Security Policy Intensify Monitoring of Chinese Dissidents

This stability protection policy issued by Chunxiao Township in China’s eastern Zhejiang Province asks local officials to comply with a “security moat” set up for the Shanghai Expo. Authorities there are trying to minimize public incidents that may cause embarrassment for the Chinese regime.

To achieve this, Chunxiao authorities have singled out a list of individuals and classified them into three threat levels.

Those classified as level A—or critical targets—will be under 24 hour surveillance by security officials. Level B individuals will be monitored by informants in their home town. Those under level C will be asked to sign guarantees that they will not cause trouble, have to register with authorities if they leave town and will be monitored.

According to Radio Free Asia, a Chunxiao township official denied the existence of such a plan on the phone. He then hung up on the reporter. Thirty minutes after the call, the document disappeared from the township’s website. Its contents have since been circulated online by netizens.

A Zhejiang-based blogger told Radio Free Asia that when he swiped his national identity card at a railway station, he saw his name on a dissident watch list from an official screen. Guo Weidong is known to post materials critical of the communist regime. He says the screen showed the words “stability protection” as well a cell phone number, probably of an officer responsible for watching him.

Social incidents are on the rise in China, where disgruntled citizens are protesting against anything from official corruption, forced evictions and public food safety scandals. In response, the ruling Chinese Communist Party is spending billions of dollars to quash dissent, and censoring the country’s 400 million web users from information that may threaten the regime’s legitimacy.