The Chinese Communist Party’s stability maintenance continues to escalate. In Shenzhen, a tenant in a rental house was fined 500 RMB by the landlord for failing to report a friend’s temporary stay to the authorities. Upon the exposure of this incident, mainland Chinese netizens expressed disbelief at the current state of affairs, with some mentioning that even when returning to their hometowns, there are now visits from grid staff inquiring about their activities.
According to a report by the mainland media “Southern Metropolis Daily” on July 12, on July 10, a netizen in Shenzhen posted on social media that “a friend came to Shenzhen to find a job and stayed at my place for a few days without informing the landlord, resulting in a 500 RMB fine.” The incident occurred in Longhua District, Shenzhen, with the fine being imposed on Mr. Li, the landlord, for failing to timely report the residential information to the community grid management officer.
Mr. Li, the landlord, told the media that on the evening of July 7, community police officers and grid staff came to conduct a routine check on residential information in the area, and found that there were other people living in a house rented to Mr. Jiang without their information being registered.
He explained that his friend was staying temporarily, “by the time they checked, he had already been living for more than ten days, and since I was not at home, I failed to complete the reporting on time, leading to the penalty.”
According to the “Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Residence Permit Regulations,” landlords who fail to report or provide false information about non-registered residents from outside Shenzhen for each person can be fined 500 RMB. For rentals by hour or day, landlords must immediately report residential registration information; for those not rented hourly or daily, registration must be done within seven days of entry or departure.
Many mainland netizens have expressed surprise and disapproval of this penalty and related regulations:
“Freedom has become a luxury.”
“The landlord is really being treated unfairly!”
“Shameful, what era is this? Outsiders, locals, once in this place, everyone is a local.”
“‘Grid department’, we are all fish in a net. Asking for fairness from the fisherman?”
“Is this news for this century?”
“In what era are we living that such things are happening? Temporary residence permits have been cancelled for years, and this is happening in Shenzhen.”
“So, everything remains the same.”
“Yes, I found out a few days ago, even returning to my hometown requires reporting. What’s the point of such detailed registration?”
“Recently, grid staff have been going door to door asking if we have any visitors for the summer. I said I would only go back to my hometown, why bother with this heat here?”
“The invention of Shang Yang is still in use.”
“I don’t know if Guangzhou imposes fines, but recently grid staff have been going door to door asking if there are any visitors for the summer?”
“This is the first time I’ve noticed that reporting is required even for friends coming to stay temporarily, or face a penalty. Is this kind of management regulation really meaningful?”
Currently, it is unknown whether the aforementioned actions in Shenzhen are related to the upcoming 3rd Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party scheduled to be held in Beijing starting on July 15. However, various local governments in China have been enhancing stability maintenance measures and implementing security procedures. A large number of petitioners have been streaming into Beijing to express their grievances to the government, but various local governments have already initiated “interception” operations to apprehend people.
According to a report by the Voice of America on July 12, dissident Ah Meng, who previously participated in the “White Hair Movement,” had left Wuhan before the anniversary of June 4 and is currently in Kunming. However, in the past week, national security personnel and local police stations have been closely monitoring and persuading Ah Meng day after day “as if guarding against a thief,” even using economic incentives as a means of convincing him to return home.
A friend of Ah Meng’s in Beijing described the current situation as “heavily guarded within barbed wire, shrouded in gloom.” Rental houses in the Second and Third Ring Roads of Beijing are being scrutinized by the authorities, and strict traffic controls are in place.
About five years ago, the Chinese Communist Party had “stability information officers” at the grassroots level, and the concept of “grid staff” became well-known since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, where they were involved in tasks such as nucleic acid sampling, vaccine coercion, and transporting residents to various quarantine facilities, serving a stability maintenance function.
Recently, the Chinese Communist Party has significantly expanded its community worker teams to comprehensively monitor people’s lives. Mr. Han from Qingdao in Shandong Province is a community worker who told the Voice of America that community workers are an “advanced version” of grid staff. Visits by individuals residing abroad to residents’ homes are also a focus of attention for community workers.
The network of Chinese Communist Party community workers operates under the control of the newly established Central Department of Social Work since last year. Wu Zuolai, a scholar familiar with the Chinese Communist Party system and residing in the United States, analyzed to the Epoch Times that the Central Department of Social Work controls a vast network used to regulate society.