LAW and order will, for the first time, have topped the agenda as central and regional leaders meet in Beijing this week to discuss economic plans for the coming year.
Outbreaks of worker unrest in the cities and the growth of secret societies in the countryside have threatened to disrupt government and stall production.
Worse, cadres from individual provinces and cities have used social stability as a card to wangle concessions out of central authorities.
Despite the news blackout on what the propagandists call 'the negative sides of society', signs of malaise have cropped up in the Chinese and Hong Kong media.
More than 1,000 elderly workers last week staged a three-hour sit-in in the central city of Wuhan to protest inflation. About 40 petitioners gathered outside the Zhongnanhai party headquarters late last month to air their dissatisfaction over unemployment and falling living standards.
More serious mishaps have reliably been reported by word of mouth. Strikes and rallies involving tens of thousands of workers have repeatedly taken place in the past year in the coal mining town of Jixi in Heilongjiang province. Police officers privately indicate that small-scale demonstrations involving workers in state enterprises and mines in the three northeastern provinces have become 'routine affairs'.