Increasing petition cases spawn research center

By Wang Wen (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-27 08:02

The city's research center of social contradictions says the number of petition cases in the city is rising. [Wang Jing / China Daily]

Amid rapid economic growth and urbanization, petition cases in Beijing will only increase, an official with the first government-run petitions research center said.

Zhang Zonglin, deputy director of the petitions office in charge of the Beijing Municipal Research Center of Social Contradictions, said the petitions are just one way to solve social conflicts.

The Beijing Municipal Petitions Office established the research center in November to study social conflicts in Beijing. It is the first such center in the country and aims to take a scientific tack.

About 100,000 employees throughout various municipal departments covering all communities and the countryside receive and handle petitions, according to the petitions office's website.

"The research center aims to study the relationship between petitions and social problems to resolve the problems fundamentally," Zhang said.

Zhang said land use and employment concerns are the most popular issues targeted in the capital's petitions. As more developments requiring home relocations arise in Beijing, land-use petitions have soared.

According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, 50 villages, covering 25 sq km near the rural-urban fringe zone, will be rebuilt in Beijing this year. About 42,000 residents and 140,000 farmers will be impacted by the urbanization process in those areas, Beijing Daily reported earlier this month.

Wang Cailiang, a lawyer with the Beijing Cai Liang Law Firm, said he has received 50 percent more calls regarding demolition consultations compared with the same period last year, as large-scale demolitions take place.

In most petition cases, compensation for land expropriated for economic development was overdue, leading to the dissatisfaction of the displaced individuals, Wang said.

"We need to search for a new development model, such as that employed by the technology industries in Zhongguancun, to reduce the disputes" Zhang said.

Zhongguancun, considered the Silicon Valley of China, has been lauded for its efficient use of a relatively small amount of land.

Labor disputes are another growing source of social unease, he noted. The local labor supervision authority investigated 18,700 cases of purported violations of labor law. As a result, 50,700 workers in Beijing received as much as 211 million yuan in back pay.

Most petitions reflected many social problems, Zhang said. Letters and e-mails account for about 60 percent of the petitions to the office, while the rest are filed in person, the official said.

"The petitions office collects the data and information of social contradictions, so we took the responsibility to analyze the social problems and established the research center," said Zhang.

The center, which is now manned by Beijing Municipal Petitions Office employees, is recruiting 25 full-time workers. Officials have also invited experts in sociology and other disciplines to serve as part-time researchers to examine mass events and other concerns.

"How a collective petition turns into a mass event will be a research topic for us," Zhang said.

"The research center is an innovation of the petitions office and research in an active way could improve their capability to handle the petitions," said Wang Yukai, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance.

However, Wang said laws, rather than administrative pursuits such as the petitions office, are the best way to stem disputes.

"It is impossible to abolish the administrative way in a short time, because people have become used to the procedure," said Wang, who noted that a proper petitions process is still a positive step.