How the Chinese Communist Regime Does Grass-Roots Management

Large-scale social unrest in China has been on the rise in recent years. The upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympic Games has become a rallying point for issues of social discontent. To deal with social unrest in both urban and rural areas, the Communist regime is focusing on one aspect of Chinese society — a special grass-roots organization — the Community Neighborhood Committee. These community committees are unique to China. On the surface, they are non-governmental organizations, but the staff is on the government payroll. These committees exist everywhere and form a dense network of control, working for the local police and governments. On February 16, 2008, the official journal of the CCP Central Committee Qiushi published an article entitled “Grass-roots is the focus of social management and supervision.”[1] The author is a member of Standing Committee of Anhui Provincial CCP Committee and Secretary of Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs of the Anhui Provincial CCP Committee. [2] Below are excerpts from the article.

The 17th National Congress of the CCP raised an important issue: To form a sound grass-roots society management system, using a healthy Party committee’s leadership, responsible government, a coordinated social network, and participation from the public. Anhui Province, when dealing with political and legal work, has focused its work at the grass-roots level in order to dissolve all social conflicts and problems at the grass-roots level, to maximally enhance harmonious factors, and to maximally reduce the unharmonious factors, so as to lay a solid foundation for the construction of a socialistic harmonious society.

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I. Promoting the construction of communities, perfecting grass-roots management and a service network

We take the construction of communities as the base for managing society. Advice on Promoting the Construction of Communities on all Fronts was drawn on for the purpose of actively promoting construction of urban communities, and relying on Community’s Neighborhood Committees (CNC). We have constructed 2300 CNC’s covering all the cities and towns in the province. In 2007, we also established 10 pilot rural village communities so as to promote the construction of rural neighborhood communities based on the autonomy of villagers.

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We have strengthened the communities’ self-governance function and clarified the CNC’s obligations and its autonomous role. As a result, the government’s administrative management effectively coordinates with residents’ self-governance through CNC’s. The government’s law enforcement interacts with the community’s lawful autonomy. We have strengthened construction of the community management team. By hiring community managerial staff members, implementing the system of certification, and improving staffer’s welfare, we have built a steadfast community management.
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II. Perfect social organizations and enhance their service functions

Taking the management of social organizations as an important issue of strengthening the grass-roots work, we have issued Suggestions on further strengthening the management of civil social organizations, so as to guide and regulate the healthy development of non-governmental organizations. In Anhui province there are more than 10,000 lawfully registered non-governmental organizations, with a total staff of 70,000. These organizations span across the cities and villages, forming a system of non-governmental organizations with extensive coverage and comprehensive categories.

III. Strengthen grass-roots law enforcement, preserve long-term social stability

We take grass-roots enforcement as the focus, and use the construction of a "Peaceful Anhui" as a framework for handling prominent public order and security problems collectively. We implemented a policy focusing on the grass-roots, reinforcing the grass-roots level police force, and promoting an in-depth control system for preventing social unrest and promoting social stability. By organizing all social forces to carry out law enforcement, we managed to maintain continuous stability in the urban and rural areas across the province.

In the process of strengthening grass-roots public security management, we adhere to the policies of combining crackdown with prevention and combining targeted strikes with general supervision. We set up a working mechanism of rapid response, flexible operation, and orderly coordination to guarantee effective security protection and control. We have implemented a responsibility and accountability system. We oppose inaction and chaotic action. We have severely clamped down on various criminal activities, improved the service and management of the migrant population, strengthened the propaganda and education of rule of law to the whole society including young people, and effectively prevented crimes.

IV. Improve the emergency management mechanism and enhance the abilities of the grass-roots level to manage crises and risks

Emergency management is a crucial aspect of managing society. We have made legal regulations such as an Overall Emergency Plan for Unexpected Public Incidents, established an emergency management organization system, and enhanced the ability to prevent and deal with unexpected events. We focused on the counter-emergency planning at the county and township levels, and strengthened guidance of the counter-emergency planning in key work places, important public locations, schools and communities (villages). We strengthened the organization and training of specialized teams for emergency events management; established a working system of unified command, orderly coordination, sensitive response, and efficient operation. We improved the construction of the monitoring and detecting system, established an integrated system of society emergency monitoring, societal mobilization, rapid responsiveness, and high efficiency reaction.
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V. Coordinate various interest groups and properly handle internal conflicts among the people.

We take the coordination of various interest groups and proper handling of various social conflicts, especially any internal conflicts among the people, as the daily work to promote and guarantee grass-roots stability and harmony. We adhere to the principle of "local management and hierarchical responsibility" and "whoever is in charge is responsible," so as to implement the responsibility policy and the policy of accountability at the grass-root level. We improve the case analysis and conflicts resolving system, adhere to the policy of "actively preventing, promptly exposing, effectively controlling and properly resolving," and extensively carry out the survey of public opinions. We also established a people-administration-judiciary trinity mediation system based on the judiciary, in which the departments of public appeals, the courts and public security participate. Thus, we have strived to achieve early investigation, rapid detection, complete control, and proper handling of various conflicts.

Endnotes:
[1] Qiushi，issue 4, 2008
http://www.qsjournal.com.cn/qs/20080216/GB/qs%5E473%5E0%5E19.htm
[2] Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs：Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs (CPLA) is CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) a functional body in charge of judicial issues. The Central CPLA organizes and leads the work of all judiciary related CCP agencies, guiding the work of CPLA’s at CCP Committees in provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Government. Top officials at Ministry of Public Security, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and Supreme People’s Court ought to report to the Secretary of Central CPLA, who usually is a member or leading member of the CCP Committee in Ministry of Public Security, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and Supreme People’s Court. The establishment of CPLA guarantees the de facto control of the CCP over the judicial branch of the central government.