For those of us working and living in Asia, we have witnessed breathtaking change over the past 30 years. New York City has developed since 1987, too, but nothing compared to the dramatic change in Shanghai or Singapore during the same time period. Easiest to see are the new roads, airports, trains and the buildings, especially the buildings. In 1996, according to the mayor, one in five active construction cranes in the world were in Shanghai. But people are also changing. Asians are part of a global marketplace and cultural community like never before, particularly those in big cities. Connectivity has leapt forward at a blazing pace. From 2015 to 2016 alone, the number of active Internet users jumped 12 percent, and the figure for those with smart phones went up by 21 percent in Asia. 1 There are also extraordinary improvements in education, life expectancy, and other quality of life indicators. The news, however, is not all good. The Gini coefficient, a measure of the gap between the rich and the poor, is growing around the world. In Asia, this is happening at an accelerated pace. In many respects China is the first superpower to still be a developing country. While one can marvel at the modernity of Asia's cities, there remains great poverty in both urban and rural areas. The dichotomy-between rich and poor, urban and rural, those plugged into the global economy and those very much left out-is glaringly obvious when travelling around many parts of Asia. Some coun
Asia isn't the only place to experience a trust deficit. Trust has fallen to discouraging levels around the world, according to the 2017 "Trust Barometer" by Edelman, a public relations firm. Titling its recent report "An Implosion of Trust," Edelman writes that trust in NGOs in the United States, China, Japan, Germany, and the UK fell to less than 50 percent, its lowest level since 2001, when the survey was first conducted. In Asia, trust for civil society has been low for many years, and it has recently fallen further in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia. But there are bright spots. Trust levels have actually increased in India, China, and Hong Kong, for reasons that may be duplicated elsewhere. These economies have taken steps to clarify the murky landscape in which private social investment takes place, a problem detailed in Chapter 4. China, especially, has received media attention over new laws affecting international NGOs. Though China and India are at the forefront of changing the environment for charitable action, other nations are also amending laws aimed at the giving and receiving of funds. Some changes reflect a desire on the part of governments to mitigate the trust deficit and allow for greater transparency and accountability. Some have to do with entirely different agendas. Changes in the legal system affecting philanthropy broadly fall into three categories. The first is an effort by governments to discern between
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