Social Stability - 129. page

On July 30, 2012, Sina carried a commentary originally published by Changjiang Daily, the official newspaper of the Wuhan Municipal Committee, titled, “It Is Urgent to Regain Legitimacy and the People’s Hearts.” The commentary attributed the cause of China’s current social conflicts to how the government has mishandled incidents. It urged the government to start immediately to repair the damage and regain the hearts of the people before it is too late.

According to the commentary, the increased number of mass riots and their intensity have reached a level that has never been seen before. The core cause is the government’s misconduct and its attitude when dealing with the situations. The government has chosen either to neglect the situation or handle the case with arrogance or a rude attitude. Some have tried to use money to reach a settlement.

The commentary stated that the measures that the government has used in handling situations have worn down its legitimacy and caused it to distance itself from the people. “They are avoiding the conflicts and increasing the intensity of conflicts with society. As a matter of fact they are wearing out their legitimacy and distancing themselves from the people.” The commentary further stated, “Economic achievement does not equate with or replace the legitimacy of the government. The major historical mission is how can the government rebuild its legitimacy and authority.” The commentary warned that the time to take action is not unlimited.

Source: Sina, July 30, 2012
http://news.sina.com.cn/pl/2012-07-31/081924875288.shtml

The Beijing municipal government, using a microblog, called on Beijing residents to make donations to help the victims of the deadly flood in Beijing. The ordinary citizens on the Internet responded to the microblog request with strong attacks. Internet users, one after another, not only refused to make donations; they also ridiculed and hurled accusations at the Beijing authorities. Within two hours of the donation account being opened, it received over 70,000 replies. Most of the replies used abusive, slandering language (in the category of four letter words). One of the most popular replies was "donate your sister.” It appeared 26,845 times.

Sources: Tianya, July 29, 2012 and Boxun, July 30, 2012
http://bbs.city.tianya.cn/tianyacity/content/5010/1/33913.shtml
http://boxun.com/news/gb/pubvp/2012/07/201207300919.shtml

On July 28, 2012, thousands of protesters in Qidong City, Jiangsu Province, held a large-scale mass demonstration against a pipeline construction project intended to discharge water piped away from a paper mill owned by Japan’s Oji Paper Co. The protesters broke into the government building and searched the offices for condoms, imported wine, and poker paraphernalia.

After the protest, the Qidong government stated on its website that it would “permanently halt” the water discharge project. However, the Qidong Municipal Public Security Bureau soon announced that it would retaliate against those who had participated in the protest and those who spread the news on the Internet.

Source: RFA, July 28, 2012
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/sy-07292012150531.html

In Dongwan district, Guangdong Province, since the beginning of the summer vacation, cases involving missing children have risen sharply. The police in Dalang town, Dongwan City, announced that 49 children had been kidnapped or lost between July 1 and 23, 2012. On average, two children have "disappeared" on a daily basis. Most of those lost are the children of migrant workers from other provinces.

According to an NTDTV report, since Dongwan police ignore reports of missing children, traffickers openly take the children in Dongwan. 

Source: NTDTV, July 31, 2012
http://ntdtv.ca/b5/2012/07/31/Art80178.html

On July 17, 2012, China’s security tsar, Zhou Yongkang, the head of China’s Central Political and Legislative Committee, delivered a speech at the Television and Telephone Conference on Maintaining Nationwide Stability. Zhou stressed the importance of creating a safe, stable, and peaceful social environment for the successful opening of the CCP’s Eighteenth National People’s Congress. According to Zhou, maintaining stability is the primary responsibility of the Party committees and governments at all levels; stability work should be enhanced in the capital in Beijing, in Xinjiang, in Tibet, and in other key areas. “Try hard to solve conflicts in the local areas when they are at the very beginning stage and build up the first line of defense to maintain stability.”

Source: China Review News, July 17, 2012
http://www.zhgpl.com/doc/1021/7/0/4/102170419.html?coluid=151&kindid=0&docid=102170419&mdate=0717203059  

According to a commentator at Canyu.org., “GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was originally an economic concept but in China it has become a political issue: everyone, from the central government to officials from local governments, is busy paying attention to GDP, day in and day out."

The Canyu commentator has personally met with several dozen victims of corrupt official’s abuse of power. These victims are called “petitioners” (访民). They have been visiting and mailing petition letters to governments at all levels for many years, asking the authorities to investigate the abuse. A few examples are Ms. Xia Shuli, who has been sending petitions for seven to eight years, Xu Jianjiao for seven years, Ding Yijuan for 16 years, and Shen Zhihua for 20 years. The Canyu commentator estimated that Ms. Xia Shuli alone has mailed 97 registered letters to the authorities in the last year. “Based on statistics, there are over 500,000 regular petitioners in China. If each one of them does what Ms. Xia has been doing, just in postage, these petitioners must cause GDP to increase by 625 million yuan each year. I wonder why the State doesn’t resolve petitioners’ grievances. One of the reasons is so that these petitioners can contribute to GDP.”

Source: Canyu, July 14, 2012
http://www.canyu.org/n53914c6.aspx

On July 10, 2012, Wang Feng, the Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center, spoke at the 2012 Future China Global Forum that was held in Singapore. At the forum, Wang stated that China is trapped in a severe, irreversible demographic crisis.

According to Wang, the current ratio between the number of working-age people (age 20 to 59) and older people (60 and over) is 5:1. Wang predicted that the ratio will fall to 2:1 by 2030. More and more elderly families will have only one child. This will not only impact the labor market; it also will also have a political impact. It will require institutional innovation. Wang observed that, although investment in large projects and in infrastructure may bring short term results, the more important and urgent need is for improvements in public health-care and the social security system and for pressing ahead with institutional reform.

Source: Caixin, July 10, 2012
http://economy.caixin.com/2012-07-10/100409420.html

Newly appointed police chiefs from county and city-level public security bureaus nationwide are receiving training in how to improve their law enforcement capabilities and how to maintaining stability locally.

The Ministry of Public Security is holding the training seminars in Beijing from June 26 until July 31, 2012. The seminars will train 1,400 local police chiefs who were appointed after 2010. This is the third year, the first and second being 2009 and 2010, that the ministry has run these seminars. More than 1,400 new grass-roots police chiefs were trained in the first two years.

Resource:  China Review News, July 9, 2012
http://www.zhgpl.com/doc/1021/6/2/3/102162338.html?coluid=45&kindid=0&docid=102162338&mdate=0709085529