The 2023 amendments to the Charity Law: More state control and new areas under regulation

Abstract

On 29 December 2023, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress revised the Charity Law of 2016. The amendments, which take effect on 5 September 2024, codify the Chinese Communist Party’s ascendancy in the charitable sector. They set permitting and declaration requirements for collecting donations from abroad and for cooperation between Chinese organizations and foreign entities and individuals. A reshuffling of government oversight is likely to lead to tighter control of charitable activities. The regulatory scope of the law will now include fundraising in the form of private calls for donations via Internet platforms. Platform operators will be subject to stricter rules when hosting fundraising drives by charitable organizations, and charitable organizations that are licensed to issue public calls for donations will be subject to more comprehensive duties when they conduct fundraising on behalf of unlicensed entities and individuals. There are also new rules on charitable emergency aid, i. e., the involvement of charities in disaster relief or responses to pandemics. And finally there was a noteworthy development in the legislative process regarding charitable trusts: the lead legislative body found itself advocating against the scepticism of other constituents for a stronger role for charitable trusts, such that more comprehensive changes were whittled down to only one new provision in the adopted amendments.