The Chinese government is looking for a solution to the protests that have occurred in China's rural areas over recent years, a senior CPC member said in Beijing on Wednesday.

 

"Although these incidents have only occurred occasionally in a few rural villages, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the government have attached close importance to this issue and are looking for ways to tackle the problem," said Ouyang Song, deputy director of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

 

China is now undergoing a transition from GDP per capita US$1,000 to US$3,000, which "is a golden time for development, as well as a time of conflicts," Ouyang said.

 

In 2005, China saw 87,000 cases of public order disturbance, up 6.6 percent on the previous year, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

 

Ouyang said that the protests only account for a very small portion of these cases and the cause of the incidents are "very complicated".

 

He said the ongoing drive to keep the vanguard character of CPC members in rural China has helped reduce the number of protests in the countryside.

 

The drive, launched in November last year, is scheduled to end in June this year. It has so far covered 645,000 rural Party organizations involving a total of 19.23 million CPC members in China's countryside.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 2, 2006)