China's social organizations to flourish: expert

Social organizations in China, particularly grass-roots ones, will flourish following the introduction of a central authority's guideline, a public administration expert told Xinhua on Monday.

Jia Xijin, an associate professor with School of Policy & Management, Tsinghua University, made the remarks when explaining the implication of a guideline released by the general offices of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council on Sunday.

The guideline aims to improve the management systems of social organizations.

"The guideline is indicative of future direction," said Zheng Gongcheng, professor with Beijing's Renmin University, adding it recognized social organizations as part of public participation in social administration.

Zheng said, there were misconceptions about social organizations in the past, "because a lack of healthy or orderly development gave rise to a motley array of such organizations."

"As a result, government agencies either grew wary of social organizations, or turned them into a part of the government strata," Zheng said.

The guideline stipulated that resources will be invested in community-based social organizations and obliges governments to retreat from fields involving petty administrative affairs and public services which would be better taken care of by the market and society.

Yuan Ruijun of Peking University, said priority tasks for social organizations are serving the grass-roots communities, as "social governance and public service capacities are lacking at grass-roots level."

A total of 664,800 social organizations had been registered with civil affairs authorities as of the first quarter of 2016. Endi