Social Stability - 132. page

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

Huanqiu issued a commentary on the recent social unrest in Shifang City, Sichuan Province. The commentary said that, when defying a police order, high school students led a massive protest in tens of thousands against the opening of a molybdenum copper smelter. It further stated that students achieved the money driven goal of adults without serious casualties and that such student actions should not be encouraged, particularly regarding social unrest and political conflict.

Huanqiu pointed out that similar clashes between residents and the government on environmental issues are common in democratic countries. “It is certainly not a revolution.” Huanqiu criticized the interpretation of the government’s decision to shut-down the smelter as a victory for the common people. “Such a stretched interpretation is merely the wishful thinking of some people and not a reality in Shifang.” The Huanqiu commentary warned local and higher governments that they should not be fooled by such political fantasies and should not divert their focus from a proper aftermath of reflection and remedial action to vigilance for this “revolutionary” trend.

[Ed. According to the New York Times, security officers roughed up the crowd and "there were arrests, tear gas, stun grenades, riot police, guns, batons, blood." Some hyperlinks in the Times article showed bloodied victims and a woman in front of a riot squad, "evoking comparisons to Tank Man." A microblogger was quoted as saying, "America achieved independence and 236 years later, the Shifang people are fighting for their own rights and confronting the government.”]

Sources:
Huanqiu, July 6, 2012
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/1152/2012-07/2888065.html
New York Times, July 4, 2012
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/a-violent-new-tremor-in-chinas-heartland/

A forum was held in Beijing on the issues that China is facing regarding its aging population. Experts from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security suggested that the retirement age should be raised to 65. They recommended, in the meantime, to increase training and education so that seniors are prepared for the upcoming extension of the retirement age.

According to the second national census results, there are over 178 million people in China who are more than 60 years old, which equals 23.6 percent of the aging population of the world. However the working class population is expected to decrease from 970 million in 2010 to 870 million in 2050. It is also expected that, by 2030, there will be a labor shortage.

[Ed. Currently, the retirement age is 60 for men, 55 for female civil servants and 50 for other female workers.]

Source: Xinhua, July 2, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2012-07/02/c_123355141.htm

On June 18, Chinese State Security Authorities detained a Taiwan businessman, Mr. Zhong Dingbang, who was on a three day trip visiting relatives in southern China. Zhong was detained at the airport when returning to Taiwan. His family in Taiwan later learned that the Chinese authorities had taken him to "help with the investigation of Falun Gong." On June 27, citing state security sources, Xinhua reported that Zhong had been placed under residential surveillance on suspicion of disrupting the broadcast of state television, thus threatening state security.

While the details were unclear as to what Zhong allegedly did, New Tang Dynasty TV (NTD) reported that Zhong was a Falun Gong practitioner. "NTD has reported on successful attempts of Falun Gong practitioners in China tapping into state-run television signals to broadcast information about the CCP’s persecution of the spiritual practice. Those involved were usually hunted down. Many have since died from torture and abuse in prison."

Sources:
Radio Free Asia, June 27, 2012
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/al-06272012102321.html
Xinhua, June 26, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2012-06/26/c_112295175.htm
New Tang Dynasty TV, June 28, 2012
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/news_china/2012-06-27/faced-with-oppression-is-it-right-to-break-the-law-.html

Starting from June 26, 2012, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) launched a training session for the country’s 1,400 city and county level public security bureau chiefs, some some of whom are newly-appointed. According to the website of MPS, one of the goals of the training is to “accomplish the task of safeguarding the eighteenth National Congress of Chinese Communist Party.”

Since 2009, MPS has conducted trainings in Beijing for more than 3,000 county-level and 500 city-level public security bureau chiefs, nearly 1,000 of the CCP’s heads of Discipline Inspection and heads of Political Departments in provincial and city level public security authorities, 1,500 who are in leadership positions in charge of intelligence, law enforcement standardization, and community relations, and 6,000 grassroots policemen. The Ministry also made arrangements for provincial level public security authorities to train 70,000 grassroots police officials on a rotational basis.

Source: Website of the Ministry of Public Security, June 28, 2012
http://www.mps.gov.cn/n16/n1237/n1342/n803715/3312623.html