Fears of social unrest grow in China

China’s top judge urged courts to focus on maintaining social stability to deal with the fallout from the global economic slowdown, state media said today amid growing fears of impending social tumult.

With rising unemployment stemming from the global financial turmoil, fears of unrest in China are increasing, especially as migrant workers laid off from factories return home.

The judiciary should position itself to deal with disputes likely to arise from the crisis, the official China Daily newspaper quoted Wang Shengjun, the head of the Supreme People’s Court, as saying.

“The most urgent task is to resolve economic, civil and administrative disputes caused by the financial crisis,” Wang, who was appointed in March, told the court’s annual conference.

Most protests in China sprout from the failure of local courts to deal with land seizures, redundancies and local corruption.

The court would closely monitor labour disputes, corporate bankruptcies and breaches of contracts, Wang said.

The Supreme People’s Court would “actively provide sound judicial security and judicial services for maintaining the nation’s smooth and relatively fast economic development”, Wang added.

Chen Quansheng, a State Council adviser, was quoted by the China Daily as saying unemployment was likely higher than the official figure of 8.3 million, as that figure only represented urban-registered jobs.

About 6.7 million jobs have disappeared in Guangdong province, the country’s main manufacturing hub, after 670,000 small firms closed, the paper quoted him as saying.