Chinese Law and Politics Blog

What Explains the Decline in Reporting on Social Unrest in China?

In 2004, media reports on incidents of domestic social unrest in China were frequent and widespread.  Beginning in early 2005, official Chinese sources began to report significant declines in the numbers of both mass incidents and citizen petitions.  At the same time, media reports regarding incidents of social unrest tapered off.

Official Chinese sources attribute these developments to official success in resolving citizen grievances.  But there is another possible explanation: official directives issued during this period that ban media coverage of mass incidents.

Yu Jianrong on Social Unrest in China

What causes social unrest in China? Institutional failure.

That’s the message delivered by Yu Jianrong, Director of the Institute of Rural Development at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in a series of speeches in California during late October.  His comments underline the extent to which social unrest in China is directly linked to institutional problems that prevent the Chinese legal and political systems from effectively responding to mounting citizen grievances. 

Zhao Shukai: A Quarter-Century of Peasant Petitions

The China Elections and Governance website has reposted a nice article written by Zhao Shukai, researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, titled "A Quarter-Century of Peasant Petitions."   The article summarizes his experiences dealing with citizen petitions.

Two points caught my eye. First, Zhao notes that in the 1980s, collective petitions of large groups of petitioners or extreme behavior on the part of petitioners was relatively unknown, but this began to shift in the 1990s, as Chinese petitioners began to adopt much more organized and radicalized tactics to draw official attention to their complaints.

Second, Zhao proposes that institutional reform is necessary to address the root problems associated with citizen petitions.  Specifically, he proposes concentrating authority for responding to citizen petitions in local people’s congresses, and making their oversight of governmental affairs meaningful.

Both of these points have been made as well by other Chinese and foreign scholars working on citizen petitioning in China.  (See, for example, this article, this article, and this conference). But it always bears repeating, particularly by scholars as knowledgeable as Zhao.

The Anger Boils Over

For the past two months, local officials in the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi have pursued a harsh campaign aimed at enforcing China's population planning laws.

In order to meet targets for allowable births, they forced pregnant women to have abortions. They threatened to demolish homes to make residents cough up fines demanded for excess children.

This month citizen anger boiled over. Thousands of angry rural residents took to the streets, smashing cars and sacking government offices.

The vicious nature of the Guangxi enforcement campaign is all the more striking because it directly conflicts with the orders of China's top leaders.

[click here for the full version of the May 29, 2007 International Herald Tribune editorial]

[click here for Sing Tao's May 30 Chinese translation of the IHT editorial]

What Has Happened to Petitioning in China Since the 2005 Xinfang Regulations?

Chinese authorities report overwhelming success in resolving citizen grievances and reducing the numbers of petitions brought through the xinfang (letters and visits) system since the amendment of the national xinfang regulations in 2005. But a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) suggests that the core institutional problems with the system continue unchecked.

Are Mass Incidents Increasing or Decreasing in China?

It's not clear. Chinese authorities noted in 2005 that "mass incidents" (including riots, protests, demonstrations, and mass petitions) in China had surged to 74,000 in 2004, up from 10,000 in 1994.  Since then, different Chinese officials have reported broad declines in mass incidents.  But these reports have been vague, inhibiting the ability to make comparisons with prior statistics.  Officials have released detailed information for other categories of incidents, such as "public order disturbances."  But the differences in categorization between these and "mass incidents" also inhibit meaningful comparisons.

Analysis: Henan Circular on Peaceful Construction

The Henan Provincial Party Committee and Government jointly issued a circular on April 26, 2006 that calls on provincial authorities to strengthen their controls over society and address a range of social problems during the period 2006 to 2010 as a means towards conducting "peaceful construction," establishing a "harmonious society," "improv[ing] the Party's ruling capacity," and "solidif[ying] the Party's position in power." Specific goals listed in the circular overlap with in the Opinion on Promoting the Construction of a New Socialist Countryside, issued by the Communist Party Central Committee (CPCC) and the State Council (SC) on December 31, 2005, and an earlier opinion issued by the general offices of the CPCC and the SC.

Translation: Henan Circular on Peaceful Construction

The following is a rough translation of the Henan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government Circular Regarding the Issuance of the "Program for Construction of a Peaceful Henan," issued  April 26, 2006.  (Translation done by Tom Stutsman)

Transcript: Rural Discontent, Rule of Law and Social Unrest in China: Implications for U.S. Policy

The transcript (audio and written) of the December 5, 2006 conference on Rural Discontent, Rule of Law, and Social Unrest in China sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is now available here. 

The four discussants, and their topics, included:

Carl Minzner, Visiting Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, CSIS
        Origins of Chinese Social Unrest
    
Kevin O’Brien, Professor of Political Science, Chair of the Center for Chinese Studies, UC Berkeley
       Protest Leadership in Rural China          

Ben Liebman, Associate Professor of Law, Director of the Center for Chinese Legal Studies, Columbia Law School
       China’s Courts: Restricted Reform?

Murray Scot Tanner, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation
        Implications of Chinese Social Unrest for the United States

MPS Press Conference Stresses Success in Handling Homicide Cases, Provides No Information on Protest Trends

Ministry of Public Security (MPS) spokesman Wu Heping and deputy director of the MPS's criminal investigation bureau Yu Xinmin emphasized MPS successes in breaking homicide cases, but provided no information as to trends regarding citizen protest activities, at a February 6, 2007 State Council Information Office press conference discussing general public order trends for 2006.  A transcript of the event is available on the Chinese government's website.

The MPS officials provided numerous statistics related to law enforcement work in 2006.  They noted that the MPS handled roughly 4.65 million criminal cases in 2006, roughly the same for the last three years.  They also strongly emphasized MPS successes in solving homicide cases, claiming a national average 91.4% in solving eight types of these cases.

The MPS officials did not provide any statistics related to citizen protests in China.  In 2005, Zhou Yongkang, minister in charge of the public security bureau, noted that mass incidents (群体性事件） had risen to 74,000 in 2004, up from 10,000 in 1994, according to media sources cited on the website of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).  MPS authorities announced  in 2006 that the total number of crimes of "disturbing public order" for 2005 had risen by 6.6 percent over 2004, to 87,000, according to media sources cited on the CECC website.  The use of different terms (and the absence of corresponding information for 2006), renders direct comparisons impossible.  For further discussion on this point, see the EastSouthWestNorth blog.