Guangdong party chief Wang Yang has been hailed as a model modern leader for defusing tensions sparked by a land dispute in Wukan village peacefully last year by pursuing open dialogue.
A member of the Communist Party Politburo, Wang is a strong contender for promotion to the supreme Politburo Standing Committee during the leadership reshuffle expected this autumn thanks to his close ties to party general secretary Hu Jintao and his image as a hard-nosed reformist and liberal administrator.
And he's not about to let any hiccups, such as further social unrest, jeopardise his promotion prospects.
The South China Morning Post has learned that an order issued in recent months threatened that heads would roll if Guangdong witnessed a second Wukan or similar 'unpredicted' mass incident before the 18th party congress. Local government officials and public security officers were told they would be held responsible if they failed to do their utmost to nip protests in the bud.
While it cannot be confirmed that the order came from Wang himself, many find it highly believable.
'This is a critical year for Wang Yang as he is hoping to get into the Politburo Standing Committee, so we've been seeing more measures to maintain social stability over the past few months,' said Ye Du, a Guangzhou-based media analyst. 'This includes tighter control of the local media and more petitioners being arrested.'
This is evident in a series of recent controversial moves at Nanfang Media Group after a leadership reshuffle last month. Yang Jian's appointment as the group's new party chief has sparked concerns over a tighter grip on its media outlets. Yang was the former deputy chief of the party's propaganda department in Guangdong and a former bureau chief for Xinhua but he is now leading a group which owns two of the mainland's most respected and outspoken newspapers: the Southern Weekend and The Southern Metropolis News.