KangAi Commune Is Not Charitable Fundraising — a Mindset That Needs Correcting

Many members join KangAi Commune and regard it as charitable fundraising, and therefore fail to understand its rules on refusing assistance, strict vetting, vetting fees and frozen memberships with back-payments. This has given rise to many misunderstandings.

The Commune's model is now generally called "online mutual aid" (the formal term being "crowd insurance"). Since it is mutual aid, it is a two-way relationship — you help me and I help you — in which rights and obligations are reciprocal and everyone is bound by the rules of mutual aid.

The rules of mutual aid exist to keep this two-way relationship working effectively. They contain many stipulations, and those stipulations are designed for general and universal situations, aiming to fit the circumstances of the great majority of members; they are not aimed at anyone in particular. Every recipient must be publicly disclosed when receiving assistance. If we were to force fundraising for someone who did not meet these pre-set conditions, we could not account for it to members at the public disclosure stage, the authority and credibility of the rules would be gone, and the mutual aid could not continue.

Are these pre-set rules unreasonable or lacking in humanity in any way? Certainly they are!

But until there is a better alternative, we must carry them out. Chinese people value flexibility, and so the sense of social rules is weak and the spirit of law is lacking, which raises social costs — in truth an injury to everyone. We should change this wherever the Commune is able.

As for members who, unfortunately, do not qualify for the Commune's assistance: for one thing, as noted above, this is not aimed at you; for another, the Commune has introduced a new policy refunding the assistance contributions a member has made to the Commune, which is a humane supplement. It is truly regrettable, and every refusal is painful for our platform staff as well. But there is an agreement in place, so please understand. Only when the rules are universally respected can we help more people and protect everyone's rights.