Should the people who have suffered for many years be happy about the cancellation of the "urban management" system in many places?

Recently, many local governments have announced the abolition of urban management departments. Does this mean that the forces that have "oppressed the people" for many years will disappear at the local government level?

Netizens cheer as Guangxi Beihai City Administration Bureau is abolished
Two urban management officers in Hubei suspended for brutal behavior
After the urban and agricultural management teams, Heilongjiang's "cultural management" team made a high-profile appearance
Following the announcement by Beihai City, Guangxi Province, last month that it would abolish the "Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Bureau", the governments of Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, and Ganzhou District, Zhangye City, Gansu Province, have also recently adjusted their organizations, with other units (such as the superior agency "Chifeng City Operation Management Service Center" or the renamed subordinate agency "Ganzhou District Urban Management Bureau") taking over the relevant responsibilities of the original urban management. The Paper quoted Ma Liang, a professor at the School of Public Administration of Renmin University of China, as saying that the above measures are not to abolish, but to split and reorganize the urban management department. In addition, judging from the name, the meaning of "law enforcement" of urban management is also diluted, and "management" is emphasized.

Since its establishment in 1997, China's Urban Management has been responsible for maintaining order and smooth travel on city streets, and assisting the police in enforcing administrative regulations unrelated to the criminal law. Among them, the most well-known task is to "drive away" mobile vendors to maintain the "city appearance" and hygiene. Over the years, there have been reports of various conflicts between urban management and the public on the streets. The public often witnesses or hears that urban management treats beggars cruelly, harasses unlicensed vendors, forcibly demolishes residential houses or confiscates property. There are also many bloody conflicts and even fatal incidents with residents. In 2008, the Tianmen Urban Management murder case in Hubei Province, in which Wei Wenhua, general manager of Tianmen Water Conservancy Construction Company, was beaten to death, which attracted public attention.

The 2012 report "Beat Me, Take All Away" by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch documented human rights violations by urban management officials in six Chinese cities from mid-2009 to the end of 2011. Victims disclosed their experiences of abuse, including being slapped, pushed, punched, kicked, and having their cars thrown onto the road. According to the New York Times, a 2016 poll by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences also showed that urban management officials were the least popular public servants because of their "worst image."

Deng Yuwen, an independent scholar and political commentator living in the United States, pointed out that the disappearance of the urban management department may be recognized by the public in public opinion, but if the management and law enforcement model remains unchanged, it will still be difficult to ease the long-standing conflicts or differences between the people and the urban management.

Wang Junping, who moved to the United States from Chengde, Hebei Province last year and has been running a small restaurant in China for nearly 20 years and often interacts with urban management, told this station that urban management is as necessary as traffic police. However, from the central government to the local governments, "the upper beams are not straight and the lower beams are crooked", resulting in some urban management "bullying the weak and fearing the strong. Some officials paid money and used the name of urban management to extort money; some received money from vendors and turned a blind eye." Among them, urban management and vendors in big cities have no emotional foundation for outsiders, and quarrels and conflicts often occur.

Wang Junping said: "(Urban management) will enforce the law in a campaign-style if they see a family that is unhappy or if they are on a whim, or if there are regulations from above... (Some) will just come up and confiscate anyone they don't like, and then take them away."

Regarding the future of urban management personnel, Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China, said that urban management personnel are not civil servants in the government system, but are supported by local government finances. Some may even be employees recruited by local security companies to assist police work. Many of them are unemployed people, migrant workers from other provinces, or even people from the lower classes of society who often wander around the streets without a proper job. These people are recruited by local governments to become thugs, but when they cause public resentment or financial tensions, they often become scapegoats for the authorities.

Cai Xia said: "I don't even know if that security company will still exist. When the government is able to pay, the government spends money to hire them as labor, When the government is not able to pay, they are the first to be fired by the government, which means they themselves are unemployed."