2020 saw something of a lull in foreign NGO activity in China. According to Ministry of Public Security data, fewer foreign NGOs registered new representative offices or initiated temporary activities than they had in the previous two years. Of course, in a year where China and the rest of the international community had to contend with successive waves of a global pandemic, it is not surprising that foreign NGO activity in the PRC decreased. What remains unknown is how much of the dip in activity is attributable to the pandemic and how much to an increasingly rancorous international environment, or to tightening political controls within the PRC itself.