Social Stability - 160. page

On July 14, Zhou Jianguo, the town chief of Dianmen in Hengshan County of Hunan Province, ordered a force-demolition of more than 50 residential households in the Guihua village. He was reported stating “We just stress Party nature but human nature. Demolish!” The forced-demolition left hundreds of villagers to live and sleep in the open fields. Villagers said, “We suffer more than the victims of the Wenchun (Sichuan Province) earthquake. What they suffered was natural disaster…  But what we experienced was a man-made disaster. No one will pay attention to us.” One deputy town chief also said proudly, “Who can fight to beat the Communist Party?”

Source: Boxun News, Aug 4, 2009
http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2009/08/200908040935.shtml

On July 27, 2009, the Ministry of Public Security announced a plan to train its local captains at the grass roots level. The trainees include heads of police stations, detention centers, crime investigation squads, traffic administrators, and public security administrators. The priority is to train heads of police stations. Each training session is 10 days. Training will start in the second half of this year and end in June 2010. The training will focus on the build-up of information technology, law enforcement standardization and the relationship between the public and the police.

Source: Ministry of Public Security, August 3, 2009
http://www.mps.gov.cn/n16/n1237/n1342/n803715/2000939.html

The China National School of Administration plans to build a national training base for officials to deal with sudden or disastrous incidents. The training will most likely target the officials including those at the county level. It will last five to seven days and will use eight to ten typical cases so that the officials will have an overall understanding in handling emergency incidents.

According to the 2005 Social Blue Book, China’s mass incidents grew from 10,000 to 60,000 between 1993 and 2003, with the number of participants increasing from 730,000 to 3.07 million. In 2008, mass incidents took place in Wenan of Guizhou Province, Longnan of Ganshu Province, and Menlian of Yunnan Province. On June 25, 2009, the party secretary of Shishou city of Hubei Province was dismissed for his failure in handling a mass incident.

Source: Nanfang Daily, July 31, 2009
http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/nfjx/200907310004.asp

Radio Free Asia reported that Chinese scholars had shown that the highest per capita income in mainland China was 55 times the lowest. The difference is much higher than the officially published figures. Scholars believe that corruption is the reason for such a wide gap. It is the result of an ill-conceived system, and of the "gray" income to special groups [that is, income in the form of bribes — Ed.]. The wealth gap causes widespread dissatisfaction among the members of the public and poses the biggest threat to a harmonious society and sustainable economic development.

Source: Radio Free Asia, July 28, 2009
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shouru-07282009104520.html

In the aftermath of the July 5 crackdown on Uyghur protests in Xinjiang, the State Council issued a notice calling for further development of minority culture in order to “promote national unity” and “common prosperity and development.” It claimed that “the party and the State have always attached great importance and concern to the cause of minority culture.” The notice asks that cognizant laws and regulations be put in place and that the Party’s leadership of minority cultural development be strengthened.

Source: Xinhua, July 23, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-07/23/content_11762069.htm

On July 24, over 10,000 workers from the Tonghua Iron and Steel Group (TISG), Jilin Province, protested the government’s decision to allow a private company, the Jianlong Group, to take control of the company. Jianlong’s newly appointed General Manager, Chen Guojun, who threatened to fire all current employees, was beaten by angry workers and died. The Jilin Province government immediately announced that the merger would stop. Workers used firecrackers to celebrate their "victory".

In 2005, Jianlong owned 36% of TISG. But it experienced a huge loss in 2008. In Q1 2009, its loss was 1 billion yuan. Jianlong managed to exit from TISG. TISG immediately became profitable. By June 2009, it had 60 million yuan in profit. In July, Jianlong managed to take back ownership of 60% of TISG. That triggered the event. It’s a failed M&A instance of a private firm trying to acquire a state-owned enterprise. Employees are leery about the government selling the nation’s properties and ignoring the workers’ interests. There is also a question about Jianlong’s ability to easily exit from TISG, and then regain ownership of TISG.

Source:
[1] BBC Chinese, July 28, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_8170000/newsid_8171700/8171701.stm
[2] Epoch times, July 26, 2009
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/9/7/26/n2602653.htm

Study Times, a newspaper 0f the CCP Central Party School, recently published an article on grain supply. The article suggested that, to ensure the reliability of the grain supply, the government has to protect and improve comprehensive capabilities of grain production. It is very important to apply tight control over grain procurement, processing and market operation channels to prevent a foreign take-over. To achieve this goal, a few steps must be taken: (1) establish market access control systems on grain processing and seed sales channels; (2) establish central government macro-level industry control to eliminate the possibilities of a local “break-in;” (3) establish large scale grain production groups to grab market share; (4) improve technological creativity to increase competitiveness.

Source: Study Times, July 20, 2009.
http://www.studytimes.com.cn/WebPage/ny1.aspx?act=0&id=2804&bid=4

The government and local authorities have been trying to deregulate in order to stimulate the economy, but they have over-done and set up potential problems, warns Study Times. The authorities have adopted measures to expedite processing of permits and deregulated certain restrictive policies. “However, there has been a tendency to over-relax.” “Some cognizant departments have approved projects outside their authority, have turned a blind eye to violations of regulations originally implemented to increase economic efficiency and employment, have done absolutely nothing to stop the resurgence of programs already eliminated, and have excused serious violations of law that would protect workers rights and interests.”

Source: Study Times, July 6, 2009
http://www.studytimes.com.cn/WebPage/ny1.aspx?act=1&id=2766&nid=10035&bid=4&page=1