This issue builds on the two previous issues on Mass Protests in China, drawing on the Ministry of Public Security compilation of provincial reports in 1999. The first issue was focused on reports of provincial and municipal public security bureaus on the behavioral features, frequency and mode of violence of mass protests in their jurisdiction and their counter measures. The second issue focuses on the different types of mass protests, including laid-off miners, fleeced investors of financial defaults, distressed taxicab drivers, inter-religious discord, and conflict over natural resources. The current issue includes a nationwide summary report of these mass protests, the set of regulations promulgated by the State Public Security Bureau on how to manage these protests, and reports on three special units and institutions – the Patrol Police, the Anti-Riot Squadron and the Early Detection and Control System.
Documents in this Issue
In the first document, “The integrated report on mass protests arising from contradictions within the people” summaries various reports from the provinces in 1999. It counts 32,607 such incidents in that year. The investigative scope covers unapproved collective actions resulting from conflict among different social groups in China, excluding those of the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and mass gatherings approved by the public security agencies.
The report identifies eight characteristics of these mass protests in 1999. First, they were more frequent and larger in scale than those of previous years, Compared to those in 1998, the number of those incidents have increased by 30.5%, and number of participants by 56.9%. The scale of these incidents has also expanded, ranging from several scores to hundreds and over a thousand, with some topping ten thousand. Second, their social composition has become more complex and diverse, involving groups from both cities and countryside, industrial enterprises, government bureaucracies and schools. Compared with the peasants and retired or on-leave workers of the earlier period, the participants now include also on-the-job workers, self-employed proprietors, army veterans, teachers, students, technicians and party cadres. Third, their behavior has become more radical, including assaulting government buildings, beating up government officials, trashing government office property and bashing government vehicles, blocking traffic in busy intersections, and paralyzing railway. Fourth, armed feuds among rival villages have become more prevalent, over disputed water rights, grazing priorities, and religious differences. Fifth, they are more organized. Some larger and more enduring incidents have meticulous planning, clear goals, more complex organization, with some engaged in cross-regional, and cross-occupation activities, hiring lawyers, and seeking media coverage. The better organized groups advocating economic interests were often led by former party and management cadres of enterprises, model workers, advanced exemplars, with manifestoes, by-laws, designated weekly meeting time and locations, constituted membership, general assemblies and leadership committees. Sixth, some groups engaged in continuous protest activities, organizing persistent petitions that stretched multiple years over their collective grievance. Seventh, these collective actions are not unitary actors with single or coherent demands, but often with multiple goals based on different issues, exacerbated by the mix of rational, legitimate demands with irrational and illegal behavior that makes it difficult for public security agencies to deal with the problem. The last characteristic is the high proportion of industrial workers relative to other occupational and social groups (e.g., peasants, white-collar clerical staff, professionals), especially those in occupations concentrated in specific geographical regions, like the defense industry, ferrous metals, coal mines, forestry and textiles. In 1999, the 17,608 cases of mass protests in enterprises comprise 54% of the total collective action incidents, with 34% these mass participants being industrial workers.
The second document, “Regulations on dealing with mass public order incidents by public security agencies” was first issued in 2000, but has not been superseded by recent legislations, and is still referenced in law journal articles and used as text in police academies. It stipulate five principles of managing collective actions. The first principle of party and government leadership urges party and government cadres to be present and take charge at the site of the collective action, and to resolve the social conflict. The second principle of preventing conflict escalation stipulates that the conflict needs to be resolved through education and diversion, making sure that in dealing with the gathered masses, the conflict can only be resolved not aggravated, the masses pacified not provoked, dispersed not gathered. The principle of cautionary use of police force and coercion stipulates the proportional use of force to contain the conflict, not to intensify and escalate the collective grievance. The cautious use of principle rules that police on the scene cannot bring weapons, those on the outer perimeter can carry weapons according to need, and its use strictly adhere to the provisions in the Regulations of the People’s Police. The use of tear gas and weapons need to be approved by the commander on site. The last principle was resolute handling according to law principle stipulates taking decisive action against those who engage in criminal violence like besieging and assaulting government buildings, blocking trains and obstructing traffic, creating turmoil, engaging in bashing, looting, and arson. Equally important are prohibition of use of police in three sets of non-violent collective actions that have not led to damage to public safety or afflict social order, including 1) collective petitions that do not affect public order; 2) class boycotts in schools and worker strikes in factories where there is no criminal violence; and 3) contradictions among the people that have not yet escalated into criminal violence and can be resolved.
For site control, the Regulations stipulate the measures of guaranteeing the site, accessible by official approval only, cordoning a security area, implementing special regional traffic control, guarding important security targets, inspecting identity papers and belongings of suspicious people on site. Strict media controls are to be imposed, prohibiting video-recording, photographing, interviews and reporting by media organizations. Reporting collective action events must need the permission of the local county and city party and governments and the approval of the next higher level party and government organizations. Reporting of important and sensitive events can only be publicized after duly approved by the Central Committee and the State Council. Coercive measures can be used to order protestors to disband and leave the site within a specified time period. Those who remain can be dispersed with necessary force but care should be taken to prevent death or injury. Those who stay beyond the specified time or those who incite others can be arrested or forcefully removed from the site. Those who engage in criminal violence should immediately desist, be arrested or forcefully removed. Illegally carried weapons, inflammable objects, illegal propaganda materials, posters and slogans should be confiscated and those responsible dealt according to law. In gathering evidence, public security agencies can use both open and secret legal means to collect prosecutable information for subsequent legal action. Those arrested and forcefully removed should be investigated within 24 hours and dealt with according to law. Casualties should receive immediate medical treatment. After the incident has been settled, the site should be cleared, barricades removed, site and traffic controls dismissed, order to be restored, a report to be submitted to the local party and government, and the public security agency of the next higher level. Public security agencies which breached the law and regulations that led to serious consequences should be held responsible for their actions.
The next set of three documents focus on special mass control measures developed by public security agencies as policy responses to these mass protests. In “How to make good use of the patrol police as the backbone force in dealing with collective incidents”, the Patrol Police Squadron of the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security discusses the effective use and problems of the Patrol Police. In contrast to detectives, criminal investigation, traffic control and fire services, the Patrol Police is the front-line first responders of mass incidents, which numbered 650 cases in Guangzhou in the 12-month period ending in April, 1998. In analyzing the social causes of these incidents, it finds financial defaults of company bonds, money-managers and savings accounts to be the most problematic, as these are enduring problems that affect the economic interests of concerned investors the most, and have no easy solutions. Violent demonstrations is the modal collective incident, amounting to about a third of the total mass protest events. Generally resulting from unmet demands in collective petitions to resolve social grievances, these incidents often became radicalized, leading to traffic obstruction, attacking police and the public, vandalizing vehicles and buildings. In dealing with these events, it defines its main mission as maintaining order and containing the protests, rather than confronting the protests and making arrests. The structural problems include the lack of manpower to deal with mass incidents, as most of the patrol police force is stationed in fixed kiosks through the entire city, is not easily mobilized in sufficient numbers to maintain order in large, agitated crowds. The lack of professional training to deal with the special grievances of mass incidents (e.g., financial defaults) presents another public security problem. The lack of barricading equipment and mass transportation vehicles to dispatch first-order responders en masse to the protest site rounds off the problem list. For policy, it calls for the establishment of an intelligence gathering system to monitor potential protest-risk grievances, and a unified command structure to coordinate the efforts of different party and government agencies in dealing with these mass incidents.
The fourth document is a report on the organization and mission of the anti-riot speedy response special force, where the Tianjin Municipal Anti-Riot Brigade discusses its training, preparations and deployment of the Special Force. Similar to the Queen's Scout, U.S. Navy SEAL and the Israeli Special Forces, it is an elite unit in the Tianjin Public Security Bureau where its members are specially selected, undergo special training, and is expected to perform at a much higher level than the regular police. They are deployed in high-profile public security cases like hijacking bank cash trucks, hostage-taking and large demonstrations organized by armed criminal gangs.
In addition to more rigorous requirements in physical agility and endurance than the regular force in recruitment, members also participate in cross-country races, scaling buildings, jumping over barrier competitions. They are also trained in special combat techniques – emergency dispatch accessing weapons, quick entry to vehicles, assembling a weapon without illumination, using non-lethal weapons like the baton, shield and stick and shooting and throwing tear-gas canisters., IT communications and navigational technologies. Administrators have to prepare advance plans for command structure and procedures, force composition and deployment size, deployment destination, route and rendezvous points, scenarios of contact outcomes and policy options. They also have to ensure that deployed units would have sufficient supply of police batons, helmets, ropes, masks, bullet-proof vests, cash, food, and first-aid kits, transportation vehicles and experienced drivers.
As the last document of this issue, the report on the Early Detection Intelligence Control System, was first put in operation in 1999 by the Ningbo Municipal Public Security Bureau discusses its experiences in creating the system and its utility in defusing a taxicab driver demonstration. The demonstration was prompted by the promulgation of a set of new regulation on management of taxicabs in Ningbo in July, 1999, which shortened the effective period of their operating license from an indefinite term to 15 years, levying a 10,000 yuan fee for licenses that did not pay the auction price, restricting the hours of taxi service in the three transportation terminals, differentiating the starting meter price of two makes of taxi vehicles, and limiting the number of taxi stands in the city. Voicing their opposition to the new regulations, over a hundred to a thousand taxicab drivers gathered to petition to the municipal government for several days, chanting slogans, barricading the entrance of the municipal government building, blocking the vehicles of municipal officials, assaulting the police precinct. Some taxicab drivers began to collect funds to travel to the provincial capital (Hangzhou) to petition and contacting the China Center Television Corp., the national TV network to seek national media coverage.
The Early Detection and Control System has several basic features. Intelligence is collected by different units, but shared by all agencies. Information is collected by the Traffic Control departments, which operate taxi driver schools and training sessions, and administering the annual taxicab driver evaluations. By making their services and requirements more driver-friendly through reducing the instruction hours, holding instruction and conducting evaluations in taxicab company locations, they win the goodwill and trust of some taxicab drivers. At the same time, the department collaborated with the state public security agencies, who identified potential informants among taxicab drivers, for whom the department then recruited, cultivated, and trained ten of these insiders of the taxi industry, to provide timely, actionable and in-depth information on the protest plans of the drivers. Making use of such intelligence, the department was forewarned that the taxi drivers would stage an airport boycott, and assaulting the municipal government building. The State Public Security Agency also dispatched plain coat agents to the city and directly participated in protest prevention, evidence collection, and event management.
The Early Detection System also makes good use of state-of-the art IT security equipment with search, recognition and location capabilities, secretly videotaping the few drivers who blocked traffic, collecting funds for travel to Hangzhou, which was used as evidence for immediate summons, detention and prosecution. Through such detention of four ringleaders, the remaining drivers were intimated by the hi-tech capability of the agency, and deterred from participating in subsequent protests. In one gathering on July 23rd, the display of several security videotaping machines was sufficient to disperse a crowd of 200-300 petitioners. The IT system probably drew the attention of national authorities to invest in the nation-wide face recognition system in 2018.
This issue concludes our three-part series on Mass Protests in China.