A Comparative Study Of The Legal Systems Of Chinese And Japanese Philanthropy

China and Japan belong to the Confucian cultural circle.During a long period of time,there are many similarities between the two countries in the model of state-society relations.As far as philanthropy is concerned,the philanthropy of both countries originated from temple charity activities,and experienced a general process of developing from personal charity behavior into state monopoly charity and returning to the private sector.This has enabled China and Japan to have a social basis for mutual learning and mutual learning in philanthropy legislation.In 2016,China ushered in a milestone reform period in the history of philanthropy,and successively introduce a series of widely-recognized laws and regulations such as the Charity Law.The construction of the legal system of philanthropy,the first problem that cannot be avoided,is also the most important question is whether it can effectively construct and smoothly implement the charity organization certification system.The charity organization is determined to be the basis for the follow-up charity organization fundraising qualifications,tax incentives,charity supervision,charity trust and other issues.Charitable organizations decide whether a series of laws,such as the Charity Law,can achieve their legislative goals and whether they can promote the development of Chinese charities.At present,there are two ways for charitable organizations to be identified in China.For incremental organizations,the identification method of “legal registration”and “charity identification”is implemented.For stock organizations,different identification methods are implemented according to different types of legal persons.In Japan,the legal person registration is completely separated from the charity organization,and the third-party collegial body dominates the public interest.The identification of public interest corporations in Japan has greatly promoted the development of Japanese public welfare undertakings and has important reference significance for China.In addition,the legal system of charity in China also stipulates the general rules and internal governance of charitable acts,and strengthens the obligation of information disclosure of charitable organizations.Charitable organizations should disclose their annual work reports to the society every year.In terms of charity fundraising,key regulations have also been made.On the basis of the current situation,the scope of public fundraising entities has been expanded,and the public fundraising qualifications for charitable organizations to carry out public fundraising have been clarified.As a result,charitable organizations have the opportunity to raise funds fairly,and some small charitable organizations no longer have to call other organizations.Japan has experienced an open-regulatory-open development process in fundraising.At this stage,Japan has fully liberalized charitable fundraising,and has almost no restrictions or prohibitions on fundraising qualifications.This has certain risks for China at this stage.However,from the perspective of safeguarding freedom,it seems that the full liberalization of fundraising has become a trend.We still need to pay attention to it and discuss it.Subsequently,we conducted a comparative study on the specific provisions of the legal system of charity in China and Japan and related provisions,and also discussed the characteristics and functions of the charity legal system of the two countries.Since the promulgation of the Charity Law in 2016,many of the previously controversial issues have had clear answers.For example,individuals can cooperate to raise donations,the public offering rights are gradually liberalized,and the appraisal of donations is explicitly prohibited.The donations have the right to know,the charitable organizations need to be transparent,the donations will enjoy tax benefits,and so on.The "Charity Law" has opened the door to legislation and actively absorbed the opinions of many parties,which is of great significance to the development of charity in China.But at the same time,we should also see that there are still many provisions in China's current charity legal system that are not sufficiently rigorous,lack of refinement,and lack of maneuverability.Some of the provisions have not yet shaken off the control thinking based on vague administrative discretion,and the law is not clear.We also do not believe that the Japanese charity legal system is correct and flawless.The problem encountered in Japan is that the highly differentiated and refined laws make NPO in different fields subject to the heads of different government departments.Communication between government departments is often not timely and efficient,and it is difficult to meet the changing needs of society.This is very useful for China,because the division of Chinese government departments may be more serious than Japan.If it is completely governed by Japanese experience,it may cause more serious problems.All in all,Japan is our most important neighbor.All aspects of its philanthropy,especially policy trends,deserve our attention and research.The Charity Law only took the first step of "promoting the good by law",and it will still face new difficulties in the implementation of development.We believe that as long as a positive interaction mechanism between the legislature and the public is formed,the era of charity supported by law will naturally emerge.