Global companies are often criticized for sacrificing their principles and core values in coming to China. Look at how hard Google and Yahoo! were hit last year over internet censorship issues.

China is too big a country for global marketers not to stake out a place for themselves.

But do nonprofit entities also shift their values to have a presence in China? In conversations with colleagues recently, several have suggested that just as companies may bend their rules to come to China so do global philanthropies/advocacy groups.

I don’t mean to pick on Greenpeace, but it may be a good place to start. Greenpeace has a pretty big office in Beijing with (I believe) several dozen people. They’ve also got an office in Guangzhou. Some of their folks are quite talented and well-intentioned.

Greenpeace worldwide is involved in all sorts of campaigns, and sometimes its tactics are confrontational. A quick internet search turns up examples in recent weeks. In vintage Greenpeace style, activists aboard dinghies in Lake Erie (Canada) on Aug. 30 painted the hull of a freighter with the signs “No Coal” and “Clean Energy.”

On Sept. 15, the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise briefly blocked a freighter leaving Canada carrying wood pulp to Europe. It was part of an anti-logging campaign.

In northwestern Argentina, Greenpeace activists are camped out in the treetops in the Yungas forest in a campaign against logging of native forests there.

In the Swiss Alps, a Greenpeace-commissioned photographer posed hundreds of naked people in front of a melting glacier to call attention to global warming on Aug. 18.

In Papua New Guinea and Australia and on to the Philippines, Greenpeace activists are involved in all sorts of campaigns, such as anti-whaling efforts or against rampant logging.

In China, arguably the most polluted major nation where Greenpeace has an office, the group seems marginalized or silent on some major issues. One would be forgiven for thinking they are more interested in being seen than in being effective. There are no tree-climbing or ship-painting stunts here in China. Instead, in May Greenpeace co-organized a rock festival.

Now, one can easily argue that while in China one has to operate by the laws and realities of China. That is an argument big companies often make, Yahoo included. Greenpeace activists would probably be thrown in a labor camp for boarding a coal ship, and their local offices shut down. My inkling is that these are the kinds of pragmatic choices that not only private companies but also nonprofit groups make on entering China.

Greenpeace, I'm sure, is not the only possible example, and I may not have all the facts. But can anyone offer other cases of groups that may be tinkering with core beliefs or changing behavior to be in China?

In full disclosure, Greenpeace China has helped me in past years write about electronic waste in Guangdong province and on renewable wind energy. I consider some of their present and former employees, inside and outside of China, as friends.