Geography Compass 8/2 (2014): 98–110, 10.1111/gec3.12117 Chinese Non-Governmental Organisations and Civil Society: A Review of the Literature Jennifer Y. J. Hsu * Department of Political Science, University of Alberta Abstract This article reviews the literature on Chinese non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society and argues that to understand the transformative potential of Chinese NGOs we need to consider beyond macro-level political change. By looking at the tactics and strategies of engagement between NGOs and the state, it becomes clear that Chinese NGOs are capable of affecting communities and change at the local level. Furthermore, to fully understand the capacity of Chinese NGOs, this article argues that we cannot insist on a state–society separation as we would in other jurisdictions because it would not lead to fruitful analysis. The state of the field is assessed through an interdisciplinary lens, characterised by four major themes: the linkage between the rise of NGOs and the expansion of civil society; the rise of NGOs as a reflection of state–society relations; NGO sectoral development; and, to a lesser extent, the development of theory and frameworks. The broad appeal of studying non-governmental organisation (NGOs) to understand state transformation is evident: They are at once harbingers of democracy and alternative social service providers. The fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s where non-state actors were intimately involved has increased our expectations for NGOs to bring political transformation to transitional and non-democratic regimes. However, to consider NGOs solely as a democratic force is myopic and does not reflect the socio-political environments affecting NGOs. The treatment of NGOs in nations such as Russia and China unmistakably demonstrates that such aspirations have left scholars and observers without the analytical tools necessary to investigate the actual relations between state and NGO. The strength of the Russian or Chinese state is evident. For example, a 2012 bill adopted by the Russian Duma to categorise all foreign-funded NGOs as “foreign agents,” or the closing down of Chinese labour NGOs in Guangdong province by local authorities in July 2012, displays the critical need to move beyond a simple binary: strong state versus weak society. The emergence of NGOs in China indicates that Chinese NGOs have not traversed down the path of political transformation. The development of Chinese NGOs establishes the need to push beyond binaries and to begin unearthing the dynamics between state and NGOs to comprehend why states respond in such manner. Careful analysis of the activities of NGOs will provide insight into the claims of progressive transformative potential of NGOs. Adopting a broad perspective on the points of contact in state–NGO relations underscores the process by which social and political stakeholders utilise NGOs as an arena to produce, articulate and reconstruct ideas (and ideologies) of progress and development. NGOs possess material, symbolic, interpretive and geographical power (Hasmath and Hsu 2013) and have thus been pushed forth as agents of social and political change not just by NGOs themselves but also by international organisations, such as the United Nations and World Bank, and to lesser extent national governments through to development agencies. NGOs are cast in different ways by scholars, for example, as alternate © 2014 The Author(s) Geography Compass © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd