Law-based governance needed to end chengguan violence

BEIJING - Law-based and civilized governance is needed to end the country's repeated violence between urban management officers, or chengguan, and street vendors, which often sparks outcry and potentially threatens social stability.

Over the past couple weeks, a 70-year-old man died and more than a dozen were injured in three clashes between chengguan staffers and citizens in Fujian, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces.

In Cangnan County in coastal Zhejiang, five chengguan workers were attacked and injured by onlookers after they beat a man who was taking photos of their law enforcement work on the street. In Anhui, four urban management employees assaulted six members of a family strolling near a lake after mistaking them for a group of pyramid-selling suspects.

Chengguan officers are themselves law enforcement personnel. It is part of their work to persuade vendors to leave the streets they occupy with their business stalls. However, verbal squabbles too easily escalate into bodily assaults when chengguan seize sellers' booth items in the case of disobedience. Sometimes, stalls are even smashed by the officers.

Urban management officers should know clearly what they should not do. They violate laws or regulations if they exercise their duty rudely and instigate violence against others, despite the vendors' refusal to obey their orders.

Such incidents lead the general public to a negative view of chengguan due to their power abuse, rudeness or arrogance, and the disadvantaged vendors, who earn a living through small businesses, earn the sympathy of the public.

Chengguan-related violence can quickly attract large-scale gatherings of citizens. Some regard it as a chance to unleash their social discontent, and these flames are easily fanned by saboteurs to create disorder and damage vehicles or buildings, thus threatening social stability.

Whoever violates law deserves punishment. On Wednesday, a court in the central province of Hunan held a retrial of four chengguan officers who were sentenced to jail terms of up to 11 years in a first trial over the death of a watermelon vendor during a clash last year.

In handling the aftermath of violence, urban management authorities often sack those, mostly temporary staffers, who participate in violence. Those held criminally liable are brought to justice.

But punishment is not the best remedy to handle some long-standing,thorny social issues like chengguan-related violence. A lesson should be drawn from past tragedies to avoid similar violence.

Law-based and civilized governance is a must for chengguan officers. Their power should be clearly defined according to law. To improve their image and reputation, urban management systems need reform, and overall quality of personnel should be improved.

More people will move to cities and towns for jobs as part of China's urbanization drive. It is urgent for governments at local levels to improve governance capabilities given urban management challenges ahead.

The central government has vowed to promote innovation in social governance, focus on law-based governance and involve all parties in social governance.

It is high time that urban management authorities and all officials discard their old thinking and improve social governance through reform and innovation.

All should bear in mind the rule of law in China, but urban management and other officials must especially stick to this in the use of power, decisions and actions regarding the public.