China: Non profit magazine shut down by authorities

The China Development Brief is an online publication that deals with environmental, development and civil society issues in China both in English and Chinese. Despite having acted as a bridge between Chinese NGOs, the government and foreign countries for more than 19 years, on July 4th it was closed down without warning by officials from the Beijing Municipality.

The editor of the English language edition of the China Development Brief, Nick Young, who has been accused of conducting ?unauthorized surveys? in contravention of the 1983 Statistics Law has been forbidden from any further online activity even though the English edition is run off a UK server.

?It has never been confrontational? said Ge Yun, director of the Xinjiang Conservation Fund, of the China Development Brief, who added that its closing down would be a huge loss for NGOs as well as for the government. The Chinese edition of the Development Brief is considered by many an effective vehicle for Chinese NGOs to communicate and exchange information.

So why have the government shut down such a highly regarded media tool, that counts with the support of the World bank and the United Nations as well as large international NGOs such as Save the Children and Care?

Nick Young said he was given no reason for the closure by the Beijing authorities, but he though that perhaps they had been the victims of their own success: ?Maybe we have become too visible and taken too seriously? he said.

The closure has come at a ?bad time? for the China Development Brief as they had just received the final donor pledges that were needed for the initiation of a transition period that would eventually see the China Development Brief becoming a fully fledged and independent Chinese voice. Mr Young, an Englishman and founder as well as editor of the publication, had in fact decided that the time had come to leave the China Development Brief in the hands of a team of Chinese writers who would take over as formal owners and editors of the project. ?I have always argued that it is important to get coherent, informed and independent Chinese voices into international debates about China? said Young in the last message he posted online on the 12th July, ?rather than those debates being dominated by Western voices that are often ill-informed and unsympathetic to the real difficulties of governing this huge and complicated country?, he continued.

Unfortunately it looks like his dream of offering ?the world at large the best in Chinese thinking on social development, in plain English? has been thwarted by those forces within the government that feel threatened by the efforts being made to build civil society in China. As Young himself admits, ?the only thing that could save us now is a fairly powerful ally?.

It remains to be seen whether Chinese authorities will acknowledge the important role played by the China Development Brief and demonstrate that they are indeed committed to resolving China?s social and environmental problems. In the meantime subscriptions to the Brief have been suspended and Mr Young says he remains hopeful that the authorities will recognise the value of their work, and find some way of allowing it to continue.

More info:
www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com