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Social Management in Shandong Province

[Editor’s Note: In an article appearing in Qiushi journal, the core publication of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the Head of the Public Security Division of Shangdong provincial government discussed the practices used in exercising social control. The following is a translation of excerpts from the article.] [1]

“Regarding population management, we have established a hierarchical model of the ‘conventional administration of the residential population, tracking the mobile population, and focusing on special groups.’ The administration of the residential population is by the area in which they live. The tracking of the mobile population is based on ‘Shandong Province Mobile Population Service and Management Guidelines’ in accordance to the principle of ‘fair treatment, supreme service, rational guidance, and enhanced management.’ We set up mobile population management stations and explored the method of ‘management by ID, housing, and work place.’ At the same time, we strengthened the three measures of ‘service network,’ ‘firewall,’ and the ‘chain of responsibility.’ We have improved our registration procedure, the management staff’s recruiting process, the follow-up and education mechanism, Internet control, and hierarchical management. We also help the mobile population to find jobs, housing, and schooling to improve the management level. For special groups, we have fully taken advantage of the community police, grass roots organizations, and social organizations to strengthen the supervision, education, and transformation of the relevant people.”

“We strengthened the management of key districts, key spots, key places (including middle schools, elementary schools and kindergartens), key villages and key industries. We intensively cleaned up a number of chaotic areas in terms of public security, solved an array of prominent public security issues, and enhanced the sense of security and satisfaction of the general public. We also released the ‘Shandong Province Public Security Prevention and Control System Regulation’ and carried out six prevention and control networks: street, community, work place, video, checkpoint, and inter-regional cooperation. … We improved ‘Two rivers two rings’ (the Beijing moat, and Shanghai moat, the prevention and control circle around Shandong Province, and the prevention and control circle around Jinan City) and the four defense levels: province, city, county, and township. We extended the prevention and control antennae to the community, the work place, villages in the city, the city and countryside intersection, and the administrative districts intersection.”

“Toward the two different types of social organization, one beneficial to society and the other harmful to society, we adopted entirely different policies. … We strengthened the cooperation with civil affairs, national security, religion, education, and public health authorities. We explored building up the social organization information resource database, and dynamically tracking and managing social groups that have not been put on record. Toward overseas hostile organizations that interfere in the conflicts among the people, and endanger national security using the excuse of human rights causes, we strengthened reconnaissance and strikes against them using the law. We firmly annihilated violent terrorist organizations that are engaging in terrorism activities. Toward the cult organizations that endanger society, we stepped up control, interception, and punishment. Toward illegal parties or social organizations that create ideological confusion and mislead the public in their behavior, we resolutely banned them.”

“… resolve conflicts and disputes. We successively released more than ten regulations including ‘Opinions about Further Strengthening and Improving Work on Public Security and Public Petitions.’ We established a review committee for petitions and a coordinating group for handling abnormal petitions. We organized activities such as ‘big investigations’ of society’s conflicts, ‘the year of resolving long-pending petition cases,’ and so on. We improved the ‘Great Mediation’ working mechanism. …We invested nearly one hundred million Yuan in purchasing advanced equipment, and established a counter-terrorism emergency reaction squad, so as to improve the proactive anti-terrorist and emergency mechanism.”

“Pay attention to the virtual society and renovate network management. Virtual society management and real society management are equally important. We formed the concept of two battlefields: online and offline. Focusing on monitoring and patrolling, reconnaissance and investigation, prevention and control, we made efforts to enhance online discovery, reconnaissance, control, and handling ability to build up a virtual society prevention and control network. We carried out the Internet information patrol and handling ‘dual responsibilities system,’ and extended our antennae to the weak areas such as Internet social groups and online communities. We established a public opinion control working group to closely control the dynamics of online public opinion and enhance the capability to guide public opinion. We set up an online ‘alarm booth’ and ‘virtual police.’ We built systems such as “putting up street numbers for websites” for virtual society management. We advanced the development of an information system, enhanced our information sharing and controlled discovery ability, and strengthened the handling of online illegal or criminal cases.”

Endnotes:
[1] Source: Qiushi, July 1, 2010
http://www.qstheory.cn/zxdk/2010/201013/201006/t20100628_37718.htm