The Political Logic of Weiwen in Contemporary China

From the late 1990s, in response to growing unrest and crime, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) put greater emphasis on the role of the "comprehensive management of public security" (CMS) than it did on legal reform as the main means of "maintaining social stability" (weiwen). After more than a decade, however, it is apparent that CMS is highly inefficient, and its impact on weiwen is counterproductive. This paper analyses the measures, mechanisms, and logic of CMS in order to explain why it does not work as intended. By analyzing data and examples of CMS-such as expenditure on policing and paying informants-this paper shows it is precisely the elements of CMS that are contrary to the principles of democracy and the rule of law that make it doomed to failure. Indeed, the increasing dependence upon CMS, rather than the law, represents a step backward in legal and political reform.