This article examines the history and present state of environmental NGOs in China. It will provide an overview of the different forms of environmental activism in China, how environmental NGOs have created a public space for their activities, and how they have built partnerships with different local, national, and international entities.

Dr. Jennifer L. Turner has coordinated the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC since 1999. She is also the editor for the Center’s China Environment Series journal. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Author’s Note: The author would like to thank the countless environmental activists, researchers, and government officials in China and the United States who have shared their information with her in interviews, presentations, and articles they have written for the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Series. She also would like to express gratitude to her assistant Tim Hildebrandt for his valuable input that helped sharpen this article.

While two decades of market reforms have stimulated China's economic growth and created wealthy cities on the east coast, the dismantling of welfare structures and state subsidies has caused many interior areas to fall into poverty. Farmers who initially benefited from the reforms in the agricultural sector are now financially burdened as costs of fertilizer, pesticides, and seeds increase and local governments impose excessive fees and taxes. Unbridled economic growth has also created severe pollution and natural resource degradation.

The Chinese leadership is optimistic that an even greater opening of China's economy (e.g., entry into the World Trade Organization) and the development of new social safety nets will enable those who today languish in poverty to eventually catch up. Concerned about its limited capacity to address growing poverty, environmental degradation, and a broad range of social ills, in the 1990s the Chinese government began to create political space for citizen involvement in solving problems arising from rapid economic growth. This strategy to give more power to the public is embodied in the slogan “small government, big society” (xiao zhengfu, da shehui).

While some China watchers may regard this slogan as superficial propaganda or simply an example of the Chinese government sloughing off its responsibilities onto a society lacking organizing capacity and resources, this call to tap citizen power has sparked a striking growth in social activism and volunteerism. The door for such activities opened formally in 1989 when the government passed regulations allowing for the registration of independent social organizations. 1  The Chinese government’s increasing openness to international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working with Chinese citizen groups, academics, and activists also has fueled the growth of indigenous social organizations.

Over the past decade, Chinese citizens have registered organizations to provide services to women, children, the elderly, rural poor, and individuals with HIV/AIDS. 2  Registration of Chinese NGOs and informal volunteerism has been most active in the area of environmental protection. 3  Grassroots groups have found that promoting environmental education, undertaking conservation projects, and monitoring local environmental policies are safe spheres for activism. Despite somewhat constraining government rules for operation and little organization management experience, many Chinese environmental groups have learned quickly to expand their activities and strengthen their capacity through partnerships with domestic and international organizations.

Openness to “green activism” stems from the Chinese government’s realization that without help it cannot halt the country’s environmental problems, which ultimately could threaten economic growth (see Box 1). The World Bank validated this fear in 1997 when it estimated that environmental clean up and human and ecological health problems from pollution were costing China eight percent of its annual GDP. 4 

Big Government—Struggles to Protect the Environment from the Top Down

Beginning in 1979 and throughout the following decade, the Chinese central government promulgated an extensive array of environmental protection laws. Most of these laws mandated pollution controls for end-of-the-pipe treatment (e.g., filters to partially clean waste emissions into the air or treatment of wastewater before emitting into rivers and lakes). China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and local environmental protection bureaus (EPBs) responded by setting air and water pollution emission standards and pollution fees. Enforcement, however, has proved difficult. Because local governments view such standards and fees as obstacles to economic growth, EPBs have been given little clout. This local protectionism allows industries that violate pollution laws to avoid penalties. Bureaucratic infighting among environmental, water, agricultural, and urban construction agencies at all levels has also impeded the effective implementation of many pollution control and natural resource protection laws. 5 

Besides intergovernmental wrangling, another key weakness in enforcement stems from the lack of true public participation in these environmental laws. While the 1979 Environmental Protection Act grants every citizen the right to make formal complaints about environmental damages, few pollution victims using this act to sue for damage to their health or economic livelihoods have succeeded in court. Courts are hampered in these cases not only because of local protectionist pressures, but also because they lack standard guidelines on evidence collection, rights of pollution victims, and assessment of causality and damages in pollution cases.

A lack of effective access and voice in the courts—combined with weak formal mechanisms for environmental conflict resolution—has caused some citizens to resort to strikes, riots, and protests to express discontent over environmental problems and water shortages. Water disputes between villages and provinces in China have a long history, but rapid economic growth in the reform era, combined with the lack of a clear water rights regime, 6  has begun to turn long-standing simmering disputes into violent conflicts. For example, beginning as far back as the 1950s a series of water conflicts has plagued villages along the Zhang River, which is in the Hai River Basin and flows between Hebei and Henan provinces. Though the river’s flow was plentiful in the past, the central government’s plan to divert water to arid areas as part of the Great Leap Forward plan soon restricted the water use of neighboring villages. As each village attempted to secure enough water for their own needs before the diversion, friendly relations soon soured. In the early days of the conflict, villagers engaged in near-guerilla warfare, using explosives to destroy water diversions that were perceived as being illegal water grabs by the opposing village. The conflict went dormant for some time but exploded again in the 1990s as each village’s industrial and agricultural activities expanded. In 1991 villages mortared each other and in 1992 both sides sabotaged water diversion canals. In the mid-1990s, anger over perceived water stealing led to mass clashes that caused many injures. By the end of the decade, the explosions and attacks had injured nearly 100 villagers. 7  After years of neglecting the conflict, the severe clashes in the late 1990s caused the Ministry of Water Resources and Hai River Basin Commission to create a special management organization to oversee the Zhang River, which has helped to resolve some of the previous conflicts.

While water shortage causes considerable conflicts in China's dry north, throughout China water pollution is increasingly the primary cause of illegal protests and clashes over water. In China, the city of Chengde (Jiangsu province), a center of China's textile industry, became the site of a major clash in the mid-1990s when factories in the city discharged an estimated 90 million tons of wastewater into rivers flowing south into Zhejiang province. This pollution caused serious damage to the aquaculture and irrigation farming in villages just across the border. Since provinces in China are of equal political standing and lack effective mechanisms to mediate such conflicts, it is not surprising that after years of failing to pressure their provincial government to act and force Chengde to halt the pollution, the affected villagers in Zhejiang took the situation into their own hands. Locals spent nearly 120,000 USD to buy a tractor to fill boats with boulders, which were then used to create a dam in the river at the border. This highly illegal action led the central government to step in and force the parties to mediate and solve the problem by mandating removal of the dam and implementing more stringent pollution controls on textile factories.

Such illegal and sometimes violent actions prove that Chinese citizens are far from passive bystanders to environmental problems in their country. These protests, as well as opinion polls showing a growing concern regarding environmental degradation, are sobering to the Chinese government, which has opted to placate citizen dissatisfaction by cracking down on polluters, increasing investment in the environment, and opening up opportunities for green activism.

Bigger Society—New Laws and Space for Bottom Up Activism

By the mid-1990s, the Chinese leadership became aware that despite significant achievements in the protection of natural resources and a decrease in some pollution (particularly urban air pollution), overall environmental quality was worsening in many parts of China and sparking more conflicts. To combat these trends, Chinese decision-makers began a new wave of green lawmaking to improve the enforcement of earlier laws and started to experiment with pollution prevention and free market mechanisms to control pollution. To strengthen the poorly enforced environmental laws and under-funded environmental protection bureaus, the Chinese leadership also committed itself to ever-larger investments in pollution prevention and ecological reconstruction projects. The Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) is notably the greenest yet in terms of targets for wastewater facility installation, nature reserve and watershed protection, and clean energy production. “Green” was the theme that helped Beijing win the 2008 Olympic bid—the city has promised to invest heavily to clean up the environment in preparation for the games. The Chinese government also has continued to encourage international assistance for environmental problems.

Since the early 1990s, environmental projects funded by multilateral banks and bilateral aid have grown considerably—with Japan as the largest bilateral donor to China's environmental sector. Between 1993 and 1998 Japan gave nearly $353 million to set up 30 projects in China to demonstrate clean production and energy efficiency technologies. 8  China is the World Bank’s largest recipient of environmental reconstruction and pollution prevention project loans. In addition to international bank lending and bilateral assistance, the Chinese government has also permitted a growing number of international environmental NGOs to undertake projects and give policy advice to the Chinese government.

Besides greater domestic and international investments and new policy experiments, the Chinese government has also shown an increased willingness to permit some public consultation on the drafting of environmental laws. Admittedly, the “public” commentary on environmental laws often consists of academic experts, but it represents a significant step towards greater policymaking transparency.

One new law that could help institutionalize public comment in environmental decision-making is the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Law. The law requires assessments for construction projects, and also subjects local and central government planning activities to environmental evaluations and public comment. 9  While still untested, this stronger EIA legislation could help empower environmental activists in cases where local government development projects are particularly harmful to the environment.

2003 also heralded the passage of a progressive law that could open up opportunities for green group monitoring of industries. The Cleaner Production Law aims to provide incentives for industry to lessen pollution emissions by demonstrating that clean production technologies can lower manufacturing costs in the long run. Changing how industries are regulated represents an important step towards infusing businesses with a sense of environmental and social responsibility—traits notably lacking in most government-protected industries today. The first step in implementation has been to set up pollution prevention demonstration projects in ten cities, three river basins, three lakes, and five industrial sectors. These well-publicized pilot projects are meant to be models to spread the clean production concept nationwide. 10  Some international assistance related to these pilot projects is helping NGO, business, and government sectors form partnerships to promote cleaner production. 11 

China's strengthened environmental legal regime and increased openness to new partners and strategies to remedy the country’s pollution problems have set the stage for “big(ger) society” involvement in the environmental sphere. Certainly the Chinese government is not going to give domestic NGOs and volunteer groups carte blanche—for many in the government the Falun Gong movement underscored the danger of giving too much space for social organization. However, the Chinese leadership knows that the government alone, particularly using command and control strategies, cannot solve the country’s complex environmental problems. Thus the government has given considerable leeway to Chinese environmental activists, who have already established the foundation for a bigger “green” civil society.

New Partnerships to Solve Environmental Problems

As early as the 1980s, the Chinese government was active in promoting citizen education and involvement in environmental issues—ranging from orchestrated news media campaigns to mass tree plantings. While such activities may educate, they do not necessarily empower citizens to build strong social organizations to protect the environment. Ultimately environmental activism (the “big green society”) cannot be created from the top-down. More effective in the long run is the environmental activism emerging from citizens who are using their new-found rights to organize.

In the mid-1990s, Chinese environmental NGOs were the first to register after Beijing passed legislation granting legal status to citizen-organized social groups. Individuals wishing to create NGOs were spurred to action not only by the severe pollution problems, but also by the growing presence of international environmental NGOs in China . Moreover, environmental activities at universities, research centers, and government-organized NGOs (GONGOs) in partnership with international groups also signaled to aspiring NGO activists that work in this area was acceptable.

The exact numbers of environmental NGOs and volunteer groups in China are unknown, for many groups are not formally registered. Approximately 60 environmental groups are registered with the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs and countless others are registered with local civil affairs bureaus or other government offices. Since the registration process can often take years, hundreds of other environmental activists are doing work registered as nonprofit corporations, which means they must pay taxes and undergo yearly audits. Other environmentalists undertake their green work within professional associations and universities. A significant number of informal (e.g., unregistered) green activism is taking place within Internet-based groups, nature clubs, and small informal volunteer or community groups. 12  Some activists opt to join (and learn from) international environmental NGOs operating in China .

Another outlet for green activism has been university campuses, where student environmental organizations have exploded in number—from 22 at the end of 1997 to 184 today, located at 176 universities in 26 provinces. Many of these groups do environmental education, waste reduction, and pollution monitoring work both on and off campus. These energetic, but often poorly organized, university organizations benefit from several green student networks, which help disseminate information and ideas on effective green activities and management and fundraising strategies. 13  As they have grown in number, some student green groups are receiving assistance from international organizations and the Chinese government. Although the projects of many Chinese university groups are small in scale, they are helping to cultivate a growing pool of environmental activists and are potentially “greening” future business and government leaders. GONGOs also represent a potential source of independent environmental activism. In the 1980s, many central and provincial government agencies created their own environmental GONGOs, which have enjoyed considerable government funding. Most GONGOs have been involved in environmental and energy efficiency research and policy development activities. Sometimes government agencies “hire” their own GONGOs to perform environmental research projects, the results of which are often highly regarded. One of the most influential energy GONGOs in China is the Beijing Energy Efficiency Center (BECon), which was created in 1993 under the Resource Institute of the State Development Planning Commission and the U.S. Pacific Northwest laboratory. BECon’s extensive work on energy efficiency product certification standards have been adopted by the Chinese government, and their studies of possible energy scenarios for China have influenced energy efficiency targets and projects in the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2000-2005). However, over the next five years most of this government financial support will be cut. Many environmental GONGOS losing government funding will not survive, but those that do will become true, independent NGOs benefiting from strong government connections. 14  

Chinese NGOs On-The-Ground

Most Chinese green NGOs conduct environmental education projects, which are providing a valuable service in raising citizen awareness of environmental problems and are promoting resource conservation and pollution reduction messages. Some NGOs go a step beyond the politically safe roles of environmental education and information dissemination by: (1) acting as watchdogs of local government policy implementation, (2) helping pollution victims, (3) conducting environmental policy research, and (4) involving communities and volunteers in on-the-ground conservation and sustainable development projects.

Since its inception in 1998, the Center for Legal Protection for Pollution Victims (CLAPV) has organized 54 volunteer legal experts, scholars, lawyers, and environmental managers to help conduct research. The experts give free legal advice to pollution victims to strengthen their cases and better navigate the confusing legal system. The center runs a pro bono legal advisor telephone hot line, which between November 1999 and January 2001 received 1,820 calls requesting legal assistance in pollution cases. The center helps poorer plaintiffs file lawsuits by covering part of the prohibitively high court costs through no-interest loans. CLAPV volunteers also have partnered with international organizations to carry out lawyer training and public awareness building activities.

While most Chinese NGOs focus their efforts in urban areas, some very progressive groups are promoting environmental education, research and activism in more remote rural regions. For example, GreenRiver, founded by a nature photographer in 1994, has constructed two ecological monitoring stations in the headwaters of the Yangtze River . The stations, which are run by volunteers from the local Tibetan communities and university students from around China, collect baseline data on the ecological health of the headwater region to make recommendations to the Chinese government on designing better protection plans for the basin. In order to help protect the endangered Tibetan antelope, GreenRiver volunteers help local governments in developing anti-poaching patrols.

With the support of nearly 8,000 members, Friends of Earth Guizhou (FOE Guizhou) (not part of the international FOE network) has been active in environmental education activities in one of China's poorest provinces since 1997. Besides publishing environmental education textbooks and running lectures for elementary schools and colleges, FOE Guizhou helped the Guizhou Provincial government create an ecological education center and design ecotourism plans for the Cao Hai Nature Reserve.

Chinese NGO Partnerships with Businesses

Generally, collaboration between Chinese NGOs and businesses usually only occurs within bilateral or international NGO initiatives. Although few in number, such NGO-business collaborations are groundbreaking in that they build the capacity of Chinese NGOs to help businesses improve manufacturing processes and strengthen business practices and standards. Chinese NGOs can play a crucial role in building better communication between businesses and local communities. Businesses thus benefit from improved production processes and better relations with local communities. These international initiatives also are building cooperation between the government, NGOs, and industries in China, which should help to increase the acceptance of NGOs in China's environmental sector. For example, after it was selected as one of the government’s “green ambassadors” to prepare Beijing for the bid for the 2008 “Green” Olympics, Friends of Nature, China's first environmental NGO, began working with hotels in Beijing to design a green hotel certification system.

One particularly notable NGO working with industry is the Institute for Environment and Development (IED), a Chinese NGO registered in 1994. IED aims to help raise public awareness of environment and development issues through public education, information dissemination, research, and community involvement in sustainable development projects. With its strong network of environmental experts and experience in community education initiatives, IED was the natural choice for the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) project, which is aimed at improving production processes within small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Liaoning and Sichuan provinces. In 2003, IED acted as a liaison to help SMEs understand the concept of corporate responsibility and to help the DFID consultants and the SME managers to develop plans for industry communication with local communities. In 2004, with DFID support, IED is also setting up roundtable meetings with Chinese industries to introduce the concept of corporate social responsibility and to demonstrate the potential role industries have in protecting the environment in their communities.

Another innovative approach to put banking and investment businesses to work promoting sustainable development has been a biogas project by the Beijing-based NGO South-North Institute for Sustainable Development (SNISD). Since the mid-1990s, SNISD has been very active in undertaking energy projects in rural areas that promote multi-stakeholder involvement. In 2000, SNISD and The Nature Conservancy helped farmers within the Baima Snow Mountain Nature Reserve (Yunnan province) construct small-scale biogas generating systems to provide energy for daily use and for a winter greenhouse. As a result, the families greatly reduced their consumption of natural firewood and are now able to grow profitable greenhouse vegetables to supplement the family income. SNISD encouraged local governments to push local banks to provide loans to help the farmers finance the installation of the biogas systems. This was the first time a local Chinese bank lent money to an NGO-sponsored energy project. Notably, the farmers have been prompt in repaying their debt.

Partnerships with the Chinese News Media

While the Chinese news media has been a tool for the government to educate the public, some journalists and broadcasters in China are becoming a force for raising environmental awareness and empowering environmental NGOs. Since the National People’s Congress launched a massive news media campaign in 1990 to raise environmental consciousness, environmental reporters have enjoyed more freedom in pursuing their stories than reporters on other beats. 15  Many TV stations have regular environmental educational programs. A growing number of radio programs have environmental hotline call-in shows and programs that do exposés of local government pollution violations. Support from Beijing often enables environmental journalists to obtain cooperation from local authorities in doing their investigative work. Nevertheless, while environmental journalists can report on local environmental problems and criticize local authorities, they do tend to avoid targeting national-level agencies and policy.

Journalists are always seeking good stories, and Chinese NGOs are learning to pitch stories to the news media. One of the earliest big stories was when Friends of Nature helped the nature photographer Xi Zhinong get out his story on local government deforestation that was threatening the golden faced monkey in Deqing county in southwest China . First, Friends of Nature introduced Xi Zhinong to Tang Xiyang, a prominent conservation writer in China, who wrote a letter to the State Council arguing for the protection of the monkeys. Friends of Nature then helped publicize the letter by sharing it with national newspapers. The publicity helped motivate top-level officials to mandate Deqing county to halt logging, and be compensated for loss in timber revenues by central government subsidies. Chinese environmental activists inform journalists of local government pollution violations such as local golf course development that threaten groundwater resources and illegal or potentially damaging dam building. These stories often have been published in newspapers and have helped to stimulate open, public debate (see Box 2).

Similar to U.S. environmental news media in the 1960s, such journalists in China often have activist leanings. In some major cities journalists have created networks or salons to help each other improve their environmental reporting. Some journalists have set up their own environmental groups and, conversely, some NGOs have created television and radio programming to disseminate their green information. One national public radio broadcaster has created environmental call-in shows, in which citizens can report on poor pollution control by their local governments or factories. This broadcaster will often go out and investigate the problems “60-minutes style,” a popular method that has sparked government responsiveness to some of her stories. After this broadcaster investigated and reported on one tip-off from a caller that some developers in Hangzhou city (Zhejiang province) wanted to fill in small lakes—a development which would have damaged the ecosystem of the nearby West Lake, a famous national landmark. Provincial officials were compelled to stop the project. Another radio program that led to better regulation of water pollution was a report on the problem of cruise ships along the Yangtze River that tossed Styrofoam lunch boxes into the river. Boat owners were subsequently monitored more carefully on their waste disposal practices. 16 

Despite their small numbers, Chinese environmental NGOs—both formal and informal—have been an inspiration for other kinds of civil society groups. Not only were they the first to emerge, but they also have been creative in expanding their activities and capacity through partnerships with domestic and international groups.

By partnering with international NGOs, local governments, research centers, businesses, and communities to carry out environmental projects, Chinese green groups are helping to promote new kinds of policy cooperation in China . China's “stove-pipe” political structure has often hindered cooperation across government agencies and jurisdictions, but Chinese NGOs (often working with international organizations) have succeeded in promoting more “horizontal” cooperation and citizen involvement in environmental protection initiatives.

The next section provides an overview of partnerships involving international organizations and Chinese NGOs that are helping to increase transparency in environmental lawmaking, to create opportunities for public participation, and to empower citizens vis-à-vis polluters.

Partnerships Sparked by Multilateral and Bilateral Assistance

Multilateral and bilateral assistance has been one of the catalysts for the promotion of government-civil society partnerships, thereby strengthening the capacity of citizens or Chinese NGOs to become better advocates for the environment. The World Bank, the Canadian Civil Society Program, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been particularly active in including public participation or civil society components in their projects.

World Bank — loans and grants for environmental protection projects all require public comment components, which give citizens an opportunity to formally evaluate projects or regulation plans. Enabling public comment on projects and policies increases citizen participation in shaping environmental regulations and helps them learn how to assert their rights. In the area of public right-to-know, beginning in 1998 the World Bank and SEPA began a joint industrial pollution public disclosure project in Zhenjiang and Hohot in Inner Mongolia . Since the completion of these first pilot projects in 2000, SEPA has been carrying out trial color-coding systems that rate an industries emissions from mild to serious in 15 cities in Jiangsu province to increase citizen access to information concerning local factory emissions. 17 

The Canadian Civil Society Program —a joint project between the Canada International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDA) and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation—supports projects and workshops on civil society development in China, particularly in the area of the environment. Another CIDA initiative is helping the Chinese government and industries to create and study demonstration projects for the Cleaner Production Law. CIDA and SEPA have jointly set up a bilingual website to inform Chinese government, businesses, and communities about these innovative pollution prevention projects. 18  This website creates greater transparency for an important new environmental law—such transparency will be crucial for enabling citizens and NGOs to monitor and critique government and industry performance on pollution control measures.

Another initiative with international assistance that has increased transparency and given citizens and NGOs an opportunity to monitor government performance has been the development of an air quality monitoring network. In the 1990s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency helped China's State Environmental Protection Administration create a nationwide air quality monitoring network in nearly 100 urban areas. The project improved China's ability to develop and implement air quality policies, and also required the Chinese cities using the network to keep citizens informed by issuing daily air quality reports. Previously, this data was deemed a state secret.

Partnerships with International Environmental Organizations

Over the past 18 years, international environmental and energy NGOs have steadily expanded their activities and commitments in China . In the mid-1980s, the Ford Foundation and WWF were the first two international organizations to set up offices in China to initiate environmental and community development projects. A wave of international environmental NGOs in the 1990s stemmed from a belated recognition that pollution and natural resource degradation in China would severely impact the global environment. Unlike multi- and bilateral aid organizations, which have significantly increased their environmental assistance to China over the past 20 years and work through the central government, most international NGOs have not brought in large investments and grants. International environmental NGOs have done some policy work with central officials, but most have emphasized local-level projects to improve environmental policy implementation.

While the international environmental NGO projects are small in comparison to multilateral initiatives, these green groups are playing a unique role in introducing new policy implementation and formulation dynamics in China . Specifically, in the process of setting up and implementing their projects, these NGOs have been building networks that bring together (often for the first time) central, provincial, and local government agencies, research centers, and Chinese civil society organizations. In short, international NGOs have created new lines of communication among the governmental and nongovernmental sectors in China, which is helping to create greater government transparency. A sampling of particularly effective international environmental NGOs in China includes Oxfam America, American Bar Association, and World Resources Institute.

Oxfam America created their East Asia Regional Program, which focuses on the Mekong Region with an overarching emphasis on securing residents’ right to water, their access to sustainable livelihoods, and participatory decision-making processes around development projects. In China, the program operating in Yunnan province has helped local governments and communities to develop participatory watershed management committees and create micro-financing initiatives to promote economic development alternatives to destroying forests and water resources. The program aims to strengthen civil society organizations and integrate them into government dialogue to ensure that key decision-makers adopt an integrated and inclusive approach to national poverty reduction strategies. One Chinese scholar working with this program ended up creating his own NGO — Green Watershed — which is now continuing the multi-stakeholder initiatives begun in this program.

The American Bar Association (ABA) began an environmental governance project in China in 2002, which led to the creation of workshops to train a broad range of stakeholders in medium-sized cities on various environmental legal issus. In Shen-yang the workshop’s participants critiqued the city EPB’s draft public participation law—the first law of its kind in China . The Shenyang government used the workshop’s input to revise and pass the law. 19  Besides the ABA, other international NGOs (e.g., Asia Foundation), universities (e.g., Yale Law School), and bilateral agencies (e.g., German Technical Cooperation) are promoting public participation in lawmaking and legal education initiatives. 20  Notably, legal assistance in the environmental sphere has not been as politically sensitive to Chinese officials as other areas of law.

Another ambitious international NGO project aimed at bringing together multiple stakeholders to solve China's problems has been a major sustainable transportation initiative by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute (WRI). In November 2003 WRI, Shell Foundation, and the Shanghai Municipal People’s movernment signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create the Shanghai Sustainable Transport Partnership. This new initiative aims to foster viable government-business-civil society partnerships to design and help oversee an urban transportation network that can increase mobility, reduce congest   ion, and improve air quality. 21  

The international foundation community is also playing a significant role in empowering and sometimes partnering with Chinese and international green NGOs. In the mid-1980s, Ford Foundation opened an office in Beijing and ushered in a wave of environmental grant-giving by other international foundations. Besides Ford, other big donors that give significant sums to environmental and energy projects in China include: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, W. Alton Jones Foundation (now Blue Moon Fund), Energy Foundation, and Mac-Arthur Foundation. China lacks a developed philanthropic community, thus most hinese and international NGOs doing green work in China depend on private international foundations for support, although some receive support from multilateral banks, bilateral aid agencies, and international corporations. Notably, the foundations and international donors giving grants to Chinese NGOs often act as partners in helping the NGOs to define and execute their projects.

Most major grant-givers fund registered and fairly well-established Chinese NGOs, while smaller group have often been overlooked. Global Greengrants Fund (GGF) and ECOLOGIA are distinctive in that they give small grants to grassroots environmental activists. Both focus support on student environmental activism, biodiversity conservation, and environmental rights issues. In 2003, GGF supported the establishment of the Xinjiang Conservation Fund, which facilitates the growth of the environmental movement in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. ECOLOGIA has been quite active in conducting training in project development for grassroots environmental groups in China . By creating training activities and websites featuring all these small grassroots groups, ECOLOGIA and GGF also are helping these groups network with each other. Better networking helps these groups to not only find partners for projects and information exchange, but also publicize their work to Chinese citizens.

This sampling of international environmental activities in China is not meant as an exhaustive list, but rather an illustration of how such projects are strengthening environmental laws and improving the capacity of civil society groups. 22 

Conclusion

While multilateral organizations, bilateral aid agencies, and international NGOs have brought funding, expertise, and sometimes even legitimacy to Chinese NGOs, this relationship has not just been a one-way street. Chinese NGOs (both registered and informal groups) are increasingly assisting international organizations to design appropriate projects and build trust with local communities and governments. These mutually beneficial partnerships are helping to improve China's environmental quality and create more opportunities for public participation.

Environmentalists in China are aware of the government’s concern about social activism, but by being non-confrontational they are maintaining their freedom to carry out a relatively broad range of activities. In an eloquent article on the development of Chinese civil society, Nick Young stressed that while their groups are still small in number and size “environmental activists have an important role of exploring the boundaries of advocacy in China.” 23 

Chinese environmental and other NGOs will surely face continued obstacles as they explore new types of activities in areas the Chinese central and local governments perceive as threatening. For example, since the Falun Gong movement, the Chinese government has been suspicious of nonprofit organizations forming networks or branch offices—the latter being illegal under the social organization registration law. In 2003 some Chinese charity organizations were forced to close what were viewed as illegal branch offices. One HIV-AIDS activist was arrested when he posted on-line reports that the Chinese government had given to the United Nations on the increasing high rates of HIV-AIDS infection in China . Throughout China some local governments have been hesitant to approve the registration of environmental NGOs for fear they will threaten local economic growth. However, when Chinese NGOs partner with international organizations, local research centers, or GONGOs they will find greater power to push into new areas of activism.

While government protectionism (of industries and power) has sparked some crackdowns on NGO activism, environmental NGOs have generally been given more leeway since pollution and natural resource degradation are seen as major threats to economic growth. Another major obstacle to all kinds of NGOs in China is the still challenging registration rules, which led many nonprofits to operate unregistered in a legal grey area—unable to open bank accounts or assert legal rights in court. Some activists are hopeful that the revisions being considered by the Ministry of Civil Affairs will make the registration system more accessible in the future.

The Chinese government cannot fix every environmental problem by itself, so environmental activists need to continue to carefully push the political boundaries and to build more cooperative networks with government agencies and international organizations in order to give the public an effective voice in environmental policymaking and to expand the space for a green civil society in China .

Endnotes

 1 These regulations were revised in 1998.

 2 Nick Young, “Searching for Civil Society,” 250 NGOs in China (Hong Kong : China Development Brief, 2001: 9-19).

 3 Many authors and environmental activists in China have noted how green groups have been on the forefront of nonprofit organization development. In Young’s “Searching for Civil Society” (see FN 2), which introduces an inventory of 250 registered NGOs in China, he notes how green NGOs were the first groups to pursue their legal right to register, becoming models for other groups. Because a vast majority of green groups are unregistered or have registered as for-profit businesses or are operating while waiting formal registration, it is difficult to pin down an exact number of environmental NGOs in China. Other articles on the leading role of green civil society include: Caroline Cooper. “Quietly Sowing the Seeds of Activism.” Far Eastern Economic Review. (April 10, 2003): 28-31; Chinese NGO’s: Carving a Niche Within Constraints. A January 2003 report from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing : http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/ngos.htm; Peter Ho. “Greening without conflict? Environmentalism, NGOs and civil society in China .” Development and Change, (2001). 32 (5): 893-921; Anna Brettell. “Environmental non-governmental organizations in the People’s Republic of China : Innocents in a co-opted environmental movement?” The Journal of Pacific Asia . (2000). Volume 6: 27 -56.

 4 World Bank, Clear Water Blue Skies (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997).

 5 For more information on the intergovernmental politics of environmental protection in China see: Kenneth Lieberthal, “ China's Governing System and its Impact on Environmental Policy Implementation,” China Environment Series, Issue 4. (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1997:3-8); Marilyn Beach, “Local Environmental Management in China,” China Environment Series, Issue 4 (2001); and Jennifer Turner, Authority Flowing Downward? Local Government Entrepreneurship in the Chinese Water Sector, Ph.D. Dissertation. (Indiana University, 1997).

 6 In 1949, water (along with land) became official property of the state, which meant water belonged to all citizens and was ostensibly free. The National Water Law (passed in 1988 and updated in 2002) specifies some priorities in water use—e.g., domestic water is supposed to be guaranteed, followed by urban and industrial water needs, with agriculture given the lowest priority. This list of priorities for water use as well as government water allocation plans, has not however, translated into clear specific rights for various water users to transfer water between themselves (e.g., farmers selling water to industry or urban areas). The Chinese Ministry of Water Resources has been issuing water withdrawal permits and pushing higher water fees to exert some control over water use, but reforming the water sector is a major challenge. For more details on water politics in China see: James Nickum. “Is China Living on the Wtaer Margin?” China Quarterly. Issue 156 (1999):880-898; James Nickum. Dam Lies and Other Statistics: Taking the Measures of Irrigation in Northern China, 1931-91 . Honolulu : East-West Center, (January 1995); Ma Jun. Water Crises in China . California : International Rivers Network (2004).

 7 This and the following water conflict examples were drawn from a talk given by Ma Jun at a China Environment Forum meeting held at the Woodrow Wilson Center on 28 January 2004. The summary can be viewed at www.wilsoncenter.org/cef.

 8 Pamela Baldinger and Jennifer Turner, “Crouching Suspicions Hidden Potential: U.S. Environmental and Energy Cooperation with China ” (Washington, DC : Woodrow Wilson Center, 2002:35) and Peter Evans, “Japan-U.S. Environmental Cooperation: Promoting Sustainable Development in China ” Paper Presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center November 21, 2001 .

 9 Neal Stender, Wang Dong, and Zhou Jing, “Impacting the Environment: China's New EIA Law,” February 1, 2004, in http://www.coudert.com/publications/articles/030115_14_eia_clp.pdf.

 10 Demonstration site programs promoting cleaner production are beginning to be held in ten, mainly large provincial capital cities— Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenyang, Taiyuan, Jinan, Kunming, Lanzhou and Fuyang. Five priority sectors that have been chosen for pollution prevention pilot projects include: (1) the petrochemical industry, (2) metallurgic industry, (3) chemical industry, (4) light industry (specifically pulp and paper, fermentation and beer-making), and (5) ship building. The five rivers include: the Huai He, Hai He, Liao He, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers; while the three lakes are the Tai, Chao, and Dian.

 11 See Institute for Environment and Development project discussed in the NGO-Business Partnership section of this paper.

 12 See “Weaving a Green Web: The Internet and Environmental Activism in China,”China Environment Series, Issue 6 (Washington, DC : Woodrow Wilson Center, 2003:89-93) and “Environmental Equity in China” China Environment Forum meeting summary, 12 December 2003, in www.wilsoncenter.org/cef.

 13 Lu Hongyan, “Bamboo Sprouts After the Rain: The History of University Student Environmental Associations in China,” China Environment Series, Issue 6 (Washington, DC : Woodrow Wilson Center, 2003:55-66).

 14 Wu Fengshi, “New Partners or Old Brothers? GONGOS in Transnational Environmental Advocacy in China,” China Environment Series, Issue 5 (Washington, DC : Woodrow Wilson Center, 2002:45-58).

 15 Nailene Chou Wiest, “Green Voices in Greater China : Harmony and Dissonance,” Green NGO and Environmental Journalist Forum: A Meeting of Environmentalists from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (Washington, DC : Woodrow Wilson Center, 2001: 27-30). One Chinese NGO tracked the yearly number of environmental articles in major national and local newspapers in China from 1994-1999. Between 1997 and 1999 the number of articles on environment doubled in number (76 papers produced 22,066 articles in 1997 while 75 produced 47,273 in 1999). The percentage of in-depth reporting (e.g., investigations, features, editorials) among these articles averaged about 20 percent.

 16 See comments by the Chinese National People’s Radio broadcaster Wang Yongchen in “Green NGOs and Environmental Journalistm in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong ” China Environment Series, Issue 4. (Washington, DC : Woodrow Wilson Center, 2000, 106-108).

  17 Zusman, Eric, “Seeking contradictions in the Field: Environmental Economics, Public Disclosure, and Cautious Optimism about China's Environmental Future,” China Environment Series, Issue 4 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2000: 63-65).

 18 SEPA/CIDA joint Cleaner Production Web site: http://www.chinacp.com/eng/

 19 Timothy Hildebrandt and Jennifer L. Turner, “Environmental Governance in China,” China Environment Series, Issue 6 (Washington, DC : Woodrow Wilson Center, 2003: 185-187).

 20 As part of its bilateral assistance programming, the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) partnered with SEPA to hold environmental policy and management courses for local EPBs focusing on the new EIA-Law and a new Pollutant levy regulations in four cities. See: http://www.sepa-gtz-environmental-program.org.cn/report.htm

 21 For more information on this WRI project see www.embarq.org

 22 For more information on international green work in China see the Inventory of Environment and Energy Projects in China in the Woodrow Wilson Center's China Environment Series, Issues 1-6 in www.wilsoncenter.org/cef.

 23 Nick Young, (2001:17).