China's Black Guards

The system to handle complaints from China's citizens is corrupt (go figure). [Link]

Over the past year, Wang was stationed near the Guangdong provincial government's Beijing bureau near the capital's western Third Ring Road. His job was to help Guangdong officials detain people who had come from the southern province to Beijing to file petitions and then escort them home. There were 20 or 30 others doing the same job he was working under the same supervisor, and there were more than four supervisors providing the service to officials from all over Guangdong stationed in Beijing.

He referred to his profession as "helping the government handle affairs." The more popular job title is "black guard," a unique profession that comes in tandem with China's petition system.

Chinese citizens can file petitions about their grievance with so-called letters and visits offices of various levels of government organs and courts, a mechanism set up in the 1950s. Under the current system, the number of petitions filed during an official's tenure is used as a yardstick for performance evaluation, prompting local governments to use every means possible to stop petitioners and shuffle them home. It has become an open secret that local governments hire "black guards" in the capital to stop petitioners from filing a grievance, thus reducing the number of petitions that are recorded.

To some extent, this is sanctioned by the central government. It is understood that officials from local governments limit the number of petitioners coming to the capital out of concern for social stability. Because local governments can afford to keep only so many employees in Beijing, their offices often resort to hiring people like Wang, to "persuade the petitioners to return home," sometimes by force. Thus, a strange industry has emerged in Beijing, surviving upon an institution bent on preserving stability at all costs.