The final touch [By Gu Peili/China.org.cn]

China is often criticized by the West for its poor record in promoting philanthropy. A major reason until now has been the lack of an adequate legal infrastructure to promote the work of domestic and foreign charities in Chinese society. Another contributing factor is a number of fraudulent scandals related to charities leading to public mistrust of many charities and a consequent poor track record of philanthropic giving.

In the West, charitable organizations and NGOs play a major and increasingly important role in modern societies. Now, China is introducing major reforms to both clarify and modernize its approach to charities, for example by making it easier to gain legal status and clarifying tax rules so that philanthropic organizations can better engage with professionals and generally enhance their capacities to carry out important work in education, reducing poverty, improving the environment, and other social causes.

While capitalism is the greatest vehicle ever devised for creating wealth, the system is not perfect and significant gaps arise between social have's and have-not's, and areas exist where market forces and conditions do not exist or work efficiently. In the West, this gap was traditionally filled by churches in local parish work.

However, since the mid-18th century Enlightenment, the role of charities and not-for-profit organizations has expanded and been institutionalized. In the U.S., for example, non-profit activity is well in excess of a trillion dollars and employs millions of people.

China's new charity law establishes a concept of "big philanthropy" and provides a broad definition of "charity." Despite traditionally helping the poor or relieving disasters, the charitable activities will cover most public benefit activities such as education, culture and science. This clarification illustrates that philanthropy in China has expanded from only solving problems of survival to promoting China's comprehensive development.

Article 3: "Charitable activity" as used in this law indicates initiation of the following non-profit activities on a voluntary basis by natural persons, legal persons and other organizations through means such as donating assets or providing services, or voluntarily carrying out the following public interest activities:

(1) Poverty alleviation and assistance;

(2) Support for the elderly, orphaned, diseased or disabled;

(3) Relief from damage caused by natural disasters, disasters caused by accidents, public health incidents and other emergencies;

(4) Promotion of the development of areas such as education, science, culture, health, and sports;

(5) Prevention and control of pollution and other public harms, and protection and improvement of the environment;

(6) Other public interest activities.