Recently, tensions have been rising in the neighboring provinces of Hebei, specifically in Baoding and Tangshan near Beijing. According to insiders, due to the secret deployment of the central inspection team, local stability maintenance has escalated, with police officers seen throughout the streets.
It was recently revealed to Epoch Times that the central inspection team in Beijing carried out inspections in Tangshan City, Hebei Province from May 17 to June 10. The fact that a regular prefecture-level city like Tangshan was inspected by the central team has raised concerns about the underlying situation.
Insiders disclosed that the central inspection team was stationed at the Zitian Swan Hotel in Tangshan. The team provides three ways to report issues, including phone, mailbox, and QR code, but they are not easily accessible to the public online. These officials reside in high-end hotels, with extensive police presence guarding both locations, preventing ordinary people from approaching. Even those who had booked wedding banquets in advance at the hotel were canceled.
Meanwhile, various government departments, schools, and others have been privately conveying the message of “no random reporting,” meaning that citizens are prohibited from reporting issues. It is said that both Tangshan No.1 and No.2 High Schools have explicitly notified all teachers, and even retired individuals from Tangshan Television for 20-30 years were informed, along with their family members, not to casually use QR codes or go out without proper reason.
An informant living in Baoding, known as Yang Tiantian, told Epoch Times on June 2 that the central inspection team did not inform Hebei Province and directly moved to Tangshan before arriving in Baoding.
He mentioned that due to the central inspection team coming to Baoding, local stability maintenance had intensified in the past few days. “There are police officers all over the streets, even more intense than before in terms of stability maintenance.”
Recently, some taxi drivers in Baoding protested in front of the Transportation Bureau, and short videos of their appeals were circulating on social media. It is known that some taxi drivers have jointly reported to the central government about the opaque operations and oppression by the authorities in Baoding.
Yang Tiantian said it was mainly because taxi drivers are required to rent vehicles from the Transportation Group under the Baoding Transportation Bureau, leading to disputes over rental fees and other matters.
On May 30th at noon, a fire broke out suddenly at the Hebei Baoding Transportation Building, with fierce flames especially on the top floor.
Following the fire at the Baoding Transportation Building, netizens claimed suspicious damage in the finance office. “The finance office was destroyed by the fire after the fire broke out, which is indeed dubious.”
Yang Tiantian told Epoch Times that he asked people from the Transportation Bureau, who confirmed that it was indeed the file room, including the accounting office and engineering design drawings, that were all burned in the fire, but fortunately, there were no casualties. “All evidence related to debts, corruption, everything was gone in the fire.”
He also raised doubts about the fire at the Transportation Bureau building in Baoding just before the arrival of the central inspection team, suggesting there might be more to the story.
Yang Tiantian stated that the central inspection team’s visit to Hebei Province to investigate Tangshan and Baoding indicates deep grievances in these areas, with many people waiting to seek justice. However, the inspection team officials are not taking action.
It is reported that there are many unfinished buildings in Baoding, where many relocated residents bought houses, but the developers failed to deliver, leading people to visit the government offices daily seeking solutions.
A circulated video showed that on May 31st, in the Niangniang Temple Village in Fengrun District, Tangshan, residents who had not been resettled even fourteen years after relocation initiated a gathering, demanding prompt resettlement from the local government.
According to Yang Tiantian, Tangshan also has many unfinished buildings, and affected individuals protested in front of the hotel where the central inspection team was staying, resulting in rapid intervention by police stations, village committee secretaries, and plainclothes officers.
He mentioned that people initially petitioned for pensions, then shifted to issues with unfinished buildings, followed by taxi drivers’ rights protection, as well as disputes over the government’s failure to pay businesses.
“Xi Jinping promises to repay the government’s debts to businesses, but it’s just deceiving people; he is not trustworthy. Every day he paints a big picture, which gets bigger and bigger, but this big picture will collapse sooner or later because the thinner he rolls it, the more brittle it becomes, and once poked, it breaks,” commented Yang Tiantian.
He added that the central inspection team’s presence does not solve the problems or provide justice to the people. “So, the authorities talking about how young people should love the party and the country, how can that be possible?”