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.