--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In brief:

1) Welcome to our readers
2) European Parliament and Economic Relations with China
3) Political and regulatory framework for NGO activities in China
4) Nick Young: Talking with the enemy
5) Research and Links
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear reader,

this is the first issue of "EU-China-News", published by the EU-China Civil Society Forum (for the German edition and other project publications click here).

This quarterly email-newsletter informs about developments regarding European-Chinese relations, social and environmental issues in China as well as about the cooperations of Chinese non-governmental organisations. 

If you are interested to receive this newsletter regularly you can use the subcription form here.

We are also very much interested in developing cooperation with you and your organisation. If you have any interesting material you want to be distributed please send it to us. We will also consider for publishing it on our website www.eu-china.net. For the time being there is only a German edition available although a lot of material in English language can be found here. But we are working on an english version.

I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy this first issue of our newsletter.

Klaus Fritsche

• The European Parliament discusses about the trade and economic relations with China
  On the 5th of November the committees for development and trade of the European Parliament discussed about the state of the trade and economic relations between the EU and China. On the 8th of January the paper that was presented to the committees is to be passed and then to be discussed in the Parliament in February.

In the backgrounder 2/2009, Christa Wichterich analyses this statement.
The statement by the committee is remarkable in so far as neither the ongoing financial and economic crisis nor the conclusions to be drawn out of it are taken into any consideration.

Berthold Kuhn: Political and Regulatory Framework for NGO activities in the P.R. China
In his presentation held on the 18th of September, Berthold Kuhn deals with the question of how the concept of civil society is being understood in China, i.e. if and how this term is received and how close to the state, or how far distanced from it, non-governmental organisations are able and willing to work. He also throws light on the general legal conditions concerning nonprofit-activities and associations, endowments and non-comercial companies. He then deals with international cooperation, i.e. the opportunities for and limits to international NGOs and partnerships between NGOs. Finally he considers the perspectives for the future and gives an outlook on possible developments.

In 1996 Nick Young had founded the NGO "China Development Brief" in China and had been leading this organisation until 2007. Only a short time before he could hand over his function to a successor, he was denied access to China and the English version of the "China Development Brief" was closed down by the authorities.

Nick Young wrote this article at the invitation of "Human Rights in China", who then however refused to publish the article in its original form. We are publishing this article now because it deals with the work of human rights organisations in China in a critical way and additionally discusses the question of "how to deal with China?" more generally. Youngs opinion, that a "more concerted effort to engage 'the enemy' and discover her humanity" is needed, will probably be understood by many readers as a provocation and certainly lead to vehement discussions.

However, in our point of view this is an important discussion - especially for those, who work together with Chinese NGOs or are planning to do so in the future.

Here we regularly provide useful links for educational work and for your own research.

• Chinese Environmental Organisations online
  On this website, made by the Friends of Nature, an overview over Chinese environmental NGOs is provided. Almost 100 NGOs are listed in a register. For each of those organisations a profile, contact informations and data about their budget, members and activities is given.
  This website is available in Chinese and in English. For many of the listed organisations there is a summary of their self-presentation in English.
• Chinadialogue
  This project, initiated by the British journalist Isabelle Hilton in 20006, is the only bilingual (Chinese and English) Webseite that provides regular news and analysis about environmental issues.
• China-Wire: News from China for the rest of the World
  CHINA-WIRE provides monthly extracts from the Chinese press and other sources of information. It is a project of the Organisation Moving Mountains (www.movingmountains.cn) from Beijing. You can subscribe to the newsletter on the website.
• France and China
  In the third issue of background informations published by the EU-China-Civil-Society-Forum there is an article about the French-Chinese relations. The article is also available in French and in German.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EU-China-Civil-Society Forum
Asienhaus/Asienstiftung
Phone.: +49-201-8303838, Fax: +49-201-8303830
Person to turn to: Klaus Fritsche
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, please click here
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The project „EU – China: non-governmental partnership for social and ecological justice“ is supported by the European Union. The contents can in no way be perceived as statements by the European Union.