Chinese Law and Politics Blog

Why Don't Chinese Authorities Repress Every Single Protest in China?

You read about it in the news.  Another case of several hundred Chinese villagers gathering together to protest illegal taxes.   Or, a group of migrant workers demanding that local officials compel the construction company that they work pay them the back wages they are owed. And you think, is this is China? Don't Chinese leaders have authoritarian political controls they can use to stamp out these protests? Why don't they do it in every case?

One - it's tough. There is a lot of discontent in China. Squelching every protest through armed force requires a big investment of time, energy, and money.  It also results in a lot of negative publicity at home and abroad.  Central Chinese authorities prefer to save their strongest repressive measures for cases such as Tiananmen Square in 1989 or organizations such as Falun Gong.

Second, China's leaders themselves recognize that some of these protests are valid.  Many citizen protests are directed against local corruption and illegal abuses by local cadres, rather than directly challenging Communist Party rule by officials in Beijing.  In recent years, Chinese officials have repeatedly emphasized that 80% of citizen petitions are justified, and 80% of them reflect problems of local governance.  Central Chinese leaders are willing to tacitly permit some of these citizen protests, such as those that challenge local abuses they themselves are trying to crack down on, as long as the protests don't get too out of hand, and as long as the protests remain directed at local (rather than central) officials.

Third, instead of simply calling in the troops every time a group of farmers mount a protest, Chinese authorities have developed an alternative strategy for dealing with citizen unrest: taking out the leaders.  The thinking goes, if you can remove the organizational structure behind protests, you don't need to crack down so hard on the hundreds of participants who simply join in.  This is why Chinese leaders often come down like a ton of bricks on those they perceive as active organizers of citizen protests, whether or not those leaders have attempted to pursue peaceful and legal methods of protest.

This focused (and long-standing) policy of selective use of criminal sanctions is reflected in a recent opinion issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on December 26, 2006.  It directs procuratorate officials to "strike hard" against those who organize or lead "mass incidents" (a term that Chinese officials use to include riots, demonstrations, or collective protests against government action).  In contrast, it directs  procuratorators to "cautiously use coercive measures and criminal suits against ordinary participants," and notes that "if it is necessary to file suit, [procuracy officials] may request leinency from the people's courts."

Chinese Authorities "No. 1 Document" For 2007 Emphasizes Agricultural Economy

The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and State Council issued a joint opinion on January 29, identifying improvement of the agricultural economy as their main policy goal for 2007.   

The opinion, titled "Several Opinions Regarding Actively Developing Modern Agriculture and Firmly Advancing the Construction of the New Socialist Countryside" is the "Number One" document for 2007.  Chinese authorities use these "Number One" documents annually as a means to highlight policies for the coming year.  Each "Number One" document issued since 2004 has focused on rural issues.

The opinion heavily emphasizes agricultural economic development.  Reform measures include: increased agricultural investment, improved market access for agricultural products, encouraging rural technical innovation, and strengthening rural infrastructure

In contrast, the opinion only briefly addresses issues of rural governance reform.  It broadly calls on authorities to clean up the problems of local government debts, better address issues of land seizures, reform the system of agricultural credit, and continue experiments with reforming and trimming local government personnel.   

The opinion contains general language calling for strengthening rural institutions to address social instability.

Strengthen and improve rural social management.  With regard to new developments in the rural economy and society, develop new mechanisms of rural social managment to firmly strengthen the work of upholding rural social stability.  Expand channels for the expression of public opinion in rural society.  Construct and perfect mechanisms for the channeling and resolution of disputes.  Comprehensively use multiple measures and methods to appropriately resolve consistent and latent rural social problems.  Deeply expand "peaceful construction," strengthen the construction of rural police forces, carry out well the comprehensive management of public security in rural society, and ensure that  rural areas are peaceful and orderly.  Broadly carry out legal educational propaganda activities in rural areas and increase the masses' legal understanding.  Guide farmers to express their interests and demands in a legal and reasonable manner, and lawfully exercise their rights and  carry out their duties.  Construct management mechanisms to respond to rural emergencies, and improve abilities to respond to crises.

The emphasis of the 2007 opinion differs from the 2006 "No. 1 Document" , the Opinion on Promoting the Construction of a New Socialist Countryside, which emphasized many specific governance reforms, as noted in analysis provided by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).  For example, the 2007 opinion contains no explicit call for reforms to the Chinese hukou (household registration) system, nor specific details and timetable for realizing improvements in the provision of rural health and education services, unlike the 2006 opinion. 

The 2007 opinion repeats the emphasis of the 2006 opinion on the need for Party leadership of rural work. The 2007 opinion also strengthens a call made in the 2006 opinion for strengthening professional farmer cooperatives.  Some provincial authorities have experimented with more independent forms of rural professional associations as a means of allowing farmers additional channels to protect their rights, as noted in the CECC analysis.  The 2007 opinion also repeats a call made by central authorities in recent weeks to strengthen the use of financial incentives, as opposed to coercive measures,to ensure citizen compliance with official birth control policies.

The 2007 opinion may reflect a desire to shelve the more difficult issues of rural governance reform in favor of efforts to address technical issues of rural economic reform, particularly in the politically sensitive runup period prior to the 17th Party Congress in the fall.  Chinese authorities themselves have admitted that some official governance reform efforts, such as those aimed at addressing hukou reform, have faltered upon meeting internal bureaucratic opposition.

CCMPS Officials Discuss Social Stability Goals for 2007

Central Chinese authorities charged with upholding social stability announced their goals for 2007 at a January 16 conference of the Central Committee for the Comprehensive Management of Public Security, according to a transcript of the event.  Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang noted that these include 1) resolution of citizen grievances, 2) continued focus on the official “strike hard” campaign against crime, and 3) stronger social management, particularly of China’s migrant population.   

Participants in the meeting offered divergent depictions of Chinese social order. Vice-Minister of Public Security Liu Jinguo announced that the total number of criminal cases filed during 2006 held “basically the same” as in 2005, and that the number of mass incidents declined by 16.5 percent during the same period.  In contrast, Chen noted that “overall problems, it must be observed, such as criminal cases and public order cases, including mass incidents, are still hovering at high levels, and their decrease has been limited.” Liu repeated a warning from a 2006 report issued by the general office of the MPS that stated, “stability has been achieved under increasingly tough security measures, and the foundations of public order are relatively weak.” He also linked need to appropriately handle mass incidents to central efforts to effectively address citizen grievances in 2007.

Vice-Minister Liu set forth several steps that Chinese authorities will pursue to improve both the “management” and the “service” of China’s migrant population. These include:

• Raising the numbers of Chinese migrants who are registered (under China’s system of temporary residence permits for migrants).

• Strongly controlling and tracking the “targeted” population.

• Using systems of “managing people through housing.” Strengthening management and tracking of individuals residing in short-term rental housing. Conducting concentrated cleanup operations of disorderly migrant areas.

• Gradually pursuing reforms to the household registration [hukou] system, unifying rural and urban hukou registration.

Chen Jiping, head of the general office of the CCMPS, noted that peaceful construction (ping’an jianshe) was a primary goal for 2006. Both Chen and other participants emphasized the need to rely on official work performance targets set through responsibility systems as a means to meet social stability goals.

Chinese Authorities Call For Stronger Efforts to Maintain Social Stability

The Central Committee for the Comprehensive Management of Public Security (CCCMPS) has issued an opinion calling for stronger efforts to combat social instability, according to a December 21, 2006 post on the Legal Daily Website.

The CCMPS is a standing body underneath the Central Party Committee and the State Council charged with coordinating official activities in the field of public order and security, according to their website.

The CCMPS Opinion on Deepening and Expanding Peaceful Rural Construction (关于深入开展农村平安建设的若干意见) [Opinion] states:

Presently, the general rural situation is good, but because conflicts caused by land seizures, forced demolitions, and land contracting are relatively pronounced, farmer petititons and rural mass incidents sometimes occur.  In a few areas, there are numerous occurences of theft or destruction of rural electric or water facilities, agricultural production materials, and illegal logging, drugs, gambling, feudal superstitions, cults, and illegal religous organizations are unchecked.  In a few areas, the power of rural triads is rampant, seriously affecting the security of the broader masses in rural areas.   In some areas, the power of rural grassroots political organizations is weak, government management non-existent, police strength insufficient, infrastructure conditions for public order weak,  mass organizations for the management of public order and the accompanying funds are not implemented, institutions for the protection of social and public order such as mediation committees and public order patrol forces are failing to play the role they should, and the rural social instability situation continues to be serious.

The Opinion generally calls for heightened attention to rural social stability, particularly charging county-level CCMPS and Party political-legal committees with coordination and supervision responsibilities.  Specific calls for action include:

• strengthening rural systems of dispute resolution,  with the aim of "resolving the factors of social instability in the germinal phase, and effectively preventing and reducing petitions to higher-level authorities, mass incidents, and 'civil cases that turn into criminal ones'"
• perfecting systems for analyzing the state of public order and implementing "strike hard" measures on a long-term basis
• striking against the "infilitration and sabotage of rural areas by foreign and domestic enemies," "further developing the struggle against Falun Gong forces," and "firmly surpressing illegal religious and feudal supersition activities." 
• requiring Party and government officials to include target goals for "peaceful rural construction" in the responsibility systems used to evaluate the performance of officials.  "Localities and units whose inadequate attention and poor work lead to major criminal cases, public order disasters, and large mass incidents that seriously disturb public order or cause a negative impression shall be severely sanctioned under responsibility systems for the comprehensive management of public order and systems unilaterally cancelling out positive work performance for major failures.

The Opinion notes that it is aimed at implementing two prior central directives, the the Central Party Committee and the State Council's December 31, 2005 Opinion on Promoting the Construction of a New Socialist Countryside, and their October 21, 2005 reissuance of the Central Party's Law and Politics Committee and the CCMPS's Opinion on Deepening Peaceful Construction.  For prior analysis of these two directives by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, see here and here.