Beijing’s Retirees Keep Eye Out for Trouble During Party Congress
|
Version 0 of 1. BEIJING — Dressed in a new crimson windbreaker, a red cap and an armband emblazoned with “Capital Public Security Patrol,” Gao Fengping sat in a child-sized pink chair and vigilantly watched the midday bustle of a narrow back street. If a protest or disturbance erupted, Ms. Gao, 58, a retired factory worker, was ready. Du Chunfeng, 78, whose matching uniform was augmented by a pair of comfortable brown slippers, was there for backup. Rounding out the surveillance team was Ms. Gao’s dog. All that was missing was some trouble. “We’re on the lookout for bad people, but there aren’t any,” Ms. Gao said. For the last two weeks, as the annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress has unfolded with minutely stage-crafted pomp, thousands of residents have taken up their assigned posts at busy intersections and on sleepy street corners as the front lines in the government’s perpetual war against potential unrest. These concerned citizens, many of them grandparents, are the soft fingertips of an iron fist known as “stability maintenance,” a vast government effort designed to suppress dissent and keep public order. In preparation for the main event, which has drawn delegates from across the country, the Communist Party unleashed a horde of uniformed myrmidons to follow dissidents and corral petitioners intent on airing their complaints to the nation’s leaders. Just to make sure nobody slips through the cracks, however, the authorities rely on the capital’s many neighborhood committees, which assign trusted residents to keep a watchful, if sometimes nearsighted, eye on every block. Formed shortly after the Communists took power in 1949, the committees officially are a form of direct grass-roots democracy, but in practice they serve as civic administrative units that provide the authorities with a massive network of informants. According to a 2009 government report, there are over 84,000 committees. The members, who are normally recruited rather than elected, are responsible for distributing state-owned newspapers and welfare subsidies, keeping records on every household and helping to enforce the nation’s rigorous family planning policies. In announcing last week that the budget for domestic security would rise 8.7 percent to $124 billion, which exceeds military spending, the government once again signaled how much it sought to keep an eye on its own people. Although the details of stability maintenance spending are unclear, keeping the capital on lockdown during so-called sensitive events is a costly, all-consuming endeavor. Last year, according to the state-run newspaper People’s Daily, 739,000 security personnel were mobilized to patrol Beijing during the National People’s Congress. Critics say the omnipresent neighborhood patrols highlight the Communist Party’s deep-seated paranoia. “Obviously, it shows the regime has very little confidence,” said Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent human rights lawyer in Beijing. The citizen patrols, some of them paid, increase in frequency and size closer to Tiananmen Square. On Tuesday, a 68-year-old retired teacher who called herself Auntie Zhang stood with a fellow armband-clad comrade a few blocks away from the city’s political nucleus. If they were unclear just for whom to watch, a piece of paper listed the “six things that require immediate reporting,” including petitioners, foreign journalists and those who come from “special areas,” meaning Tibet and Xinjiang, the border lands where ethnic minorities have long bridled at Chinese rule. Although Auntie Zhang said she was happy to stand guard, she had no intention of confronting anyone. “Look at me,” she said. “I can’t deal with problems myself. We’re just supposed to call the police.” |