Police Reform and its Implication for Chinese Social Control

This paper is a primary study of the Pi Chu Shuo (the local police station) reform which is now carried out in urban China. The old policing model of Pai Chu Shuo has been criticized as static and unable to tackle the problems brought by the economic reform. More resources are diverted to the Pai Chu Shuo and its police are given more discretional power. What caused the reform? In the positive paradigm of the police, the disorganization brought by the post-Mao modernization is the generator. This paper will argue that it is the estranging of police/public relation of which accounts more for the reform. The reform implies a transformation of Chinese social control from the control of the mind to that of the body, thus indicating the decline of state power.