Chinese TED talk called off after police express concern about links to foreign organisation

It is unclear when the event in Guangzhou can go ahead as organisers look at whether they can get a temporary permit to avoid falling foul of the law
China has been tightening its laws to counter foreign ‘interference’, with NGOs among the organisations facing tighter controls on their activities

NGOs in China

Yvonne Sun

Published: 4:25pm, 31 Jul 2023

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Planned TED talks in the Chinese city of Guangzhou have been called off after police contacted the organisers to express concern that it was associated with a foreign non-governmental organisation.

The TEDxGuangzhou 2023 conference, planned for August 13, would have been the first since the start of the Covid pandemic and was expected to attract 800 attendees.

The schedule included 12 talks by artists, researchers, entrepreneurs and campus anti-bullying advocates. The event brochure also said it would include small-scale discussions and workshops.

But TEDxGuangzhou said in a WeChat post on Monday that the city police’s office for the management of foreign non-governmental organisations had contacted the organisation on Thursday and told it to “establish a domestic representative office” or apply for a temporary permit to comply with the law.

The local police so far have not issued any statement on the issue.

The police intervention comes after China has repeatedly promised international businesses that the country is committed to opening up even as it sharpens its legal tools to fight “foreign infiltration”.

TEDxGuangzhou rejected the police characterisation. “We are a group of local volunteers who occasionally come together to plan some activities,” the statement said.

“We are not an ‘organisation’, and there is no employment or remuneration relationship between us or with TED. Therefore, we do not fall under the jurisdiction of this law, which pertains to foreign NGOs registered overseas that wish to conduct business in China.”

However, the organisers said they were looking at the possibility of obtaining a temporary permit for fear of the legal consequences if they went ahead without one.

They also warned that it was difficult to obtain the permit quickly because it required a written agreement between TED and Chinese partners.

TED Conferences (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a North American non-profit media organisation founded in 1984 that posts talks online for free under the slogan “ideas worth spreading”.

It launched the TEDx project in 2009 to help communities around the globe to organise similar events.

TEDx events have to be non-profit and can be organised by anyone who obtains a free licence from TED after agreeing to follow certain rules.

Guangzhou was the first city in mainland China to host TEDx events, when they were held at Sun Yat-sen University in June 2009. Since then similar events have been held in different parts of the country – both at universities and off-campus – with more than 200 TEDx events being held in the first four months of 2012 alone.

TEDxGuangzhou said it had organised more than 10 events in the past seven years, attracting over 5,000 visitors in total.

But some social media users said that since 2018 large-scale TEDx gatherings had often been cancelled at short notice and most organisers had preferred to arrange small-scale campus gatherings since then.