ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s, scholars have examined the relationship between the state and society in China by examining the development of associations. To make a contribution to this ongoing discussion of state-society relations in contemporary China, we focus on environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), one of the most developed forms of social associations in China.1 The concept of “embedded activism” as set out in the introduction of this volume describes state-society relations in China as a paradox: restrictive and conducive at the same time. Embeddedness refers to the nature of state control, as well as the specific reaction it triggers among civil society actors. In this contribution, we will explore in more detail the first aspect of embeddedness: the nature of state control. For this purpose, we first highlight measures employed by the state to control NGOs, and then investigate how these control measures have been implemented based on experiences from 11 national and 11 Beijing municipal environmental NGOs. Finally, we explore factors that have shaped patterns of state control experienced by the studied NGOs. In this paper, the term “state” refers specifically the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council.
