Nearly two million police have spread out into homes and communities across China, given the task not of a crackdown on organised crime or a hunt for dissidents, but one that is possibly more ambitious: to appease the complaints of all residents.

As one officer put it, they are attempting British-style “neighbourhood policing” on a scale never seen before in the country.

The campaign – the biggest mounted by the Ministry of Public Security – is timed to ensure that there are no outstanding grievances before celebrations this year marking 60 years of Communist Party rule.

Nothing is being left to chance before the October 1 anniversary. Above all, the authorities do not want street protests by the disgruntled or unemployed as the world economic crisis slows the Chinese boom.

In the gritty, northern industrial city of Baoding, Zhao Tiantian is responsible for a community of nearly 10,000 people living in low-rise housing blocks that are starting to crumble after more than half a century.

“What really concerns people are matters that affect their daily lives, personal issues. Complaints are about their property, their security, family fights. Small things, but things that matter to them,” she says.

Each day at 8.30am the officer unlocks the door to her two-room office, slides a marker into a slot outside to indicate that she is on duty and waits for residents to pop in. She does not wait long. Her visitors are mainly residents of the community that serves the state-owned Yimian Textile Group and, more recently, migrant workers from the country who have rented rooms and need to register.

Her first caller wanted a letter granting permission to visit Taiwan. Officer Zhao told the middle-aged businessman to return with a note from his employer. He left meekly, but her next visitor was less easily assuaged.

Qi Ning had lived all her life in the community, worked for the textile plant – and now the authorities had demolished the wall surrounding the compound. “Anyone can get in now. I don’t feel comfortable at night. I want to pass on my complaints. You say there aren’t many thieves around here but you never know. How can we feel safe without this wall?” she demanded to know.

The policewoman made a quick call to the security officer of the housing company and then tried to calm her indignant visitor. “In March this whole area will be redone,” she said. “Then everything will be better. You just need to be patient.”

When the security officer arrived, the policewoman set off with Mrs Qi to view where the wall once stood. She was soon surrounded by a group of elderly women. “People urinate on the walls of our buildings now!” one said. Another complained: “At night drunks stand here and shout and throw up. It’s not safe.”

Officer Zhao leaves the security officer to explain that this is all part of a project to beautify the grimy district and continues on her round. She says quietly: “These are little issues. Chicken feathers and garlic skins. But with the ‘big walk-through’ campaign we are making sure that we try to deal with everyone’s complaints.”

Her colleagues and bosses in the central Yimian police station say that they have all been assigned factories and enterprises, communities and families to visit. The three-month campaign that began on December 25 involves China’s entire 1.9-million-strong police force – from forestry police to detectives. The Yimian police deputy director, Tian Yang, says he will try to call on everyone at least once during the campaign: “Part of this job is to improve the image of the police among the masses.”

Here there is work to be done. So diminished is the reputation of the police that when a young man in Shanghai stabbed to death six officers in a station, his action gained widespread approval in many quarters. Many said that the police must have provoked the violence with cruel or unfair treatment of the man, who was executed last November.

Announcing the campaign, the Public Security Ministry said that one aim was to mollify those angered by the economic slowdown. Most people, however, have more mundane grievances. Officer Zhao had to persuade one old man to grow fewer plants because his smelly fertilisers had enraged neighbours. She takes her duties seriously, stopping during her rounds to chat to residents.

Officer Zhao, 26 and already five years on the beat, and her colleagues hope that their achievements will count when the 60th anniversary comes around in October.

“We have heard about neighbourhood policing in Britain and this seems like a very good model. We are trying to learn more about that and to follow that example,” she said.

Party time

— On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, announcing a Communist “democratic dictatorship”

— Zhang Yimou, the film director who created the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, will mastermind this year’s 60th anniversary. The centrepiece, local media report, will be a “solemn and cost-effective” military parade

— Other notable dates this year include the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre (June 4) and the 50th anniversary of the exile of the Dalai Lama (March 10)

— The Communist Party has moved to crack down on dissent, creating a new blacklist of journalists, closing down antigovernment websites and detaining democracy campaigners as well as Tibetans

Source: Times archives

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