Managing/reacting is a widely-adopted perspective in studying the localization of transnational nongovernmental organizations( TNGOs) in China. While this perspective has the image that these two opposing parties—TNGOs and the Chinese state—are entangled in inevitable conflicts. This binary perspective cannot properly explain the dynamic history of TNGOs operating in China over the past three decades. In the context of global governance and the adjustment of the state-society relationship in China,‘incorporation and adjustment’might be a better way to analyze the localization of TNGOs in China. The articulation theory provides this non-binary perspective and theoretical resources. From this perspective,the localization of TNGOs in China can be viewed as a process of TNGOs building up relationships with different bodies in the local context through representational activities. Through the analysis of their preparations for entering China, ways of registration, requisition of legitimating resources, and legitimating representations during interactions with different bodies,this article presents the discursive expressions and representations of two different TNGOs striving to be articulated with Chinese local context. The choice of two different cases is also intentional for comparison. Through the comparison,we hope to demonstrate some possible dialogical space between the logic of civil society and that of state corporatism,as well as the empirical diversity in such space.