Journal of Chinese Political Science, September 2020 Public Trust as a Driver of State-Grassroots NGO Collaboration in China May Farid 1 Chengcheng Song 2 Abstract While the moniker non-governmental organization (NGO) connotes dis- tance from the state, it is widely recognized that civil society in a range of political contexts is in fact characterized by close ties across the public-private divide. Scholars of Chinese social organizations have noted that proximity between the state and NGOs is even more pronounced in the context of China. What is less clear is why this is so. Why do grassroots NGOs overwhelmingly pursue engagement with the state? This paper presents findings that enumerate a number of motivating forces that drive state-NGO collaboration, particularly with respect to small, grassroots NGOs that do not have preexisting ties to elites or to the state. Most notable among these is that NGOs seek engagement with state agencies primarily in order to secure public trust. Public trust is found to be key to the ability of such groups to run programs, mobilize citizens or raise funds. These findings therefore have implications for how we under- stand the critical role of public support and legitimation—in addition to state con- trol—in the enabling of civil society under authoritarianism. Keywords State-NGO Relations ⋅ Public Trust ⋅ Cross-Sector Collaboration ⋅ China ⋅ Grassroots NGO Introduction The rise of the NGO sector in China’s rapidly shifting social landscape led to a burst of scholarly interest in the nature of social organizations and their relationship with the state. An initial question preoccupying researchers was whether China’s burgeon- ing NGOs were signs of an ‘independent civil society’ arrayed against the state or ev- idence of corporatist control. Subsequent studies advanced more complex views of state-NGO relations in China by identifying collaborative modes of engagement and mutually beneficial interactions, focusing on state interactions with well-established groups in urban centers or NGO-friendly regions [1]. Important insights have been advanced despite limitations in access to other types of organizations. For example, less is known about China’s small grassroots non-governmental organizations, many of which are unregistered, operate in rural areas, and do not benefit from preexisting ties to government or elites. Because of the lack of official data and access, there is a paucity of empirical work on these grassroots NGOs, even though they constitute the bulk of the third sector, both in terms of numbers and distribution, and, according to some scholars, are ‘the most meaningful indicator of civil society’ [2]. Department of Social Welfare and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China 1 School of Public Administration and Research Center for NGO & Society Innovation, East China Normal Uni 2 - versity, Shanghai, China 1