The Red Cross Society of China facing credibility crisis The Red Cross Society of China is not only in a credibility crisis as a result of Guo Meimei scandal, but suspicions are raised even to the question of charitable donations as a whole. Its competent authority, The Ministry of Civil Affairs of China has released the �gChinese Urban Charity Index�h for the first time based on 2010 data, disclosing the situation of charitable activities in the 50 major cities and the amount of donations received. Shanghai ranked first in amount of charity revenues with more than 5.4 billion yuan ($8.4 million, or \64.8 billion). In Beijing, Shenzhen, Wuxi, Chengdu, and Dalian over 1 billion yuan ($1.56 million, or \12 billion) was collected while Shenzhen topped the per capita donation with 393.66 yuan ($63 or \4,724). But after Guo Meimei incident (Shenzhen was involved), the revenue from donation was close to zero and the overall nationwide charitable activities have declined rapidly. The total amount of donations that the Red Cross Society of China and other charitable organizations received in March to May stood at 6.2 billion yuan ($980 million, or \74.4 billion) compared to the 800 million yuan ($130 million, or \9.6 billion) between June to August, after the Guo Meimei scandal. There is a deep rooted distrust towards charitable organizations in China. The aftermath of the scandal has not only diminished the enthusiasm in making donations, but one of the important roles of the Red Cross, blood donation has been negatively impacted. It is said that lack of supply of blood is now becoming a serious problem. On Augusts 26, while President Hu Jintao was attending the Nightingale Award Ceremony in recognition of distinguished nurses, he gave clear instructions to the members of the Red Cross Society of China to make organizational reforms to recover the lost credibility and to guarantee transparency and accountability to the public. On the other hand, the Ministry of Civil Affairs concerned that further Red Cross bashing would incur a huge damage to the overall charitable activities in China, and has requested the media to voluntarily refrain from excessive reporting. But some of the media and the internet users have retaliated by saying that �gthere is not enough reflection on their past activities, and they are just trying to evade responsibility.�h Their argument is that unless charitable organizations become totally independent from the government and provide thorough disclosure of information, the lost credibility will never be recovered with the citizens and corporations towards donations. In Japan too, the institutional fatigue seen in the Red Cross Society is a serious problem. An example of this is the delay in the delivery of public donations to the disaster stricken areas and the victims. The Red Cross Society has much to reflect upon and discuss in order to recover the trust of the Japanese citizens.