Two departments issued a document specifying the prohibited situations for the evaluation and recognition activities of social organizations.

On July 16, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Central Department of Social Work issued the "Management Measures for the Evaluation and Commendation Activities of Social Organizations", clarifying the boundaries of the evaluation and commendation activities of social organizations, the norms of behavior for implementing evaluation and commendation projects, and prohibited situations. The measures will be implemented from August 1, 2026, and the original "Management Measures for the Evaluation and Commendation Activities of Social Organizations" will be abolished. The measures specify that social organizations cannot conduct five types of activities outside the list of evaluation and commendation projects in the form of commendation, selection, or awards, and cannot be recognized or named in the form of issuing documents or awarding plaques. These five types of activities include displaying exchange activities within the scope of business activities, academic reviews, paper collection, case recommendation, and other related recognition and evaluation activities, publicly releasing data and information in the industry and field, sports competitions, skills competitions, military competitions, reform pilots, experiments, and pioneering work. The measures also stipulate that social organizations must not conduct naming activities for "cities", "townships", "bases", etc. targeting city, county, township, village, etc., without approval; must not conduct activities containing words like "national", "China", "Chinese", "Asia", "global", or similar meanings even if not explicitly labeled; must not conduct seven types of activities such as awards, commendations, or naming events during summits, forums, ceremonies, celebrations, exhibitions, etc. Regarding the organization's implementation of evaluation and commendation projects, the measures explicitly state that social organizations cannot target party committees, governments, or party and government agencies at all levels; generally do not target party and government leading cadres or leaders of public institutions as evaluation objects; cannot cooperate with or entrust for-profit organizations; and cannot charge or receive any fees in any form.