It’s 4am. Children’s footsteps patter outside, water pours from a faucet, pots are pulled out. I overhear Li Jie. “We barely have enough to buy meat for tonight’s dinner. I hope we have return customers today.”

I’ve been living with Li Jie and her family for a few days. She is one of the 200-300 million rural people who have made their way to cities in the hope… I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Usually newspapers finish it with “in the hope of a better life” or “in the hope of securing a job.” Maybe I can finish it by the time I tell you about a day in Li Jie’s life ….

I met Li Jie four years ago. She is 43 and belongs to the Miao ethnic group. She was always outside the same subway stop selling hand-sewn clothes and purses made in her village. She had her 2-year-old son tied to her back and all her wares were laid out on a large sheet she could roll up at any second if she needed to run. In between selling, she had to breast feed her son and take him to pee and poop in a garbage can nearby.

Despite the grim picture painted by the article, only a relatively short section was removed by the State Council Information Office. Wang posted the censored passage separately on her blog:

Officially know as City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau (城市管理行政执法局), it is not really clear what the chengguan are supposed to do. But what they are known for doing is making migrants’ live miserable in cities across China. There are many stories of chengguan beating vendors, smashing their products or food, and taking bribes. It is also common to hear about chengguan killing street vendors …. [contd.]

In another post at That’s Shanghai, Wang explains her work on the use—and non-use—of technology in China and Mexico. For more examples, see ‘Sleeping in Internet Cafes: The Next 300 Million Chinese Users‘ and ‘How I Was Treated on the Subway While Doing Fieldwork as a Migrant Worker‘, via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, chengguan, hukou, Miao, street vendors, urban rural divide
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In the traditional Confucian view of society, power relationships in the state are mirrored by those in the family; guǎn appears just as often in the home as in government. Pushover parents are “unable to guǎn” (管不了, guǎnbùliǎo) their unruly children. A decade later those children will loose the angst-ridden teenager’s cry: “don’t guǎn me!” (别管我, biéguǎnwǒ). Later still, when China’s tottering social welfare programs are unable to “take care of” (guǎn) the elderly, those now grown-up children may recall their filial responsibilities ….

Contrast guǎn with zhì (治), the more abstract term for “rule,” which appears in China’s hot-button debate about the difference between “the rule of law” (法治, fǎzhì) and “the rule of man” (人治, rénzhì), as well as in official terms like “Autonomous Regions” (自治区, zìzhìqū) and “to punish” (处治, chǔzhì). This high-low distinction is evident in urban safety, where the police are in charge of “keeping the peace” (治安, zhì’ān) while employees of “city management” (城管, chéngguǎn) beat street vendors and migrant workers.

See also Abrahamsen’s recent post, ‘Freedom, with bits missing‘, at literary translation site Paper Republic.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, Chinese language, Confucian, power, rule of law
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The family I am living with received a tip from a friend about a construction site in the northern part of the city where vendors have been selling food during lunch and dinner without encountering any chengguan. When the family heard of a chengguan free-site, they were excited to check it out.

Officially know as City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau (城市管理行政执法局), it’s not really clear what they’re supposed to do in practice. But what they’re known for doing is making migrants’ live miserable in cities across China. There are many stories online of chengguan beating vendors, smashing their products or food, and taking bribes. It’s also common to hear about chengguan killing street vendors. A recent incident in Guizhou led to a riot when a chengguan killed a disabled migrant. Stories of chengguan exploitation of power are so pervasive that appeasing them with bribes becomes the key to a street vendor’s success. Giving bribes is a matter of life or death.

But for migrants who do not have enough money to bribe, they have to constantly be on the run. Constant running means that a street vendor cannot establish a business long term. So for a street seller, like this family I am with, finding a place to set up a cart to sell food in a chengguan-free site is super important. A place to do stable business would give them a stable income to expand their business or go into another line of work.

After spending a a few days observing the site, they didn’t see any chengguan officials amid the crowds of construction workers buying food and products from street vendors. They decided it was a safe and stable place to set up business ….

See more of Wang’s work, Sleeping in Internet Cafes: The Next 300 Million Chinese Users and ‘How I Was Treated on the Subway While Doing Fieldwork as a Migrant Worker‘, via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, migrant workers, urban rural divide
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On Oct. 27th, when a Chengguan squad in Zhumadian County in Henan was tearing down a residential building by force, they came into conflict with the owners. More than 20 Chengguan officers started to attack the elderly owner of the house. Seeing this, the neighbors called police.

When police officer Zhang Qia arrived at the scene, he tried to stop the Chengguan from beating this elderly owner who was shoved by the Chengguan on the ground. Despite Zhang arriving with his police car in his police uniform and revealing his identity, the Chengguan didn’t stop their violence and even turned on Zhang Qia. They cornered Zhang, pushed and shoved him. When Zhang tried to escape, Chengguan kept chasing after him and even ‘arrested’ the police officer and brought him in the car to take him to the police station. When the Chengguan arrived at the local police station, they asked the police commissioner to “straighten things out”. Things got completely out of control until the crime squad arrived and had the Chengguan under control. Zhang’s clothes were tore apart during the conflict.

Chengguan recently won the dubious accolade of “China’s Most Notorious Phenomenon” in a poll on Renren.com, and their heavy-handed behaviour, including the alleged murder of a fruit vendor in Guizhou, has repeatedly sparked riots in recent months.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, forced demolition, Henan, police
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The protest in Qianxi County, Guizhou province, was the latest of thousands of brief, local riots and demonstrations that happen in China every year, and like many recent outbreaks this one pitted residents against “urban administration” officials charged with enforcing law and order.

A “clash broke out between urban administration officials and the owner of an illegally parked vehicle, drawing in thousands of onlookers and sparking incidents of crowds smashing law enforcement vehicles and blocking roads,” the website of China National Radio (cds.cnr.cn) reported on Friday.

“Crowds turned over the vehicle of the urban administration staff and attacked police who came to quiet down the situation,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The rioters smashed ten vehicles and torched another five, said Xinhua, adding that 10 police officers and guards were injured. The police arrested 10 people suspected of attacking the vehicles.

Unrest also broke out last month in the nearby city of Anshun after chengguan allegedly killed a fruit seller and single father, Deng Qiguo. Soon after, a journalist was beaten by local police after travelling to Anshun to investigate the story.

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Post tags: chengguan, Guizhou, riots, social unrest
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The authorities said they would carry out an autopsy on the fruit seller to determine how he died ….

The state-run China Daily quoted a statement from Anshun’s local government confirming the hawker had died.

The statement did not comment on the cause of his death, but said “before the incident occurred, chengguan [urban management officers] were working in the area”.

Local police had earlier told the Xinhua news agency that the trader had been involved in an argument with the officials.

The Financial Times identified the dead man as 52-year-old Deng Qiguo, a familiar local figure and a single father. Ministry of Tofu has collected photographs and videos of the clashes, showing an overturned chengguan van and—be warned—Deng’s body.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, Guizhou, riot police, riots
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[…] Yesterday, circa 10pm: The police had blocked the road and traffic from Meilong Road proceeding in the direction of Minzhi Road was being diverted. At the Minzhi and Hengling Zonghe Dalou intersection, pedestrians were congregating in the middle of the road. In the center of the road, in front of a law enforcement car, Ms Weng, carrying a one year old child, sat on a plastic chair refusing to move.

This conflict between Ms Weng and the Chengguan was the catalyst for the incident. “They chased after me hitting me, they even hit the child,” she said. That night at roughly 7pm, she had been carrying her child while her husband pushed their cart, as they peddled goods as normal. At the crossroads the family met with a team of city sanitation officials, who attempted to confiscate their cart, and the two sides got into conflict.

Ms Weng showed Southern Metropolis Daily reporters a bandage around her knee, while her son had a red scar on his hand. She said her son’s forehead had also been bruised – in response to these statements Minzhi law enforcement personnel said they would investigate.

“The Chengguan are beating people, they’re even beating children” – this was the phrase that spread throughout the assembled crowd, some of whom began to question the actions of the law enforcement personnel, and this resulted in the blockade of Minzhi Road.

Minzhi police station assembled police officers, law and order personnel and the People’s Militia to maintain stability by separating the crowd into three groups. The number of people causing a disturbance increased; in addition to verbal abuse, some hurled bottles of mineral water etc. at the officers.

The situation was soon beyond the control of the forces present. Riot police and police dog teams were dispatched at this point. For a time the dogs had some degree of effect on the hecklers, however the rioters immediately clashed with the riot police. Numerous protesters sustained injuries. Ambulances were continually arriving at the scene, ferrying the injured to hospital.

The Minzhi  sub-district office chief tried to negotiate with Ms Weng. The sub-district office hoped Ms Weng and her child would first go to hospital for a check-up and then hold bilateral negotiations but these soon broke down and discontent among the crowd broke out once again.

[…] Minzhi sub-district office working committee secretary Liu Bin hastened to the scene. Before he arrived, a man with a head injury had been lying on the street for over ten minutes; he was the fourth member of the crowd to have been injured.  “First get him in the ambulance to be treated,” Mr Liu ordered a paramedic. However the police and security officials in front of him were slow to react.

Behind Liu Bin a confrontation broke out between five or six truncheon-wielding riot police, local police, security officials and the rioters. The reporter attempted to record this incident but in the confusion his camera was snatched.

At around 1am calm had been restored and the flow of traffic gradually resumed on Minzhi road.

The article also explains the background to this event:

Minzhi law enforcement department and street sellers “had accumulated grievances”

According to a source within the Minzhi law enforcement department, at the beginning of August, law enforcement teams and the local police station launched a coordinated program to clear out street sellers. By the tenth of August they had already dealt with over a hundred non-compliants [people selling illegally]. Street-sellers who were caught time and again faced fines, and their goods were confiscated.  The source stated that a situation where the roads were clear of street sellers was becoming the norm; “at the least you would not see peddlers on the main roads”.

As a result of confiscating goods, law enforcement teams had come across many obstacles: “often some peddlers  would lie outside our building pretending to be dead, there were also some female street sellers who as soon as they saw us would begin taking off their clothes.” He also explained that along with the sprucing up of Shenzhen’s Special Economic Zone, Bao’an and Longgang have also been brought into line. Authorities in Bao’an and Longgang have powers to confiscate street vendors’ goods and dispense fines under the “Shenzhen Special Economic Zone City Environment and Appearance Management Regulations”. However the reality of the situation is that every day on the streets, conflicts and embarrassment between law enforcement teams and street sellers are played out.

Read more about chengguan via CDT.

© nataliethomas for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, riot, social stability, street vendors
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© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, Kunming, performance art
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The original story — independently reported by Guangzhou Daily, Southern Metropolis Daily, China News Service, the Information Times and Shanghai’s Xinmin Evening News — quoted the head of Guangzhou’s City Inspectors Committee (广州城管委), Li Yangui (李廷贵), as saying at an awards ceremony that the Guangzhou committee would build a system of internet commentators, “working together with relevant departments to strengthen processing and monitoring of online public opinion.”

The goal, Li said (invoking the old media control buzzword of “guidance”), would be to “track and analyze online public opinion, preventing the spread of undesirable information and thereby generating positive guidance of public opinion.”

The cheekiest response came the following day from China Youth Daily , with columnist Liang Fafu (梁发芾) expressing support for China’s proposed “real-name registration system,” which would effectively end anonymity on China’s web.

In order to deal with negative online information and channel public opinion, a number of government departments have set up special internet commentator teams as well as part-time teams, and this is no longer a secret. It’s my view that we should make information about internet commentators completely open and transparent, instituting a system of real-name registration for internet commentators making online posts. The government has touted the real-name system for the web all along, and we should begin with internet commentators.

Read more about chengguan and the fifty cent party via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, fifty cent party, Guangzhou
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Under strict censorship controls, the vast majority of Chinese journalists are suffocated with a silent fury over such trumped up allegations. But this week instead we’ve seen the opposite — media aggressively opening fire on a so-called “illegal organization.”

On August 26, the Beijing News reported that Zhao Yang (赵阳), a member of the City Administrative Department of Nanjing’s Xuanwu District – this is the office that runs the local brigades of non-police ‘city inspectors’ charged with keeping public order in China’s urban neighborhoods – had been charged with organizing an online “national joint session of city administrative department heads.” Zhao had dared to hold an event without proper registration and in the name of a social group, so this amounted to the act of “illegal organization.”

The reporter following up on the story came across this organization’s statutes. They discovered that the organization had a founding chairman, an honorary chairman, a rotating chairmanship, a managing director, a deputy director, an executive council and so on. It had set up an administrative headquarters, and even had a membership fee system in place. It had already held three national conferences, had issued awards and conferred titles. It had decided on national standards for city inspector identification. For all intents and purposes, it was the national guild for city inspectors in China.

The report caused an uproar. For the authorities to see “illegal organizations” as thorns in their side, that was one thing. But it seemed like a great big joke for government officials like city administrative department heads to be participating in such organizations. The media followed up on the story and found that the organization behind these joint sessions was in fact a private company, which was scooping up all of the funds. A private company boss, in other words, had been toying with city administrative department heads across the country, offering public relations and crisis management services to address the poor public image of city inspectors.

Read more about the “city inspectors,” or “chengguan” via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chengguan, Gongmeng, NGOs
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