China orders schools to shun British relief agency Oxfam over alleged political agenda

China tells schools to shun British agency Oxfam

BEIJING — China is telling schools to shun the international relief agency Oxfam and bar its campus recruitment efforts, accusing the group’s Hong Kong branch of having a hidden political agenda.

School administrators must ban all campus volunteer recruitment efforts run by the group’s Hong Kong office, according to a notice attributed to the Education Ministry.

Oxfam Hong Kong — which oversees the group’s mainland China operations — is a “non-governmental organization seeking to infiltrate our interior,” said a notice attributed to the ministry seen Tuesday on a job services Web site hosted by Beijing’s Minzu University.

It called the group’s chairman, public affairs consultant Lo Chi-kin, a “stalwart of the opposition faction,” employing language more commonly associated with communist political struggles of the past.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper identified Lo as a member of the former British colony’s Democratic Party, which advocates direct elections for the local legislature and other political reforms opposed by Beijing.

The statement gave no other details of the allegations against Oxfam, which has operated in mainland China for 20 years and works in cooperation with the government’s poverty alleviation department. The group has five offices on the mainland.

China’s authoritarian communist government remains deeply suspicious of most independent social organizations outside its direct control and sets strict limits on activities of international NGOs.

Only a handful of well-funded and politically prominent organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have met the financial and administrative requirements to register in China. Similar organizations that lacked such clout have in the past found themselves suddenly banned after operating for years, with no clear reason given.

“There are no clear rules for international NGOs so sometimes there are different interpretations as to how they’re supposed to operate,” said Shawn Shieh, a visiting scholar in Beijing who researches Chinese NGOs.

“The government is wary of these kind of organizations establishing themselves without direct supervision,” Shieh said.

The ministry statement, dated Feb. 4, ordered schools to sever all ties and cooperation with Oxfam “in view of the special nature of our educational system, particularly higher education.”

“All education departments and institutions of higher education must raise their guard and together recognize and take precautions against the unfriendly intentions of Oxfam Hong Kong’s recruitment of college volunteers,” it said.

A receptionist at Minzu University said all staff were on leave until Thursday, and the Education Ministry did not immediately reply to a list of faxed questions. The statement was taken down from Minzu’s site shortly after the school was contacted, a possible indication it was an internal notification not intended to be made public.

Oxfam Hong Kong’s China Unit Director Howard Liu said the notice appears to refer specifically to Oxfam Hong Kong’s internship program for fourth-year social work majors at Chinese universities. Since it began in 2006, the program has placed more than 40 students at various Chinese NGOs that are Oxfam Hong Kong’s long-term partners, where they earn academic credit.

Liu said there had been no legal problems with any of the Chinese partner NGOs, whose projects include assisting rural residents shift to urban jobs in factories or as nannies.

“We think this program is consistent with the central government’s policy of a harmonious society and training social workers,” Liu said.

Liu declined to comment on Lo’s party affiliation, but said the personal politics of its board members or employees had no influence on its work.

Messages left for Lo at his office and with Democratic Party Chairman Albert Ho weren’t immediately returned.

Oxfam is a confederation of 14 national organizations that works with more than 3,000 partners in about 100 countries. It was founded in Britain in 1942.