Criticisms are Helpful for the Growing Chinese Philanthropy
After the 7.0 magnitude earthquake happened in Lushan County in Sichuan, enterprises and individuals are generous in giving help. However, the stated-backed Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) have received fewer donation than ever and also a lot of denouncement due to corruption scandals that seriously hurt the public trust such as expensive tents and the case of Guo Meimei etc.
In fact, as a charitable organization, the RCSC is very special. It has its own system that not in line with the international Red Cross in aspects of regulations, actions and personnel. On one hand, the RCSC can receive donations; on the other hand, it can also enjoy allowances given by Chinese government. It is not the civil charity group in the real sense, but is a governmental department that raises funds again after the government has collected taxes.
Since there isn’t any essential reform of the RCSC to be more transparent, it can hardly break away from the scandals in a short time. Starting from the fund-raising after this earthquake, the criticisms on it by the public opinions are even nearly unreasonable, on its microblog, it encountered the unanimous word “get away.” But criticisms on the RCSC are spreading: besides it incurring ruthlessly criticisms, some flaws has also been pointed out on the One Foundation that has been trusted by numerous enterprises, and even there are declarations that the One Foundation may not be better than the RCSC.
Then, how should we look upon such criticism?
Some people say that at this point, the Chinese should “unite our wills like a fortress”; there are other people who indicate that “at this point, bringing shame on the One Foundation or severely criticizing the RCSC are all very bad and are untimely,” “the habitual adversarial thinking of ‘finding an enemy to fight against’ should be discarded.”
Firstly, the self-contradiction exists logically for such wording. Because different voices are restrained with the saying that “a disaster is the common enemy of mankind, and things that hurt the cohesive force of disaster relief should be forbidden,” actually it is exactly “finding an enemy to fight against,” thereby the “unity” is forced to destroy the competition in the “marketplace of ideas,” and even becomes the reprint of the old view and old acting of getting rid of competitions physically. The embodiment of such argument after transformation is the publicity skill of “turning bad things into good things,” and it even has provided idea foundation to carry out ethical kidnap from a larger level.
Secondly, the competition in the philanthropic field differs from the competition of common products. It needs more criticisms and information disclosure for its improvement. With its terrible image, if the RCSC has not been criticized, it means the failure of multilateral reputation and punishment mechanism, and it also means the lack of supervision. In such situation, we even can’t eliminate bad charitable organizations. Even viewing from details, what the criticisms have exposed are imperfect aspects, and such information can help charitable organizations to solve problems and allocate resources more quickly. When a disaster happens, the information and communication are not smooth, and various difficulties emerge, it is the time often when the clear information is mostly needed, so it is a logical result that there are more and dense criticism voices. Therefore, whether from macroscopic view or from specific work, the criticism of public opinions is the indispensable air and sunshine in philanthropic field, thus it can only better promote the persons being criticized to carry out the work better.
Finally, as a governmental department, after fierce criticisms, the only correct practice of the RCSC should be aware of shame then be brave and go forward and do things better. Can the RCSC swing its arms and does nothing, or bring some kind of moods in the specific work just because of being cursed to “get away”? Obviously, as an organization, it will not take such irrational individual human moods. In fact, the RCSC also expresses to “work like a horse.” Actually, behind the argument that “criticisms block rescue,” there is a hidden assumption, that is the “personification of an organization.” Through giving personality and humanity to an organization, it turns the rational public affairs that should be discussed by the public into a personal feeling.
In fact, various criticisms on the RCSC and the One Foundation not only are unable to hinder them to do better relief efforts, but also can supervise them to carry out competitions and improve efficiencies and transparency. The public are happy to see the competitions in the philanthropic field, whether the One Foundation or other charitable organizations and even with maximum tolerance to accept the government-backed RCSC to participate in the competition. Because only through the equal competitions of charitable organizations with different backgrounds in multiple fields of fund transparency, information transparency, proportion of management fee, and public relationships etc, Chinese charitable groups can be promoted for high efficiency and rapid development.
What is delightful is that the development of China’s charitable groups is speeding up, and more and more lawful rights have been able to be realized. According to the scheme of the State Council on institutional reforms and transformation of functions, significant reforms will be carried out for the registration management on social organizations undertaken by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. In the future, nonprofit organizations and charity groups only need registration in civil authorities instead of the former approval from their supervisors. I wish that these favorable factors in policies will actually turn to the benefits for persons being rescued and helped in the near future.
Originally published on Tencent Dajia Column | 2013-4-21
