Currently, who is the sower of the seed of instability in China? It is incredible that the SPO regards us old people as the causes of instability. They must be blind, or else still hold old views like ‘class struggle’ and ‘enemy forces’. In fact, they do not need high intelligence to see that the seeds of instability are corrupt officials, and the businessmen linked to them. Which mass incident is not caused by them? The Chinese people are among the most dutiful, peaceful and tolerant. They will not risk confrontations with the government, unless they are faced with extreme exploitations and oppressions.

What is the soil for the growth of instability? It is an authoritarian political system without checks and balances. ‘Insisting on Party’s leadership’ means the party is above everything. This will evolve into unsupervised power which finds no boundary. Anyone who holds power can abuse it, inventing all kinds of tricks to exploit ordinary people’s wealth, sowing the seeds of dissatisfaction and instability.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Du Guang, social stability, Stability Preservation Office, Sun Liping
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When we look back at the past 20 years, we can conclude that China cannot afford another revolution, like those which happened in the former Soviet Union and its socialist camp, because a revolution will deprive China of political stability and, in its turn, will ruin almost all of China’s economic achievements during the past 30 years.

… In this regard, the extensive effort at promoting greater democratic participation in political activities at various levels in China, and the recent publication of the Report on Human Rights Development in China by the Chinese Government, are encouraging developments in the right direction. The rest of the world should be encouraged that China has great humility and eagerness to learn and innovate, and will keep promoting both economic reform and political reform. China should also spare no effort in fighting corruption of any form, because corruption of party officials, government officials, state-owned enterprise officials and their relatives and cronies may become the ultimate nemesis of political stability and the viability of the political system in China.

On the other hand, China as a nation should stand united and vigilant against any attempt to overthrow the government through a revolution, or to launch a revolution which may ultimately result in the overthrow of the government. This is because, unlike the United States, in China, the ruling party, the government, the political system, the regime, and China as a sovereign nation are all intricately inter-related with each other, and pulling away one block may cause the collapse of the whole order.

Whatever unhappiness, complaints, or grievances we may have, we need to resolve them on the basis of maintaining rather than undermining political stability. Whatever political pursuits, experiments and innovation we conduct, we cannot do so at the cost of political stability. United, our nation of 1.33 billion people will overcome difficulties and challenges and make great contribution to world peace and development. But divided, for whatever reasons, including seemingly harmless motivations, we as a nation will not only fail our own expectations, but may inflict great havoc to the rest of the world.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1989 20 years, 1989 protests, stability, Stability Preservation Office
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Zhang Zhongwei, who has a background in political science, told this reporter: Political and Legislative Affairs Committee secretary Zhou Yongkang, who heads up the Communist Party Central Committee Leader Group Tasked With Preserving Stability, is a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. But Xi Jinping is the highest leader who is really in charge. Underneath this “Leader Group,” the “Stability Preservation Office” was set up and the head of the office is Communist Party Central Committee member and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Public Security Liu Jing (刘京).

Zhang Zhongwei explains, the “Stability Preservation Office,” the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security, and the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, all have different methods of responding; each uses its own trade secrets to quickly suppress “elements that endanger stability.” They have also expanded the number of “stability preservation information officers to wage a ‘people’s war’.”

“The Committee for the Preservation of Stability” isn’t kept secret at all – in many documents it’s referred to by members of the press as “eyes and ears.” For example, Sun Gang Street in Shenzhen’s Luohu district, in a single day — July 25, 2008 – appointed 59 people to be “eyes and ears” as volunteer information officers to the Committee for Preserving Stability and Comprehensive Management. Their mandate was: Spread out into every corner of every district and notify someone immediately of any sort of destabilizing activity: “Discover early, investigate early, resolve early.” Someone with experience in the Stability Preservation Department in Luxi County in Jiangxi Province said: There are more “eyes and ears” in villages where more incidents occur. And in Taxia Village, Yichun City, Jiangxi Province, propaganda is being disseminated throughout the countryside: “Protect stability by contacting an information officer to check up on suspicious activity.” They also ask: “Each information officer should sign up at least 5 other people to be eyes and ears, and have them endorsed by the city’s Stability Preservation Office.”

Zhang Zhongwei thinks that the “Stability Preservation Office” is really a way of using the virtuous cause of preserving stability in order to inform on legitimate civic and political activity, and to weave together the largest network of people in history to be the government’s eyes and ears everywhere, and to monitor people all the time. From the perspective of the authorities, protecting stability is a matter of controlling all trends; if you want complete control, you need everyone to inform against everyone else. But like the poet Shao Yanxiang said, “If all around you there are spies and moles, people will live under constant surveillance, and in constant fear of being denounced.”

Also according to Hong Kong-based Singtao News, on March 15, a group of experts from academic and non-governmental research agencies held a conference in Beijing to discuss “mass social incidents” in China. Unlike many other non-official academic conferences, this conference was directly participated in by the Ministry of Public Security and the “Stability Preservation Office” of the Central Committee’s Politics and Law Committee.

The participants of the conference included members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese University of Politics and Law, People’s University, China’s Public Security University and Shanghai University of Politics and Law; experts in law and sociology, including Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), a government researcher, and also lawyer Zhang Xingshui (张星水), an human rights lawyer who has been marginalized by the government in the past. Policy researcher Li Hui, from the Number 3 Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, also made a presentation at the conference.

According to the Singtao News article, the central government has been taking extraordinary measures to prevent “mass incidents” since the international financial crisis started. More than 2000 county party secretaries came for a training program in November 2008, and in February 2009, over 3000 county-level heads of public security bureaus, in seven batches, came to Beijing for training. The presentations from this March 15th conference will be collected and printed as government “internal references.”

Photo: The head of the “Stability Preservation Office”，Communist Party Central Committee member and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Public Security Liu Jing (刘京) （Source: Duowei News)

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Liu Jing, shao yanxiang, social unrest, Stability Preservation Office, surveillance, weiwenban, Xi Jinping, Yu Jianrong, zhang xingshui
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