A new law named Law on Administration of Domestic Activities of Overseas Non-governmental Organizations was promulgated last year. NGOs in China shall pay attention to this, or the organization might be under risk of violating law.
NGOs in this law refer to foundations, social organizations, think tanks, and other non-profit-making and non-governmental social organizations legally established overseas.
The key point of this law is that any NGO with an intention to conduct activities in mainland of China must go through procedures of registration or record filing. As indicated clearly in article 9 of the law, To conduct activities within the territory of China, overseas NGOs are required to register and establish their representative offices in accordance with the law; and those failing to do so but needing to carry out temporary activities within the territory of China shall make a record-filing in accordance with the law. Overseas NGOs that fail to register and establish representative offices or that carry out temporary activities without record-filing are not allowed to carry out or carry out in disguised form activities within the territory of China, or entrust or fund or entrust or fund in disguised form any domestic entities or individuals to do so.
It is not an easy thing to establish a representative office for a NGO. Besides some procedural requirements the NGO needs to meet when filing an application, it also needs approval of business authorities. The business authorities differ from industry to industry and to determine which department is one certain NGO’s business authority is quite a professional issue.
If a NGO carries out activities in China without registration or record filing, relevant public security bureau shall ban or order the suspension of the illegal acts, confiscate illegal property and illegal gains, and give warnings to the personnel directly liable; if the circumstances are serious, detention of less than ten days shall be imposed.