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Opinion / Li Xing

Services must be improved for better law enforcement
By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-08-17 05:45

Wreaths lay in front of the gate to a major electronics store at
Zhongguancun in Beijing over the weekend, in memory of Li Zhiqiang, a
policeman who died on duty last Friday.

People often associate the police with duties such as regulating traffic
or solving crimes. But Li Zhiqiang was not a police officer in that
common sense of the word.

He was a staff member in the new local government administration entitled
"bureau of comprehensive administrative law enforcement for urban
management."

True to its long title, the new bureau's teams of law enforcers take
charge of implementing regulations, administrative orders and laws
encompassing 14 areas, as specified on its website, www.bjcg.gov.cn.

They shoulder huge responsibilities: Nabbing industries and workshops
that pollute the air, the rivers and lakes; maintaining safety standards
at construction sites, public waters and public works; watching over
hygiene and garbage treatment in public places or farmers' markets; and
keeping order at parking lots and in streets, among others.

They play a major role in clearing the streets of pirated DVDs, CDs and
computer software.

The new law enforcement bureau was established four years ago at
municipal and district levels in cities across the country to help
upgrade urban governance as Chinese cities become more crowded and urban
society more complicated.

As their jobs require, the new agency and its staff members try to take
all the laws and regulations into their own hands and go all out to see
the laws and regulations take effect.

Despite the comprehensiveness of their tasks, some of them carry their
duties out with simplicity and single-mindedness when they appear in
public places, seemingly without due respect for the law by public
understanding. As a result, they have invited more frowns than public
trust.

At an entrance to a shopping mall or a shopping street, it is not
uncommon to see unlicensed peddlers suddenly gather up their merchandise
and run at one cry, "Cheng Guan (urban management police) are coming!"

Those peddlers who are a little slow often suffer, as the law enforcers
snatch away their merchandise, tools and handcarts. The peddlers are made
to pay fines, which the law enforcers have the right to levy for a series
of misdemeanours.

Worse, an elderly peddler in his 60s was seen beaten up by four or five
of the "urban police" at Shijiazhuang Railway Station on August 4.
Another member of the law enforcers in Shenzhen was heard to proudly
acknowledge that he was a "ruffian."

Those peddlers who are tired of running sometimes fight back. Last
Friday, a peddler surnamed Cui pursued Li Zhiqiang and stabbed Li in the
neck with his knife, after Li and his colleagues confiscated his
tricycle. "My livelihood depends on that tricycle," Cui said when he was
apprehended.

Li was seriously wounded and later died in hospital, becoming the first
urban law enforcer to sacrifice his life on the job.

While the public mourns Li's death, we must acknowledge that enhanced
enforcement and regulations alone will not help ensure social harmony or
mitigate complicated social problems.

In fact, violence between the new urban police and those men in the
street unlicensed peddlers and the like is, sadly, becoming more common.
Since January this year, some 89 urban management police have been
wounded in Beijing alone while on duty.

The bad conduct of a few urban police is one contributing factor.
Meanwhile, city administrators have not created comprehensive new
services to furnish the urban poor and rural migrants with opportunities
to sustain their livelihood legally.

Better government services, incorporated into the social security net
that is available to all citizens, are key to better law enforcement and
the best tribute to Li Zhiqiang.

Email: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/17/2006 page4)

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