作者：周敏
编辑：周志刚 责任编辑：胡丽莉 校对：熊辩 翻译：彭小梅
在凛冽的寒风中，偏远地区的孩子穿着破烂单衣，脚上还是夏天的凉鞋，小手被冻得一道道开裂。这是许多中国人都见过的刺痛人心的画面。2015年贵州毕节，四名长期缺乏照料与御寒条件的留守儿童死于破旧屋中，这一事件曾短暂震动全国，却很快被舆论封存。在任何一个正常的文明社会，都会激发起民间排山倒海般的援助。然而，在中国，伸向这些孩子的温暖的手，却总是被名为“政治安全”的冰冷手铐锁住。
人们难道不奇怪吗？一个拥有核武器、拥有庞大的维稳机器的政权，怎么偏偏怕几件棉衣、几箱牛奶和那些奔走在穷乡僻壤的好心人？2018年，多名志愿者在甘肃、青海等地为牧区儿童募集御寒物资时，被以“未经批准开展活动”为由约谈，部分物资被扣留，相关人员被警告不得再组织类似捐助。
现在，让我们像剥洋葱一样慢慢剥开核心。
首先是，救助者有罪：人们的善良超过了权力的边界。
在极权逻辑下，善，不是一种普世价值，而是一种特许经营权。听起来可能荒谬，但是有许多例子。比如，立人图书馆。曾经试图在乡村建立图书馆、开启民智的民间组织“立人”，在云南、贵州等地建立了数十所乡村图书室，却因被认定存在“意识形态风险”，负责人被长期约谈，项目被全面叫停，图书被封存，志愿者网络被强行解散。政府害怕的不是那些书，而是怕孩子们在棉衣之外，还获得了思考的能力。
比如，天使妈妈。多年来，无数非官方的孤独院被强制取缔。一些跨省救助病童、弃婴的志愿者，曾被以“非法社会组织”“扰乱社会管理秩序”为由调查，救助通道被迫中断。官方宁愿让孩子在福利院的破窗里无助地消瘦，也不允许像天使妈妈这样的民间团体展现出超越体制的温情。自2016年《境外非政府组织境内活动管理法》出台以来，无数深耕基层、为弱势群体发声的劳工、性别、教育类NGO被扣上了“境外渗透”的帽子，被连根拔起。在北京、广州、深圳等地，大量民间公益项目被迫注销，负责人被限制出境或长期监控。
这些案例反复证明，在中共当局眼中，一个不受控的救助者，比一个受冻的孩子要危险得多。
其次是独裁者的逻辑：宁愿“绝对控制”，也不要“社会自己救自己”。中国政府对民间慈善的排斥，源自其骨髓深处的三个深度恐惧。
一是恐惧“组织化”的萌芽。独裁政权最害怕的是民众产生横向的联系。慈善活动天然具有动员力和凝聚力，能让互不相识的人为了一个目标团结起来。2021年河南洪灾期间，部分不隶属于官方体系的民间救援队因拒绝接受统一指挥，被禁止进入灾区，而救援迟滞的现场画面却被迅速清理。对于一个推崇“原子化社会”的政权来说，任何能绕过基层党组织的社会纽带，都是对其统治权力的直接威胁。
然后是恐惧“合法化”的流失。中共始终强调，共产党才是幸福的源泉。如果民间组织在灾难和贫困面前表现得比政府更迅速、更透明、更具人文关怀，那民众就会发问：“既然民间能做得更好，我要这个臃肿贪腐的官僚系统何用？”在多次灾害中，民间志愿者通过社交媒体实时公布救援与物资信息，反而被要求删除内容，而官方通报却往往迟至数日之后才出现。为了掩盖无能，它必须扼杀卓越。
第三个恐惧，也是最虚伪的一个原因，就是恐惧真相。每一个需要民间求助的孩子，都是对“大国崛起”和“全面脱贫”谎言的无声控诉。民间慈善的介入，必然伴随着实地调查和信息传播，这会刺破官媒编织的盛世幻境。类似的逻辑在新冠疫情初期已被反复验证：民间记录与求助信息被迅速删除，但问题并未因此消失。他们于是出手了—–既要捂住受难者的嘴，又要斩断救助者的手。
洋葱被剥开以后，就可以站上高墙，低头俯瞰这权力下的寒冬如何凛冽。慈善被收编为“官僚红十字会”式的权力寻租场。当爱心必须经过层层政审才能到达基层，这种体制已经彻底丧失了自我修复的能力。它不仅是在拒绝外界的帮助，更是在扼杀整个国民的道德活力与同情心。
冰天雪地里，孩子依然在瑟瑟发抖，而那个自称为人民服务的政权，正躲在高墙背后，警惕地盯着每一件试图递过墙去的棉衣与书。这种对温情的恐惧，恰恰是共产党内心极度虚弱与恐惧的明证。
Starving Children and the Fear of Power Monopoly
— Why Does the CCP Regard Grassroots Charity as a Thorn in Its Side?
Author: Zhou Min
Editor: Zhou Zhigang Responsible Editor: Hu Lili Proofreader: Xiong Bian Translator: Peng Xiaomei
Abstract:This article aims to explore the deep political logic behind the Chinese government’s high level of vigilance toward grassroots charitable organizations (NGOs), analyzing its fear of “governing legitimacy” and “social mobilization capacity.”
In the biting cold wind, children in remote areas wear tattered thin clothes, still with summer sandals on their feet, their small hands cracked open by the freezing cold. This is a heart-piercing image that many Chinese people have seen. In 2015, in Bijie, Guizhou, four left-behind children who had long lacked care and protection from the cold died in a dilapidated house. This incident briefly shocked the entire country but was quickly sealed off by public opinion. In any normal civilized society, such a tragedy would trigger an overwhelming wave of grassroots assistance. However, in China, the warm hands reaching out to these children are always locked by cold handcuffs called “political security.”
Isn’t this strange? How can a regime that possesses nuclear weapons and a massive stability-maintenance apparatus be afraid of a few padded jackets, several boxes of milk, and kind-hearted people running around remote poor areas? In 2018, when several volunteers raised winter supplies for children in pastoral areas in Gansu and Qinghai, they were summoned for talks on the grounds of “conducting activities without approval.” Some supplies were confiscated, and those involved were warned not to organize similar donations again.
Now, let us slowly peel back the core like peeling an onion.
First, the helpers are guilty: people’s kindness has crossed the boundary of power.
Under totalitarian logic, goodness is not a universal value, but a licensed franchise. This may sound absurd, but there are many examples. Take the Liren Library as one example. The grassroots organization “Liren,” which once attempted to establish libraries in rural areas and awaken public consciousness, built dozens of village reading rooms in Yunnan, Guizhou, and other regions. Yet it was deemed to pose “ideological risks.” Its leaders were repeatedly summoned for talks, projects were completely halted, books were sealed, and volunteer networks were forcibly dismantled. What the government fears is not those books, but the possibility that children might gain the ability to think in addition to receiving padded clothing.
Another example is Angel Moms. For many years, countless unofficial orphanages have been forcibly shut down. Some volunteers who rescued sick children and abandoned infants across provinces were investigated on charges such as “illegal social organizations” and “disrupting social management order,” and rescue channels were forcibly cut off. The authorities would rather let children waste away helplessly behind broken windows of welfare institutions than allow grassroots groups like Angel Moms to display compassion that goes beyond the system. Since the promulgation of the Law on the Management of Domestic Activities of Overseas Non-Governmental Organizations in 2016, countless labor, gender, and education NGOs that worked deeply at the grassroots level and spoke for vulnerable groups have been labeled as “foreign infiltration” and uprooted entirely. In cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, a large number of grassroots public-interest projects were forced to deregister, and their leaders were restricted from leaving the country or placed under long-term surveillance.
These cases repeatedly prove that, in the eyes of the CCP authorities, an uncontrolled helper is far more dangerous than a freezing child.
Second comes the logic of dictators: they would rather maintain “absolute control” than allow “society to save itself.” The Chinese government’s rejection of grassroots charity stems from three deep-seated fears embedded in its very bones.
The first fear is the germination of “organization.” What authoritarian regimes fear most is the emergence of horizontal connections among the populace. Charitable activities naturally possess mobilizing and cohesive power, enabling strangers to unite around a common goal. During the Henan floods in 2021, some grassroots rescue teams not affiliated with the official system were barred from entering disaster areas for refusing to accept unified command, while images of delayed rescue scenes were quickly erased. For a regime that promotes an “atomized society,” any social bond that bypasses grassroots Party organizations constitutes a direct threat to its ruling power.
The second fear is the loss of “legitimacy.” The CCP has long emphasized that only the Communist Party is the source of happiness. If grassroots organizations perform more quickly, more transparently, and with greater humanitarian concern than the government in the face of disasters and poverty, the public will inevitably ask: “If civil society can do better, what use is this bloated and corrupt bureaucratic system?” In multiple disasters, grassroots volunteers released real-time rescue and supply information through social media, only to be ordered to delete the content, while official announcements often appeared days later. In order to conceal incompetence, excellence must be strangled.
The third fear, and the most hypocritical one, is fear of the truth. Every child who requires grassroots assistance is a silent indictment of the lies of “national rejuvenation” and “comprehensive poverty alleviation.” Grassroots charity inevitably involves field investigation and information dissemination, which pierces the illusion of prosperity woven by state media. Similar logic was repeatedly verified in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: grassroots records and calls for help were swiftly deleted, yet the problems themselves did not disappear. Thus, they took action—covering the mouths of the suffering while severing the hands of the helpers.
Once the onion is fully peeled, one can stand atop the high walls and look down upon how bitter the winter beneath this power truly is. Charity has been absorbed into a “bureaucratic Red Cross”-style arena of power rent-seeking. When compassion must pass through layers of political vetting before reaching the grassroots, such a system has completely lost its capacity for self-repair. It is not merely rejecting outside help; it is suffocating the moral vitality and compassion of the entire nation.
In the ice and snow, children still shiver, while the regime that claims to serve the people hides behind high walls, vigilantly staring at every padded jacket and every book that attempts to be passed over the wall. This fear of warmth is precisely the clearest proof of the Communist Party’s profound inner weakness and terror.
