Study Times: Approaches to Handling Social Conflicts

Study Times published an article proposing several approaches that would help reduce social conflicts as China faces “the grim situation of public security” and as “social conflicts and social unrest remain high.”  In order to handle social unrest or public safety emergencies, these approaches focus on the following: establishing mechanisms to arbitrate conflicts within the local communities and within trades, recruiting retired Party members and officials to work with those released from prison, encouraging trade associations to exercise self-monitoring and self-disciplinary functions with their members, incentivizing security firms to provide public security services, utilizing trade unions to ensure production safety, and establishing professional response teams, both privately and government funded.