'Social management' unlikely to offer much in the way of justice

The Politburo's internal security boss, Zhou Yongkang, has been very busy in the last couple of months.

It all started in late August when the committee that he chairs expanded and changed its name from the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security to the Central Committee for Comprehensive Social Management.

The rebranding may seem like a tweak, but adopting the phrase 'social management' underlines its renewed function under the powerful Communist Party Central Committee.

The committee's responsibility, according to People's Daily website People.com.cn, is to co-ordinate efforts from all member agencies to maintain social management, to propose policies and to give guidance. In the past, the committee covered 40 member bodies but since the name change that total has grown to more than 50.

Zhou chaired a flurry of meetings beginning on September 16 when he listed eight areas on which the committee would concentrate its work. These areas are: management of and services to the migrant population; management of and services to businesses and non-government community groups; support and protection for special needs groups; expansion of the security control system; prevention of juvenile crime; comprehensive security in schools; security of key public facilities; and research on related laws and policy.

Just under a fortnight later the committee met again, this time to hear officials from Beijing, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hunan, and Shenzhen report on their strategies to deal with social problems. Zhou asked local party organisations and government agencies to understand that social management was their 'foremost duty and task'.

People.com.cn was quick to follow up with a commentary saying that Zhou's remarks showed that development and stability are 'like the two wings' of China's rise. And proactive measures must be taken to deal with all the public's 'internal contradictions'.