Should American Nonprofits Work In China?

For decades, American nonprofits and philanthropies worked with Chinese citizens and the Chinese Communist Party. In ways large and small, they’ve helped build civil society in the country. But over the last several years especially, the space for foreign NGOs to operate in China has increasingly shrunk. COVID restrictions, paranoia about Western influence, and an American public suspicious of Beijing have made it far more difficult for organizations to work with or in China.

Should nonprofits and philanthropies continue to engage with a China ruled by an increasingly hostile Party? What ethical compromises must they make to maintain their presence in China, and are those compromises worth it? And what work can and should they do, if any, to push back against the Party’s influence globally?