The Chinese police canine and explosives unit do a security sweep in Tiananmen Square before the closing session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People on March 10, 2022 in Beijing, China.(Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
[People News] For the CCP, the Two Sessions are a grand political event. For many ordinary Chinese citizens, however, they are a “stability maintenance war” directed against them. Recently, a document titled “Detailed Stability Maintenance Rules” has been circulating online, revealing how today’s Beijing has turned into a cage that petitioners find almost impossible to enter.
First, the document shows so-called “heaven-and-earth” comprehensive surveillance. On highways encircling Beijing and at long-distance bus stations, authorities have deployed 18 sets of “mobile checkpoints,” using drones in conjunction with telecom tower video feeds for AI facial recognition, with an accuracy rate reportedly exceeding 95%. Once you are placed on a watch list, the system can precisely identify “backpackers” and bus passengers.
Even more alarming is the use of “electronic fence” technology. Authorities have upgraded the “Intrusion Alert 2.0” system. As soon as the mobile signal of a key individual appears within Beijing’s jurisdiction, the system can, within just 10 seconds, push your exact longitude and latitude, base station number, and phone number to the command center. In addition, officials have adopted blockchain technology to put “petition settlement agreements” on-chain. Once a petitioner signs, their fingerprints, facial data, and audio recordings are permanently locked in. If they petition again, it will be deemed “refusal to comply with the agreement,” leading directly to administrative detention.
Why are local governments working so desperately? Because the rules stipulate that each county magistrate and county Party secretary starts with a base score of 100 points. For every single case of someone registering as having petitioned in Beijing, 10 points are deducted. Once the score is depleted, removal procedures are triggered. Provincial finance departments have imposed heavy penalties: for each person who petitions in Beijing, the county’s budget is reduced by 100,000 yuan to compensate Beijing’s relief expenditures. Under this “zero petitioners entering Beijing” target, grassroots officials see interception by any means necessary as their only option.
Zhu Peijuan, a rights defender from Haimen, Nantong, Jiangsu Province, was forcibly intercepted by more than a dozen government workers and plainclothes police while on her way to Beijing. She is currently being held in a hotel in Tianjin’s urban area and has lost her personal freedom.
However, the iron curtain of technology and money may block people, but it cannot block grievances. Outside the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, countless veteran petitioners lined up in the bitter cold as early as the seventh day of the Lunar New Year.
Petitioners hope that all CCP leaders, during their after-dinner walks, would ask their drivers to bring them there to see the suffering of ordinary people. Some petitioners have said that while the CCP claims to let the people live good lives in a country of peace and prosperity, ordinary citizens today are not living good lives, nor is the country truly at peace.
Others shouted angrily at the camera: “This generation of leaders is blind and deaf—they have ruined this country.” Some, having reached a dead end, have in recent years taken their own lives near the Yongding River by the petition bureau.
In the spring of 2026, Beijing is under heavy guard. This great stability maintenance battle—whom is it protecting, and against whom is it defending? △
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