State-run Guangming Daily published an article discussing the characteristics of newly emerging social conflicts. Social conflicts have spread to more groups, such as between cadres and the masses, between different social groups, and between workers and employers; conflicts involve complaints about abuses and lawsuits, triads, and hostile forces that have incited these conflicts. Social conflicts tend to be large scale, increasingly confrontational, highly unpredictable, and explosive. Further, the nature of conflicts has changed from simple civil disputes to a mixture of civil disputes, economic disputes, administrative disputes, and disputes involving laws and regulations.
Source: Guangming Daily, February 9, 2011
http://politics.gmw.cn/2011-02/09/content_1593523.htm