Police Reform in China: Continuity Trumps Change

• In Event: Policing in East Asia

Abstract

China’s President Xi Jinping has made headlines around the globe for enacting a hard hitting reform agenda that is slated to change the governing operations of the world’s most populous state, but little is known about his impact on one of China’s most conservative bureaucracies: the Public Security Bureau (PSB). Using content analysis, interview data, and archival research, this paper explores Xi’s impact on the PSB. I argue that the timing, content, and practical execution of police reform sheds light on the priorities of the Xi administration and its ability to enact meaningful change to the enforcement of law and order in Chinese cities. This paper assesses that reform using Jean-Paul Brodeur’s framework of high and low policing to demonstrate which areas of policing have experienced the most change and in what ways. Ultimately, I find that preferences for high policing-style stability maintenance reforms are largely consistent with the Hu Jintao era, while the politicization of the police bureaucracy itself has increased. Low policing activities such as general crime-fighting, however, remain virtually unchanged, which points to a very conservative reform agenda under Xi in the public security realm.

Author

• Suzanne Scoggins, Clark University