In September 2017, the Charity Law officially came into effect for one year. In the year since the implementation of this law, which was called a "milestone in the history of Chinese legislation" at the time of its birth, the state has successively issued 15 regulatory documents supporting the Charity Law, covering the registration and identification of charitable organizations, charitable fundraising, charitable trust filing, charitable activity expenditure and management fees, and supervision and management. The official summary said that the law "created conditions for the improvement of the social ecology and the sustainable and stable development of charitable undertakings." At the same time, social events such as "paintings of autistic children" reflect the society’s continuous examination of the connotation of charity. There are also questions from the public that "it is more difficult to register charitable organizations after the promulgation of the Charity Law".
One year after the promulgation of the "Charity Law", what impact has this law had on society? Does it explore the transformation of national and social relations in the field of charity as expected by the outside world? How will it promote the social ecology of charity in China? Nandu reporters interviewed Wang Ming, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference who has just won the Fukuoka Asian Culture Award and has been deeply involved in the drafting of the "Charity Law" and a professor at the School of Public Administration of Tsinghua University.
Talk about the implementation effect
All information is released through the platform and supervised by society
Nandu: It has been a year since the Charity Law came into effect. What do you think of its implementation effect? Some people have suggested that it is now in an awkward transition period, and it seems that it is more difficult to register charitable organizations. What do you think?
Wang Ming: First of all, we need to understand the Charity Law. It is a brand-new system in itself, and the legislation itself is also a completely open process. Many scholars and all sectors of society have participated in the legislative process. After the promulgation of the Charity Law, I have been calling for greater efforts to popularize the law. The Ministry of Civil Affairs recently proposed that one of the priorities of the next step is to popularize the law, and I agree with this proposal. Why should we emphasize the importance of popularizing the law? Because almost all the institutional arrangements and principles in this law are new. Not only for charitable organizations, but also for government departments at all levels. Therefore, whether the law can be implemented depends most importantly on legal education. It is necessary for every charitable organization, every relevant government department, and even every citizen to fully learn and master the Charity Law, so that the new law can be put into practice.
I generally approve of the work of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in the past year, especially in terms of information disclosure. They have made great efforts and responded positively to my proposal. In my proposal, I emphasized that the construction of three information platforms is the key to the implementation of the Charity Law. On the eve of the implementation of the new law last year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs released 13 units as "designated information platforms". On the first anniversary of the implementation of the new law this year, it announced the official operation of the "unified information platform". I highly praise and look forward to this.
Nandu: Why does information disclosure play such a crucial role in the implementation of the Charity Law?
Wang Ming: What is the real key mechanism of the Charity Law? My understanding is that the most fundamental function of the Charity Law is to transform the relationship between the state and society. What does it mean? Before the Charity Law was implemented, the government directly confronted charitable organizations and social organizations. "What you should do, what you shouldn’t do, how I supervise, and how I manage" is all up to the government. After the Charity Law was promulgated, the government did not directly confront charitable organizations, but through the platform. What do you do? I will supervise you through information. This is a process and cannot be achieved immediately. So in the next year or two, it will be up to the platform to direct. First let the three platforms land, and then let the government slowly step back, from the original government facing the organization directly, to the government facing the platform, and the platform facing the organization. All information is released to the society through the platform and supervised by the society, and this law is implemented through the platform.
So I’m not particularly worried about what some people are seeing now, such as "It’s difficult to register, and more than 2,000 companies have been identified in a year, which is too few." I don’t think there is any need to worry. Because the identification of charitable organizations cannot be regarded as a power granted to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The Charity Law does not grant this power, but should be regarded as a procedure, and everything is determined by the procedure, not by which department.
Therefore, I propose four sentences: "The government controls the platform, the platform faces the organization, the public social supervision, and the organization acts according to law," which can summarize the basic structure of the new pattern of state-society relations after the promulgation of the Charity Law.
Talk about the three major platforms
The information is aggregated into a large database system, and the so-called "human flesh" will be easy
Nandu: Can you provide more details on the three platforms you mentioned?
Wang Ming: Our so-called three platforms are the "unified information platform", the "designated information platform" and the "self-built website of charitable organizations". If these three platforms can be implemented, I think the key mechanism of the Charity Law will be established.
The first one is called the "unified information platform." The term in the Charity Law is "the charity information platform uniformly established by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the State Council." It is mainly responsible for publishing information that must be released by the official, and it has a strong public character. Its main feature is authority.
The second is called the "designated information platform," which is a social operation, social funding, and release information at any time. It is highly interactive and has a large amount of information. At the end of August last year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued 13 units as designated charitable donation platforms.
My personal opinion is that 13 is actually too many, and it is best to choose 4-5 in the end. 13 will not be easy for the public to choose, and it is too time-consuming to identify. It is best to have a few. Each has its own characteristics, and it is easy for the public to choose according to their own habits. On the other hand, the biggest difference between these designated platforms and the first type of platform is that they can assume the function of "big data". The public chooses by themselves, uses this platform as often as possible, the number of clicks continues to increase, and the credibility of these platforms can also increase. With credibility, the government can delegate some functions to them, and the government can sign contracts with these designated platforms to delegate certain functions, such as the function of annual financial report disclosure. If it is dispersed to 13, the cost to the government is relatively high, and the risk is also relatively high.
In addition, I think these platforms should be chosen by the people, and in the end, it should not be the government that regulates them, but the ordinary people. The more ordinary people use this platform, the more useful this platform will be. If there are 13, it is likely that everyone does not use it much and is scattered.
But the second type of platform is actually an information publishing intermediary, a public platform.
The third platform is entirely the information released by charitable organizations, not an intermediary, but according to their own needs.
These three types of information will eventually be aggregated into the large database system of public welfare and charity. One result of this will be that the so-called "human flesh" will be easy, such as how credible a charity organization is and what it has done, it can be quickly searched. This information is sourced from all three types of platforms.
Nandu: How long do you think it will take for these three platforms to be completed?
Wang Ming: I originally estimated that it would take three to five years, but now it seems very fast. This year, I estimate that all three types of platforms will be launched slowly. And this is combined with China’s entire technological progress. Our Internet technology will play a positive role in this platform.
It is very important to note that the design of these platforms is stipulated by law, and once they are launched, they are not subject to human will. The biggest feature of the Internet is that after a certain stage of development, it will far exceed our imagination. In two or three years, I think our system will work effectively. At that time, it will become easy to donate, ask for help, and obtain information about organizations. At that time, its authenticity will not be determined by the information publisher, nor by the information regulator. It will be determined by the big data system. There is no need to worry about whether the information is falsified as it is now.
Talking about big data
In the era of mobile Internet, without big data, there is no way to establish new systems
Nandu: In fact, ordinary people encounter more situations when a friend of mine posts a message through WeChat Moments, saying that my family has some illness, and I want everyone to donate. This situation is not included in these three types of information platforms?
Wang Ming: I think with these three types of platforms, we should pay attention to the fact that the platform can complete the function of identification and regulation through big data. If it is not in the field of charity, big data will naturally exclude this from the system. I do not agree that the government should make this identification, but should make this identification by big data to clarify a boundary.
The reason why there was a lot of ambiguity in the past is because we leave a lot of moral issues to the law. The biggest improvement of the Charity Law is that it only prohibits illegal acts within the scope of charity. If it is a moral issue, or it should be in the scope of other laws, such as criminal law, civil law, leave it to the moral or other laws, instead of all issues in the circle of the Charity Law.
Nandu: Can you say that the introduction of this Charity Law is based on trust in the future of big data?
Wang Ming: In fact, we didn’t particularly consider big data and mobile Internet when drafting, but it turned out that platforms and big data may play a fundamental role in this regard, that is to say, we have actually entered an era, which is the era of mobile Internet. Without big data, we actually have no way to establish new systems. So the Charity Law was not designed in this way intentionally, but it has taken a big step forward with this era.
Talk about charity
Charity is only divided into legal and illegal, there is no "good" and "bad"
Nandu: In philanthropy, there is also a much-discussed issue, which is whether there is a good charity and a bad charity. For example, there were many controversial charity methods like Chen Guangbiao before, and many people felt that as long as it can help people, it doesn’t matter.
Wang Ming: What I want to emphasize now is that after the promulgation of the Charity Law, I do not agree with the use of value judgments to distinguish charitable acts. In fact, charity itself is good. In the future, charity only needs to distinguish between legal and illegal, not "good" and "bad". I mentioned a concept called "legal mainstreaming". In the future, there is only one thing that is mainstream, and that is legal. Other things we said before, such as good charity is mainstream, low-key charity is mainstream… These are no longer standards. Now, charity is good, including those like Chen Guangbiao. If it is within the scope of legal, why do you need to condemn it?
Some people may think that this kind of charity seems too high-profile, or feel that it is hyped, but as long as it is within the scope of legality, we consider it to be positive, that is, to use the law instead of people’s morality to judge a charitable act.