Beijing Hires Neighbourhood Watchers Before Olympics
Haizhong Ning
Haizhong Ning
Luo Ya
Luo Ya
December 24, 2021 Updated: December 25, 2021biggersmaller Print
News Analysis
The Chinese Communist regime recently publicized its engaging of citizen to carry out stability maintenance during the Winter Olympics.
On Dec. 2, Guo Shengkun, the Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, touted the importance of grasping political security through adopting the “Maple Bridge experience,” and deepening “grid management.”
The Maple Bridge experience was a 1960 pilot movement that engaged the people in a regional struggle in Maple Bridge Town, Zhejiang, an eastern, coastal province in China.
Mao Zedong praised the effectiveness of the project and promoted the movement nationwide. This civil struggle model facilitated infiltration of the communist governance at the grassroots.
Grid management was a digital intervention of “mass control in the socialist society” in recent years. It was first tried in Dongcheng District of Beijing in 2004. Grid staff members of various levels were designated according to the sizes of the areas covered, and in charge of local patrols and neighbourhood information gathering.
It is a top-down governance mobilizing ordinary citizens, and the surveillance is in the guise of a social service; suppression gets to the individual level through mobile phones.
Budget Increases to Safeguard Winter Olympics
In China’s capital, the popular “Chaoyang masses” and “Xicheng aunts” are public informants and can be seen as the modern Red Guards mobilized in Beijing’s districts of Chaoyang and Xichang by local governments.
A 2019 Chinese media report indicated that they are a combination of the Maple Bridge experience and grid management.
According to a Dec. 8 media report, local grid management has been expanded to meet the demands of the Winter Olympics. Grid staff are dispatched to engage in community visits and security checks of “special targets” to ensure the safety of the Games.
Earlier, on Nov. 28, China’s Minister of Public Security, Zhao Kezhi, called for a foolproof measure to safeguard the Olympics.
According to official data from the the government of Zhangjiakou, in one of the three competition zones the public security bureau arranged for a budget of $75.54 million in the 2020 fiscal year, an increase of 5.1 percent over the previous year.
When Chinese premier Li Keqiang called for governments at all levels to live on a tight budget in 2019, and reiterated this on March 12, in the name of stability maintenance for the Winter Olympics, the suppression machinery continued to gear up no matter the cost.
The Zhangjiakou budget form explained the increase was to cover additional expenses required for big data construction, video surveillance installation, and enhancement of policing forces; that is, projects to ensure public security during the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The budget includes $2.87 million for construction of video image information platforms and new surveillance cameras at 3,680 check points; and $2.58 million for the Winter Olympics security big data center.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijing-hires-neighbourhood-watchers-before-olympics_4176125.html