The Chinese government is considering revoking the qualifications of charity organizations to raise public donations when more than one-third of an organization's board members hail from outside the Chinese mainland, according to a draft regulation released Friday.

The draft issued for solicitation of public opinions by the Ministry of Civil Affairs includes nine conditions charity organizations must meet to carry out fundraising in China. One of these conditions - which requires that the number of a charity's board members who hail from outside the mainland should not exceed one-third of the board's total membership and stipulates that the charity's legal representative in China should be a mainland citizen -  has been particularly disputed.

Liu Youping, deputy head of the China Charity and Donation Information Center, told the Global Times that he "holds reservations about the regulation."

Liu said that in the past, most foreign charity organizations that broke Chinese laws or regulations normally received most of their funding from outside the Chinese mainland, so the restraint the regulation imposes on mainland fundraising by charity organizations that have non-mainland board members cannot effectively prevent infiltration by foreign powers.

"China has already become such a great country in the world that the government should not welcome foreign assistance while at the same time limiting foreign people and groups from raising donations in China," Liu said.

However, Zhang Gaorong, an assistant dean at Beijing Normal University's China Philanthropy Research Institute, told the Global Times that since many charity organizations are also NGOs, the draft regulation does not contradict China's existing Foreign NGO Management Law, which states that foreign NGOs cannot raise donations in China.

Liu also pointed out that if over one-third of a charity organization's council members are from areas outside the Chinese mainland, it can in fact be controlled by foreign forces.

"Some charity organizations might become troublemakers if foreign, anti-Chinese government parties gain a dominant position in them," he added.

China's national lawmakers approved a new philanthropy law in March, which stipulates how charities should be registered and gives approved charities more freedom to operate in the mainland, the Xinhua News Agency reported. It will take effect on September 1.

The law does not yet include the regulations proposed by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.