Xinhua Insight: Crack nut with tenderness -- China seeks softapproach to maintain social stability
By Xinhua writers Yang Dingdu, Zhang Zeyuan and Liu Jinyang
GUANGZHOU, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Lianhe Street in the suburb ofGuangzhou City, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, is atypical community that officials and policemen keep a close eye on.
Most of the community's residents are relocated farmers andmigrant workers who, in the words of a police officer, are moreprone to "mass incidents" -- protests and illegal gatherings.
The community has a "stability maintenance" office, with officershandling minor disputes and complaints while reporting greater risksof unrest to higher authorities.
But the "stability maintenance" office means little to thirdgrader Ma Qingqing, who passes by without noticing it every dayafter class. She ran directly to the four-storey building next door.Lianhe Yijia, or Lianhe Family, is a 1,020-square-meter communityservice center with a staff of 18 people, including 11 professionalsocial workers.
Ma and about 50 other children play and do their homework there,with the help of social workers. The children have free meals at thecenter until their parents come to pick them up. Many migrantworkers leave their jobs around 6 to 8 p.m. while schools endclasses at 4:30 p.m..
Community service centers bring help, comfort, joy and unity tothe local people. "When members of the community feel happy, theyhave no reason to take to the streets," said Zhang Liangguang, theCEO of Lianhe Family, a pilot project that exemplifies China'sefforts to adopt a softer approach to maintain social stability.
KEEP STABILITY THROUGH SERVICES
The link between services, such as taking care of children, andsocial stability can be best demonstrated in the case of BaiZhongjie, 17, who is one of China's youngest most wanted fugitives,Zhang said.
At the end of last July, when the police came to ask about Bai,the boy's mother was already worried. She hadn't heard from her sonsince the last time he ran away from home four months ago. But thenews from the police was worse than anything she could haveimagined. Her son was wanted for killing nine people.
Bai and four others allegedly killed nine people during sixrobberies in July last year. He was arrested on Aug. 4. The mothercouldn't believe that her "honest, filial and gentle" son wascapable of the crime.
Bai was born to a family of migrant workers in Dongguan City, amanufacturing hub in Guangdong, in 1993. Both his parents had towork and did not have much time to look after him.
When Bai was seven, the family returned to their hometownZhengyuan County in Guizhou Province. Since then, Bai constantly ranaway from home, hiding from his parents and spending days and nightsin the woods, nearby villages and playing online games in Internetcafes.
On a few occasions, Pan Mengjin, Bai's teacher, saw the boy'sfather chasing him on the streets. "Whenever my father wanted tobeat me, I just ran until he got exhausted," Bai once told Pan.
"A series of misfortunes caused Bai's tragedy -- lack of care inchildhood, family violence and addiction to online games. Had weprovided support in any stage of his life, things would have beendifferent," Zhang said.
Lianhe Family cares for troubled individuals and families. Itgives the comfort and support they need through various caring andhumane services, Zhang said.
In the center, social workers prepare and deliver free meals toold and disabled people, counsel pregnant women and new mothers,talk about love and career with young confused migrant workers, hostfestivals and celebrations for various occasions and encouragepeople to get to know and help each other.
"We reach out to people in trouble and help them get out of it.By doing so, we keep the community harmonious," Zhang said.
WHY A SOFTER APPROACH IS NEEDED
Statistics from the Guangzhou municipal government showed thatthe city spent 4.4 billion yuan in maintaining social stability in2007, more than the money it spent on social security that year.
"The exorbitant spending on public security certainly affectsChina's development. More importantly, social problems cannot reallybe solved by force. It would only suppress the issue for a moment.The problem would soon resurface, more abrupt and powerful," said YuJianrong, head of the Center for Social Research at the ChineseAcademy of Social Sciences.
"Social management can no longer rely solely on the governmentand public security. On the one hand, we do not have enough policemanpower, On the other, it is very difficult for the police toprevent sudden acts of violence, like the spate of campus rampagesin early 2010," said Kong Wen, a scholar with Guangdong PoliceCollege.
In Nanping County of east China's Fujian Province, ZhengMinsheng, a local clinic doctor, stabbed eight students to death andinjured five others in a primary school on March 23 last year. A mancalled Xu Yuyuan barged into a kindergarten in Taixing City of eastChina's Jiangsu Province and wounded 32 people with a knife on April29 last year.
On May 12, 2010, Wu Huanming killed seven children and two womenin a kindergarten in Nanzheng County in northwest China's ShaanxiProvince. Another 11 children were injured.
In a speech on Feb. 19, Chinese President Hu Jintao called for anew approach to social management that involved "stimulatingvitality in the society to the greatest extent, maximize factorsconducive to harmony and minimize those detrimental to it."
Hu also called for more human, financial and material resourcesto be given to grassroots organizations to enhance social servicecapacity and improve community administration.
The municipal government of Guangzhou paid four million yuan forthe establishment of Lianhe Family and the one-year service. It willkeep providing its service to the community at 2.5 million yuan eachyear, Zhang said. It is only one of the many social servicefacilities surfacing across China, especially in more developedareas such as Shanghai and Beijing.
"It's unheard of -- spending so much on the service of a singlecommunity. But it's worth it when you see how life here is improved.It is the future," said Duan Chuanli, deputy head of theAdministrative Office of Lianhe Street.
(Xiao Sisi from Xinhua's Guangdong bureau also contributed to thestory.)
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