China's emerging civil society
2003
Y. Zhang
The essay examines the historical evolution of NGOs and proliferation of NGOs in today’s China. It analyses the complexity of the NGO-government relationship, and tentatively predicts the direction of Chinese civil society’s future development.The paper demonstrates that China’s drive toward economic reform and modernisation in the past 25 years has created new opportunities for citizen participation and that the Chinese people are seeking ways to organise their own institutions to respond to social needs and convey grievances and concerns in a way which influences the policy-making process. It argues that one of the significant developments of Chinese society in the past two decades is the emergence of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).The paper supports the widely accepted notion that a country’s progression toward a more open, pluralistic and competitive political system is dependent on whether the country allows a civil society to emerge. While the concept of civil society is an abstract notion covering a wide variety of social dynamics, the crucial measure of its presence in any nation is the ability of NGOs to progress and develop. At this point, China is experiencing these sorts of dynamic social changes, indicating that civil society is indeed emerging.[Adapted from the author]
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