ISHII Tomoaki    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Commerce    Position   Professor
Research Period	2007～2009
Research Topic	Law and Politics in China's Private Sector
Research Type	KAKENHI Research
Consignor	Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Research Program Type	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
KAKENHI Grant No.	19330003
Responsibility	Research Contributor
Representative Person	SUZUKI Ken
Details	Up to 2009, the number of formally registered social organizations has reached 431,069 (including 237,847 social groups, 190,479 private non-enterprise units, and 1843 foundations). However, there are far more unregistered organizations with precarious legal status that are active in the dark. The background of this issue is that during establishment, the permit procedures carried out by the competent authorities and the registrations made by the civil affairs departments have formed a dual administrative system, by which the hurdle of registration has been raised. About the freedom of association, the actual situation is that the principle that 'everything which is not allowed isforbidden' has been applied, and 'prohibition of association' which is contrary to the provisions of the constitution has become a principle. Currently, the debate about the legislation of social organizations is being carried on. However, how to invigorate social organizations, while maintaining a tight political control in order to prevent them from causing dissent, is a self-contradictory question that cannot be easily answered by a concrete system. In a bad legal environment, and under the rule of the Communist Party, social organizations have achieved the function of adjustment of interests which have become more and more pluralistic in Market Economy, the function of social self-adjustment, the function of service delivery which is difficult for the administration, the function of (some sort of) "political participation', as well as the function of public welfare, and thus have some kind of effects on tension relief in China, which lacks political democracy.