Petitioning (China)

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Petitioning in the People's Republic of China, also known as letters and calls, in Chinese as xìnfǎng simplified Chinese: 信访; traditional Chinese: 信訪 or shàngfǎng simplified Chinese: 上访; traditional Chinese: 上訪, is the administrative system for hearing complaints and grievances from individuals. Under the system, State Bureau for Letters and Calls (simplified Chinese: 国家信访局; traditional Chinese: 國家信訪局) and local bureaus of letters and calls ("petitioning bureaus") are commissioned to receive letters, calls, and visits from individuals or groups on suggestions, complaints, and grievances. The officers then channel the issues to respective departments and monitor the progress of settlement, which they feedback to the filing parties.^[1]

Petitioning bureaus are essentially a communication channel between the government and the citizens. People have been relying on the system since the establishment of the PRC in 1949, and visiting petitioning bureaus at a higher level (e.g. provincial or state) has been an effective way to raise local grievances. Going to court is increasingly becoming an option, because many cases could not be resolved through petitioning alone.

The number of petitioners in Beijing alone has allegedly reached more than 100,000 people, not counting those remain at provincial capitals.

In ancient imperial times, petitioners were called "people with grievances" (Chinese: 冤民; pinyin: yuānmín). Petitioners who needed justice would come to official's court and beat a drum before the court to voice their grievances. As such, every official court was supposed to be equipped with a drum for this sole purpose. Sometimes petitioners would throw their bodies in front of a sedan chair of the high official. When no one else at the local level was able to help, petitioners would travel to the then empire's capital to seek higher official's help.

Nowadays, anyone who has a complaint can begin their search for justice in the legal system. But if they get nowhere in the courts, their last resort is to do what people in China have done for centuries - go to the capital and petition.^[2]

Many regional or provincial capitals would hire personels in Beijing to try to locate petitioners and send them home; this is known as intercepting(Chinese:截訪). The main purpose of this practice is to maintain the public images of the regional centers in Beijing.

• Black jails
• Weiquan movement

• In Chinese:国家信访局：北京最繁忙的办公室 Google translation
• In Chinese:信访局局长王学军：密切党和政府同人民群众的联系 Google translation
• In Chinese:國家信訪局接待站爆發群體上訪事件Google translation
• In Chinese:國家信訪局撕掉中共身上最後一塊遮羞布Google translation

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Main functions of Jiangsu Provincial Bureau for Letters and Calls