China has launched a nation-wide campaign to defuse protest ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, state media reported on Monday, days after a riot in the country's south-west highlighted volatile social strains.
With authorities eager to present China as a harmonious nation during the August Games, the government has ordered local officials to defuse petition campaigns by discontented citizens and to prevent "mass incidents", such as riots and demonstrations, according to the news reports.
"The Beijing Olympics are approaching and properly carrying out petition and stability work, protecting social harmony and stability, and ensuring the Beijing Olympics go safely and smoothly has become a tough battle that every department at every level must win," said one report of a nation-wide video conference on a stability drive that was held on Saturday. "Now we are entering a state of war," said the report on a local government website in the eastern province of Zhejiang (http://www.dqnews.com.cn).
Yet at the very time officials were making plans for protest-free Games, a county in the south-west province of Guizhou was shaken by rioting over claimed police and official abuses.
Thousands of locals mobbed government offices in Weng'an county, Guizhou. The local police headquarters was torched and police vehicles wrecked after claims spread that authorities had covered up a teenage girl's death.
PETITION CAMPAIGNS: Saturday's stability meeting was the latest of a flurry of security measures that China is taking to prevent any domestic unrest upsetting the Games and was targeted at petition campaigns by farmers and other disgruntled citizens.
Petitioners often pressure local officials by journeying to provincial capitals or the national capital with complaints about lost land and corruption. Over the past decade, the number of petitioners journeying to provincial capitals and to Beijing has swollen. Nationwide, petitions and complaint visits grew from 4.8 million in 1995 to 12.7 million in 2005.