ABSTRACT
The contribution will start by addressing the first question above: what is the environment of embedded activism? It will do so by reviewing the Party and state’s interventions in civil society. To pinpoint the nature of Party power is an arduous undertaking as its structure is closely intertwined with administrative institutions, and what may appear as a civil organization might well be integrated with Party structures. To illustrate these blurred divides, the case of a green student association and its embeddedness in Party institutions will be discussed. In addition, at times of social crises, such as during the SARS outbreak or the demonstrations and subsequent repression of the Falun Gong sect, it is obvious that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forms the main source of political power in China today.2 For NGOs and activists this became perfectly clear in the aftermath of the “color revolutions” in the Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, when the Chinese central authorities were quick to tighten control over civic organizations.
