Recently, authorities in Guangxi have tightly controlled mass organizations, demanding unregistered organizations to register and registered organizations to establish party branches. Officials from the local civil affairs department revealed that these measures are related to frequent incidents of state-owned enterprise layoffs, wage arrears, and workers demanding their salaries. At the same time, state-run media outlets of the Chinese Communist Party have referred to public opinion as a “high-risk flashpoint” of social conflicts, urging local authorities to prevent the spread of public opinion.
According to an insider, Liu Haoran (pseudonym), from the civil affairs department in Guangxi, there have been numerous cases of layoffs in state-owned enterprises, wage arrears, and workers’ wage demands, leading to escalating public discontent. The higher authorities have issued stability maintenance notices to the local government, making the registration of mass organizations and the establishment of party branches important measures to prevent public incidents.
Liu Haoran expressed the authorities’ fear of involvement of grassroots organizations in collective events, issuing warnings to grassroots units to closely monitor the development and activities of non-governmental organizations.
“There has been a notice from above, stating the current situation is severe. Unregistered mass organizations are required to register immediately, while registered organizations need to establish party branches. The civil affairs department is required to pay attention to the development of non-governmental social groups, fearing the occurrence of public incidents, especially to prevent scattered wage demands and rights protection actions from evolving into organized collective protests.”
According to information from the social media platform X, on September 20, a group of workers in Longtan Industrial Park in Bobai County, Yulin City, Guangxi, held banners with the slogan “Give back our hard-earned pay” to demand their wages. The workers claimed that after completing rust removal, painting, and fireproof coating projects, they were owed over 500,000 Chinese yuan in wages, which had been overdue for nearly 5 years with unsuccessful attempts to claim them.
While wage arrears remain unresolved, authorities have shifted their focus to wage-demanding workers and non-governmental organizations, attempting to prevent scattered rights protection actions from evolving into collective events.
A writer from Beihai, Guangxi, who goes by the pseudonym Haining, indicated that the authorities’ requirement for mass organizations to establish party branches implies that these organizations not only have to disclose their members and activities to the government but also be further placed under the control of the grassroots organizations of the Chinese Communist Party.
“When the economy is doing well, local governments can still mitigate conflicts through compensation or delays. With the current economic chaos, taxation authorities conducting audits and imposing fines, enterprises are forced to lay off workers and halt operations, leading to wage arrears,” said Haining.
Haining believes that the central authorities of the Chinese Communist Party are most concerned not with isolated wage demands or rights protection incidents but with the rapid spread of ordinary public events through the internet, triggering responses from different regions and groups, eventually turning them into nationwide events.
“Our street grid workers often visit residents’ homes to inquire about any difficulties and if their children have had conflicts with classmates at school. They fear that unresolved minor issues could escalate into major problems and aim to extinguish conflicts in their nascent stages.”
Haining mentioned that in the current climate of increasing public grievances, the spread of a wage arrears incident or a law enforcement conflict through the internet could resonate with people in other areas. Authorities have intensified online monitoring and included non-governmental organizations in the administrative registration and party organization control system to sever horizontal connections between different regions and rights protection groups.
Amid Guangxi’s enhanced stability maintenance efforts, the Party School of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party published an article titled “Enhancing Public Opinion Guidance and Public Sentiment Handling Capabilities” on the front page of the Study Times on September 18. It acknowledged that China’s public opinion landscape is undergoing profound changes, and public sentiment has become a “high-risk flashpoint” of social conflicts, posing severe challenges to the public sentiment handling capabilities of all levels of government.
The article stated that commercial internet platforms now wield significant power in agenda setting, information dissemination, and shaping public emotions. Algorithms determine which information receives widespread dissemination, influencing the content of public attention and discussion.
It further mentioned that artificial intelligence is accelerating its involvement in information production and dissemination, with overseas information continuously influencing the domestic public opinion scene, blurring the boundaries between domestic and foreign public opinion arenas. These descriptions reflect that the development of online platforms and artificial intelligence is challenging the traditional approach of the Chinese Communist Party’s reliance on censorship, account suspensions, and unified messaging through official media for information control.
The Study Times article advocated for a systematic upgrade of the “emergency public sentiment handling” system, integrating it into the overall framework of the national governance system. It suggested that grassroots governments, when facing public incidents, should first manage public emotions through empathy and apologies and gradually disclose the facts.
Mr. Qin, a human rights lawyer from Guangxi, stated in an interview with Epoch Times, that against the backdrop of the continuous deterioration of the Chinese economic environment and the increasing social conflicts, more and more people are sharing videos online to expose the injustices they face, overwhelming the authorities. Local officials are at a loss in dealing with issues, resorting to suppressing those who raise issues using their official powers, which is fueling the accumulation of public discontent.
“When the authorities encounter problems, they do not solve them but target the individuals or rights activists raising the issues with charges like ‘provocation.’ This does not solve the problem but deepens the divide between the authorities and the people. I believe these conflicts will one day erupt in full force.”
Qin mentioned that the Study Times suggesting the use of “empathy” and “apologies” to manage public emotions indirectly acknowledges that local officials have long resorted to shifting blame, blocking information, and suppressing questioning, not only failing to calm incidents but exacerbating the official-public divide. If the actual problems causing public grievances are not resolved, the so-called public sentiment handling ultimately remains a form of stability maintenance.