State-run Guangming Daily published an article discussing the characteristics of newly emerging social conflicts. Social conflicts have spread to more groups, such as between cadres and the masses, between different social groups,  and between workers and employers; conflicts involve complaints about abuses and lawsuits, triads, and hostile forces that have incited these conflicts. Social conflicts tend to be large scale, increasingly confrontational, highly unpredictable, and explosive. Further, the nature of conflicts has changed from simple civil disputes to a mixture of civil disputes, economic disputes, administrative disputes, and disputes involving laws and regulations.

Source: Guangming Daily, February 9, 2011
http://politics.gmw.cn/2011-02/09/content_1593523.htm

In order to implement the State Council’s requirements for increasing control over social stability, the Chinese Ministry of Health recently released a Guideline on assessing the risks of health related social emergencies. The Guideline includes seven features: (1) acknowledging the importance of health related risk assessment; (2) the basic requirements of the assessments; (3) the scope of the Guideline, especially for events triggering large scale social emergencies; (4) key assessment areas such as “controllability;” (5) the organizational and responsibility structures of the assessment system; (6) the fundamental procedures for the assessment process; (7) measuring the quality of the assessment. The Ministry requires all the branches under its administration to move rapidly to implement the Guideline. According to the Guideline, those responsible for triggering large scale group petitions or other group events will be punished.

Source: Ministry of Health, January 5, 2011
http://www.moh.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/mohbgt/s3589/201101/50484.htm