The Lushan earthquake in Ya’an, Sichuan, turned disaster relief into a public test of China’s charity system. Five years after Wenchuan, the contrast was stark. In 2008, the first week was so overwhelming that authority seemed to dissolve; by Lushan, the government drew on five years of crisis-management experience and took command almost immediately, making the disaster zone a showcase of the country’s governing model.
Private charities moved faster than official ones. One Foundation was among the first into the quake zone, and donation pledges soon arrived in waves, often in the range of several million yuan. Over the same period, the Red Cross received roughly one percent of that amount. A long humiliation had arrived without warning.
Public opinion had already sorted official charity and private charity into good and bad. Lushan hardened that judgment, not through a fresh scandal like Guo Meimei but through another disaster. Private philanthropists gained confidence. The Red Cross, meanwhile, could not defy public sentiment: every accusation had to be answered, and scrutiny reached a severity made possible by the live disaster scene. It worked under mockery and anger. To imagine it felt no resentment would strain belief.
Reform inside the Red Cross
After Zhao Baige took the top leadership post, the Red Cross carried out limited reforms, including reclaiming authority over appointments and dismissals in local branches. But in Lushan, those changes looked thin. They had met internal resistance, had done little to remake the organization’s character, and had not markedly improved its practical capacity. The Red Cross remained far behind One Foundation in professionalism.
One Foundation’s roots, however, ran through the Red Cross. It began as a project attached to the Red Cross and operated its main base in Shanghai. This kind of attachment was common in mainland charity: Free Lunch, Veterans Homecoming, and Da Ai Qing Chen all used similar workarounds. Without the Red Cross, there would have been no One Foundation; that was not merely Jet Li’s polite line.
Yet no matter how large One Foundation grew, it would hit a ceiling. The Red Cross did not solve that fundamental problem. As long as One Foundation remained under the Red Cross’s wing, the risk of destruction was ever present. At one point Jet Li spoke publicly as if prepared to die, a remark that captured the love-hate relationship between the two organizations. One Foundation’s hunger for an independent identity—and for survival—was therefore sharper than anyone’s.
When Shenzhen extended an invitation, One Foundation moved south. It gained an independent identity. It still could not conduct nationwide public fundraising, but regional public fundraising plus targeted public fundraising was possible. That was the reason for the move. The survival crisis did not disappear, though. Jet Li, experienced in both the formal and informal sides of society, began building safety belts in Shenzhen.
Many of One Foundation’s donors were leading mainland business figures and companies, including Alibaba, Wang Shi, and Feng Lun. Through special committees, Jet Li linked charity to commercial power and modern corporate governance. This has looked like the key to One Foundation’s resilience. It became a hybrid: civilian and business-run at once. Its scale could be compared only with the Red Cross under Shen Dunhe a century earlier. Other NGOs may share elements of that model, but few have achieved such strength. Alxa is an entrepreneurs’ alliance with little public reach. One Foundation, by contrast, opened itself to both the public and the business world—a rare arrangement in mainland China.
Rivalry beyond charity
The divide between official and private charity that appeared after Wenchuan turned, in Lushan, into a direct confrontation between the Red Cross and One Foundation. Within charity circles this was not necessarily bad. But the comparison of their strength had already moved beyond charity and was being judged by broader standards, including social stability.
The Red Cross represented the backbone of official charity, a system meant to use philanthropy to strengthen influence in social life. One Foundation challenged that arrangement. Public opinion lifted it onto a high platform and made it an institutional representative of social will. With his experience of both the formal and informal worlds, Jet Li knew the risks.
For the authorities, directly moving against One Foundation during an active relief operation was difficult. The system could, however, create more opportunities for the Red Cross and other official charities to be present. Reports from Lushan about the exclusion of private volunteers and groups fit that logic. Strengthening official charity’s role as the main body of disaster relief was being carried out.
Control over relief resources had begun after Wenchuan, when official charities were declared the only qualified recipients of donations and supplies. In Lushan, that approach was likely to continue, with more refined operations, in order to block channels for private charity to intervene.
Official and private charities were now competing for donations. By some measures, private groups—acting voluntarily and spontaneously—were receiving far more money and supplies than official charities. The disparity reflected choices made by the public and by companies after the Wenchuan scandals and the memory of that relief effort. The question was whether the government would acknowledge it.
Comparing the two Sichuan earthquakes, Lushan was brought into the framework of stability maintenance very quickly. This was helped by online guidance about disorderly relief. Two days later, organized attacks on Li Chengpeng and smears against Japanese rescue teams had appeared. The intent was clear: to weaken the moral standing of private and foreign relief.
Control of the disaster zone relied heavily on targeted clearances. One Foundation was probably not the first to be urged away, but spontaneous private forces would soon find it hard to maintain a presence. Information suggested that the Red Cross was not the only institution feeling challenged; security agencies were also monitoring and evaluating private relief. Would containment become the guiding policy?
Wenchuan was treated by many in mainland charity as Year One—meaning the year official charity fell and declined. Yet official charity still held institutional and policy advantages, and full independence for private charity remained some distance away. Once the opening had been made, however, public support could carry it further. Official charities such as the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation had already shown that transformation was possible.
The meeting, separation, and reunion of the Red Cross and One Foundation were a true microcosm of five years of charitable development. One Foundation was not forcing the Red Cross forward, nor was it simply running too fast. The Red Cross was bound by institutional dependence and moving too slowly. In a long-distance race, the two might appear to run side by side, but the actual ranking could be vastly different.
One Foundation had a business group behind its operations; the Red Cross relied on institutional advantage and was the fullest expression of a charity system organized on a national scale. The ideal would be to set aside institutional prejudice and bias and pursue four transformations—de-administration, de-monopolization, professionalization, and transparency—so that charity could form what might be called a republic of public welfare. But the Red Cross could no longer turn back. That was not something it could decide on its own.
Historically, in the first three or four decades of the mainland Red Cross, Shanghai merchants and Beijing politicians fought fiercely, with government and business locked in struggle, until the War of Resistance brought the Red Cross fully to heel. Now the Red Cross was reliving that official-business contest, except that its rival stood outside the system. One Foundation had become the first non-political opponent in the Red Cross’s more than century-long history. If Shen Dunhe were alive, where would Zhao Baige place herself?