The latest case of chengguan violence comes from Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, where officers reportedly beat up the boss of a restaurant and his family and acquaintances. On June 9, after a meal, chengguan went to the parking lot and found a car blocking its way. They demanded that the vehicle be moved "within three seconds." The restaurant's boss came out, but unable to move the car within three seconds, he ...

Even while bashing the institution of urban management and enforcement -- so neatly summed up in one word, chengguan -- we acknowledge that the officers tasked with urban bureaucracy -- keeping street peddlers X meters away from the curb, making sure businesses have proper licenses, etc. -- do unenviable and difficult work. Keeping in mind that every time we see a video of chengguan beating the snot out of ...

On the afternoon of May 31, chengguan in Yan'an, Shaanxi province reportedly got into a scuffle with merchants. The video that was posted to Youku shows the civilian eventually being surrounded by urban management officers, with one particular chengguan -- the fat one, natch -- delivering a terrifying two-footed stomp on his head. Witnesses say the chengguan smelled like he was drunk. ...

Chengguan are not technically police officers, but out in the streets, their word is law. Today, we got a sobering reminder of that in Beijing. As reported by That's Beijing, "around 30 to 50 chengguan, along with 20 xieguan officers (‘associate management,’ a force subordinate to chengguan – essentially, hired muscle) blocked off Xuezuo Hutong behind Zhangzizhonglu subway station, allowing the crews to dis ...

On Friday, street enforcement officers of Huangshi, Hubei province entered a convenience store and began confiscating goods -- it's what chengguan do -- but before they could finish, local townsfolk decided they'd seen enough. In the ensuing scuffle, chengguan were subject to verbal abuse, followed by phsyical contact. It wasn't pretty for anyone, as you can see. ...

Chengguan, those salt of the earth, are pushing back against negative public perceptions of their profession. One particular urban law enforcement officer in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, Jiang Yifan, created the above video recently to "clear up some misunderstandings," as Danwei's Barry van Wyk writes. A couple of things though: ...

You asked for it -- you, Jeff Crosby -- so here you go: chengguan chases chicken, set to Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax. Go, chengguan, go. ...

This is just practice, says the video description. In the real world, a chengguan's inability to nab a scurrying chicken could result in the proliferation of that killer virus, H7N9 bird flu. Go, chenguan, go. We trust you. ...

A chengguan in Yingshan, Hubei province was killed in the line of duty last Saturday after he was struck in the head by a hoe. On March 16, squad leader Duan Jinyin, 34, was reportedly leading a team in stopping an illegal construction when he was attacked. It happens at the start of the above video (discretion is advised). All it took was a single blow to knock him unconscious. He spent four days in the ho ...

"The most painful part isn't the stabbing, but that society doesn't understand." That's a quote from Guangzhou chengguan bureau chief Wei Weihan, who recently saw one of his own stabbed seven times, including five times in the head. On Sunday, Su Jiaquan, 26, was doing his job when a pineapple peddler attacked him with a knife. According to eyewitness Zhong Yongde, absolutely no one came to Su's aid. "At th ...

Found on Sina Weibo, the above picture supposedly depicts a thug beating a petitioner in broad daylight on the streets of Xi'an in Shaanxi province. The man on the left is a goon allegedly hired by a demolish-and-relocate (chai-qian) gang, perhaps a real estate company or a local official. (Think the government wouldn't get involved? A group of officials was recently arrested for doing just such a thing.) T ...

Netizens are outraged by a recent incident in Guangzhou involving urban street management enforcers, i.e. chengguan, whose reputation continues its uninterrupted plummet in this country. A young mother was physically harassed by officers in front of her two-year-old daughter, leading commentators to urge representatives at the Two Sessions in Beijing to pay attention to this flagrant violation of dignity. ...

Earlier this month in Hainan province, this group beating. What happened? "Chengguan beating people, I tell ya," cries Ms. Gao, a shop owner. "A gang of chengguan came and beat us." Not know one other thing about this... eh, we believe it. ...

"Are Beijing's chengguan stealing from the homeless?" we asked in the headline of a Tuesday post. Yeah, they are. Confirmation via Xinhua: The theft of vagrants' belongings in downtown Beijing has prompted an outcry for the protection of homeless people's rights. A group of more than 50 uniformed, but unidentified, individuals took the possessions of homeless people who were staying on a street near the Yon ...

Chengguan are like referees: the less you hear about them, the better. If this is our standard, they've made progress, since we haven't heard much from them for a while. But all good streaks come to an end, so here we go, via Global Times: ...

You know, it's not that we don't sympathize with chengguan, China's street-level urban management officers. We get that they have a tough job, and encounter scoundrels and freeloaders on a weekly, if not daily, basis. But every single week, we see a video of chengguan somewhere behaving as poorly as the people they're supposed to police. And what are supposed to do about that? ...

When beating, bullying, and plundering doesn't work, resort to mass intimidation. Urban enforcement officers in Wuhan, Hubei province are turning to the group silent treatment to smoke out "illegal" street vendors. As Caijing reports, "A new policing method is to appear in a straight line and approach illegal business operators wordlessly for maximum intimidation." How well is this policy working? "The appl ...

Harbin Train Station, August 26. Not much more information is given on this video posted earlier this week, but the uniformed man appears to be a chengguan -- urban management officer -- and we're told the old man is a beggar. No word on what caused this scuffle, or why the chengguan seems so incensed. ...

The buildup is long and strange, but it's full of wonder and intrigue. Why is the old man's pants unbuckled? Why is he surrounded by three much younger urban enforcement officers, i.e. chengguan? Why does one of the officers appear to have a ripped shirt? Why does the old man taunt them, saying, "Come on, hit me?" We only know what the video title and description tell us, that this happened in Donggang, Lia ...

Via Buzzfeed's "The 50 Cutest Things That Ever Happened" Hanggai is playing at 2 Kolegas tonight, and you should go. Links will always be here. ...