farmers harmed by industrial pollution. In both cases, their activities are limited to working within the legal system, not involving political means like collective protests. 24 Most recently, spontaneous protests were reported to have emerged against environmental disasters in Guangdong, Heilongjiang and other provinces. Yet no civic environmental NGOs were reported to have been involved in supporting these protests, confirming their unwillingness to engage in politically risky activities. Fourth, no well-established institutional framework is yet in place in China for NGOs to participate in the policy process and most civic environmental NGOs are yet to form stable partnerships with government authorities. In many advanced, industrialised countries, government entities work closely with environmental NGOs in designing and implementing conservation and service delivery programmes. In the United States, for example, federal and state agencies may work with environmental NGOs to develop environmental conservation plans and the agencies may also provide them with grants and contracts to implement those plans (Press, 2002; Thomas, 2003). In China, although four non-beijing NGOs reported that they have received a very limited amount of governmental funding, no civic environmental NGO in our sample has governmental funding as their major financial source. Yet government agencies may occasionally involve environmental NGOs in carrying out environmental education campaigns and policy implementation. For instance, the Global Village, a civic environmental NGO, worked with the EPB in Beijing and edited many environmental education pamphlets targeting children and community residents. Civic NGOs may also have expertise that government agencies lack. Since 2001, the National Judges College, a top state-owned school for training judges, has initiated a programme to provide training in environmental law to local judges.

14 Civic Environmental NGOs in China 437 The programme is conducted by an NGO the Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims at the China University of Political Science and Law. 25 It was not until most recently that public participation was recognised as an integral part of China s legal system. In 2000, for example, the National People s Congress passed the Legislation Law, which specifies public hearings and other consultative mechanisms as an integral part of the lawmaking process (Paler, 2005). In the recently revised environmental impact assessment (EIA) law, implemented since the September 2003, there is a formal requirement for public participation in the EIA process. These new requirements may trigger more demand for environmental NGOs to help in the process as NGOs tend to have better grassroots contacts than government agencies. Nonetheless, most government officials, especially those at the local level, have limited knowledge about NGO s role and function in modern society (Zhu, 2006). The Western style of public participation, contracting-out, and public-private partnership is not yet common in China s NGO sector. When civic environmental NGOs focus on environmental education or other less politically sensitive activities, local governments may be apathetic, tolerant or even supportive. Yet when civic environmental NGOs raise issues with polluting enterprises some owned by government authorities or indirectly owned by local officials who are major contributors to local economic development and tax revenues, the relationship between the NGO sector and the government can become tense. For example, an official of a non-beijing civic NGO recounted how local officials began to feel uncomfortable with her work once she began environmental monitoring work and sent her reports directly to the mayor:... they (the local EPB officials) were very angry and complained that I forgot about their support in previous years. They subsequently withdrew their support of my organisation, saying that I should fear them and should not criticise them. 26 Afterwards, she experienced great difficulties when trying to obtain registration permission from the local EPB for her NGO. Due to political constraints, NGO leaders need to avoid oppositional methods when trying to influence public policy. A limited number of them reported that they had started to use legislative tools, such as attending public hearings, to promote their policy position. Although formal channels for NGOs to shape environmental policies and decisions have remained limited, some of our interviewees indicated that they were able to influence government policies through informal channels. As mentioned earlier, 11 out of the 28 civic environmental NGOs in our sample reported to have former or current government officials or representatives in their leadership and, these connections allowed them to have some influence on the policy process. One of our interviewees indicated that about five per cent of her NGO s members are governmental officials and, thus, they have great policy access to local and provincial governmental agencies. 27 Another interviewee indicated that even though some governmental officials did not join his NGO, they expressed their sympathy and support to his NGO. 28 Similar experiences have also been reported by several other civic NGO officials.

15 438 S.-Y. Tang & X. Zhan Overall, civic environmental NGOs in China have evolved rather differently from those in many other countries. Primarily initiated and run by a few dedicated individuals, China s civic environmental NGOs generally lack widespread societal support. Without substantial support from the public, many NGOs have chosen to seek various resources from international and government sources, while paying relatively little attention to helping pollution victims. To some extent, this exemplifies what Kang (2006) called the rootless status of NGOs in China. In addition, political constraints have severely limited the extent to which civic environmental NGOs can challenge established political authority and, as a result, the vast majority of their leaders have chosen a non-oppositional stance vis-a` -vis the government, while trying to influence policy mostly through limited numbers of formal and informal channels. This non-oppositional stance has helped civic environmental NGOs to survive and grow but, at the same time, it has also limited their role in fostering a more open and inclusive political process in China. V. Environmental NGOs, Civil Society and Democratisation As mentioned in an earlier part of this article, Diamond (1999) identified six types of activities in which citizens act collectively in civil society:. to express their interests, passions and ideas;. to exchange information;. to achieve collective goals;. to make demands on the state;. to improve the structure and functioning of the state;. to hold state officials accountable (Diamond, 1999: 221). As far as Chinese civic environmental NGOs are concerned, they have clearly been engaged in the first three types of activities. Yet many of them have yet to be engaged systematically in the last three. This contrasts with their counterparts in many advanced, industrialised countries where environmental NGOs play an active role in demanding more government resources and action in environmental protection, in participating in environmental policy making and, in monitoring enforcement efforts of environmental agencies. Furthermore, in contrast to their counterparts in Taiwan, Korea and some former socialist countries in Eastern Europe, civic environmental NGOs in China have not played a role in directly challenging authoritarianism. From this perspective, the Chinese civil society, as exemplified by its civic environmental NGOs, has so far played a limited role in fostering a more open and inclusive democratic process because these civil society organisations are mostly engaged in expressing interests, sharing information, and achieving collective goals (Diamond, 1999: 221). This, in itself, is quite an achievement if compared with the pre-reform era when any autonomous social organisations would either be suppressed or put under strict supervision of the party-state. The fact that government officials are allowing the emergence of civic environmental NGOs and other civil society organizations, underscores their diminished capacity to control the whole society and their recognition of the limitation of the party-state and that some collective activities in the public sphere ought to be organised independently of it. It

16 Civic Environmental NGOs in China 439 is possible that as political and government reform progresses further in the future, more space will be opened up for civic environmental NGOs to be a more effective advocate of environmental concerns and a more equal partner with government entities in environmental conservation projects. There have been signs in the past few years that the Chinese civil society has taken steps to move beyond a purely non-oppositional stance as a few civic environmental NGOs have attempted to engage in some degree of policy advocacy, by exposing the lack of enforcement of environmental laws by government authorities, especially in areas outside Beijing. 29 It is, however, still uncertain as to the extent in which civic environmental NGOs can become a reliable and recognised force to make demand on the state, to improve the structure and functioning of the state, and to hold state officials accountable (Diamond, 1999: 221). In this regard, there are several factors to consider. One relates to the party-state s limited tolerance of whatever they consider as political dissidents and their willingness to crack down on them when necessary. As we learned from our interviews with environmental NGO officials, they are almost unanimous in stating that they are not in a position to oppose government and their organisations would have no future if they attempted to do so. For them, the only way to achieve their organisational goals is to work in collaboration with governments. 30 Two NGO leaders, for example, were invited by Beijing s government to join some special committees of the Beijing Olympics. Despite these clearly perceived political constraints on their activities, many civic NGOs appear to have played a role in some policy-making arenas. In December 2003, Pan Yue, Vice Minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration of China, indicated in an NGO conference that it is necessary to build up the mechanism of public participation in environmental protection, and environmental NGOs should play a more active role in environmental affairs (Lin and Qi, 2003). Such official statements have been supported by changes in formal legislation for example, the new environmental impact assessment law, which requires public hearings as part of the EIA process. More opportunities now exist for environmental NGOs to participate in environmental decision making. In early 2004, it was reported that two of the civic environmental NGOs in this study had played an active role in opposing the Nujiang Dam Project in Yunnan Province (Cao and Zhang, 2004). The opposition was later supported by Premier Wen Jiabao, who intervened to put the project on hold. In early 2005, the SEPA announced an official ban on 30 big development projects that had not passed the environmental impact assessment requirement and this intervention was immediately supported by a collective statement issued by 56 civic environmental NGOs, which was considered by many observers to be unprecedented in China. 31 These examples provide hopeful signs that room may exist for environmental NGOs to increase their influence in policy making and to build alliances with government entities. Yet, as warned by Dryzek (1996), a civil society that is completely co-opted within the formal governing institutions and is dictated by the state imperative may not be conducive to the development of an open and inclusive democratic process. Thus, it remains to be seen whether (and how) the role of civic environmental NGOs will evolve as a force for democratisation in China. In addition to political constraints, Chinese civic environmental NGOs have also been limited by resource constraints. Most civic NGOs have limited numbers of