Domestic critics often blame China’s governance problems on the wanton behavior of local governments rather than mismanagement by the central government. This tends to happen for two reasons. First, criticizing local agents of the state instead of the central government in Beijing or the government as a whole is more politically acceptable in China. Second, governance problems often manifest themselves more acutely at the local level.
Pointing the finger at local governments is easy, but without a close examination of the role of upper-level governments, diagnoses of problems are likely to be superficial and prescriptions ineffective.
Among the best examples is the abusive treatment of petitioners by local authorities – an issue recently brought back into the spotlight by the announcement of a new six-month campaign to crack down on Beijing’s “black jails.”
“Black jails” refers to ad hoc detention centers where troublesome out-of-town petitioners are illegally detained until they are forcibly taken back to their home provinces. Petitioners taken to these detention centers have reported being subjected to everything from extortion to torture and are held without formal legal proceedings.
Beyond the black jails, there have also been reports of local government officials beating up petitioners and even locking them up in mental hospitals to prevent their complaints from reaching authorities in Beijing.
Officially, central authorities frown on such practices, with state-run media carrying numerous commentaries that urge local governments to stop infringing petitioners’ rights. Earlier this year, for instance, a People’s Daily editorial lambasted local officials who “do everything possible to hide problems and block petitions” instead of addressing the root issues that drove people to submit petitions. The editorial was a response to the case of a tourist who, mistaken for a petitioner, was kidnapped from his hotel room in Beijing in the middle of the night, beaten unconscious, and sent back to his home city in Henan by force (in Chinese). “To protect rights is to protect stability,” the editorial said.
While that sounds good, there is little evidence that local authorities who use illegal means to suppress petitioners have received due punishment from upper levels.
In September last year, Chinese media exposed a Beijing security company, Anyuanding, that operated an extensive network of black jails in Beijing. Anyuanding was reportedly paid handsome sums by a number of local governments to provide this service, while petitioners suffered physical and other forms of abuse at the hands of the company’s employees. After the media exposé, Anyuanding’s chairman and general manager were arrested (in Chinese), but there were no reports of the local governments who hired the company being held to account.
As the announcement of a new crackdown reveals, the Anyuanding case did not end the existence of black jails in Beijing, with other security companies stepping in to service local government clients. Last week, Beijing police announced that it had taken action against several black jails in the past two years. In one black jail that was closed down in August, according to local media reports, an employee who had tried to persuade the manager to stop the illegal practices was beaten to death by the manager and other employees. This black jail had contract with five local governments to help capture and lock up their petitioners. While criminals operating the illegal jails have been brought to justice, again there has been no mention of penalties being imposed on local governments who hired them.
One of the goals of the new crackdown, the Beijing Public Security Bureau says, is to achieve “zero participation of Beijing security companies in intercepting petitioners from outside Beijing.” That’s laudable, but local governments have used other means of driving petitioners out of Beijing in the past, including doing the job themselves through their Beijing representative offices or dispatching their law enforcement personnel to Beijing to round up petitioners.
As long as the central government remains strong in asking local governments to control the number of petitioners flowing into Beijing but weak in meting out punishment when local governments achieve their targets through dubious means, it does not look likely that abuse of petitioners would stop.
The tendency to make local governments shoulder the blame for China’s problems and suggestions that efforts to bring improvement should be directed at the local level only serve to foster cynicism among local officials. It does not solve the problems. What China needs most urgently is not another speech by central leaders urging local officials to mend their ways, or another directive from Beijing setting more good governance targets for local governments. Beijing, rather than local governments, holds the key to good governance in China. Any serious attempt to meet China’s mounting governance challenges should begin with more discussions of the central state’s responsibilities.
sorry but we dnt want to be like you
Posting staged pictures/videoes and spread speculations? Try harder next time.
