Earlier in March, Chinese lawmakers passed the first-ever Charity Law in the country. (Photo : Getty Images)
In a draft regulation released Friday, China is eyeing to revoke charity groups' qualification to hold public fundraisings should the organizations' membership include many foreign board members--over one-third, to be exact.
The draft was issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs to solicit opinions from the masses.
According to a Global Times report, the draft "includes nine conditions charity organizations must meet to carry out fundraising in China.
One of the mainly disputed conditions in the document was the aforementioned limit on the number of board members who hail from outside the Chinese mainland.
The condition also states that the legal representative of the charitable group must be mainland citizen.
In an interview with Global Times, China Charity and Donation Information Center deputy head Liu Youping said that he "holds reservations about the regulation."
Liu noted that the new restriction will not be effective in curtailing foreign powers on charity groups. This comes after he remarked that in previous years, the usual situation is that many foreign charity institutions that failed to obey Chinese regulations receive funding from outside the mainland, the article cited.
"China has already become such a great country in the world that the government should not welcome foreign assistance while at the same time limiting foreign people and groups from raising donations in China," he further enthused.
Liu also stressed out that foreign forces can in fact control charity organizations if one-third of its council members are from regions beyond the mainland.
"Some charity organizations might become troublemakers if foreign, anti-Chinese government parties gain a dominant position in them," he said.
Meanwhile, assistant dean Zhang Gaorong of Beijing Normal University's China Philanthropy Research Institute emphasized that the draft regulation "does not contradict China's existing Foreign NGO Management Law" as numerous charity groups are also NGOs.
The said law states that foreign NGOs are barred from raising donations in the country.
Earlier in March, China has approved a new philanthropy law stating the registration process for charity organizations. It also gave approved groups more liberty to run operations in the mainland.
According to State-run Xinhua News Agency, the law will take effect starting Sept. 1.
