NGO's - Does registration mean a crackdown?

When you do not pay enough attention you might in China easily miss a crackdown or two, three. China Digital News points at an article in Asia Times that suggests that a re-registration of non-governmental organizations might actually be a crackdown.

The source or sources behind this series of stifling moves was not known, but they contradict Hu's positive recognition of NGOs last year. When meeting with representatives at the eighth national conference of the Red Cross Society of China on October 27, Hu said that the organization had bright prospects in the nation's process of building a well-off society.

While it is important to watch this process, I would not right away go for the most negative conclusions. What is happening is that NGO's who were registered as companies now have to re-register under the civil affairs bureau. In the past NGO's registered as companies because the civil affairs authorities refused to register them, so you might as well draw the opposite conclusion.
It is not unlike what happened in the 1990s when the authorities required private companies to re-register under their right title, as the first step in legalizating private companies. The civil society seems to be heading into the same direction.


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