Strike Hard Against Crime Campaign (1983)

Prior to the crackdown, the launch of the reform and the opening up policy, the public safety situation was extremely chaotic. According to data from the Ministry of Public Security, in 1978, 530,000 public security and criminal cases were filed in the People's Republic of China; in 1980, more than 750,000, including more than 50,000 major cases; in 1981, more than 890,000, including more than 67,000 major cases.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2008-07-15|title="严打"在1983|url=http://phtv.ifeng.com/program/tfzg/200807/0715_2950_654253.shtml|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622151344/http://phtv.ifeng.com/program/tfzg/200807/0715_2950_654253.shtml|archive-date=2020-06-22|access-date=2020-06-21|website=Phoenix Television|language=zh}} In 1982, more than 740,000, including 64,000 major cases. In the first few months of 1983, the number of cases continued to increase sharply. Many of these cases caused serious disturbance to public security.

{{see also|Boluan Fanzheng}}

The "Strike Hard" campaign was launched during the early stage of legal re-construction; when the Chinese legal system had been all -but destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.{{Cite web|title=China's Legal Encounter with the West - Foreign Policy Research Institute|url=https://www.fpri.org/article/2008/06/chinas-legal-encounter-with-the-west/|access-date=2020-06-21|website=Foreign Policy Research Institute|language=en-US}}{{Cite book|last1=Leese|first1=Daniel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4oxsDwAAQBAJ&q=legal+system+cultural+revolution+destroyed&pg=PA25|title=Victims, Perpetrators, and the Role of Law in Maoist China: A Case-Study Approach|last2=Engman|first2=Puck|date=2018-06-25|publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG|isbn=978-3-11-053365-1|language=en}} The criminal law of China came into effect in 1980 and the new Constitution of China was passed in 1982,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China|url=https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgvienna/eng/dbtyw/jdwt/crimelaw/t209043.htm|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-06-21|website=PERMANENT MISSION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA TO THE UNITED NATIONS AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN VIENNA}} Subsequently, the campaign was formally launched in September 1983 and lasted until January 1987, receiving support from Deng Xiaoping.

Their campaign consisted of three rounds or "battles" as described by state media. In total, crackdowns focused on some 197,000 criminal groups. 1.772 million people were arrested, of these, 321,000 were "re-educated through labor" and 1.747 million people received legal punishment, with some 24,000 were executed (mainly in the first round), having an immediate effect on public safety. Scholars estimate that during the three years of the campaign, some 30,000 people were sentenced to death.{{Cite news|last=Smith|first=Craig S.|date=2001-12-26|title=China's Efforts Against Crime Make No Dent|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/26/world/china-s-efforts-against-crime-make-no-dent.html|access-date=2021-08-02|issn=0362-4331}} A number of people arrested (some even received death penalty) were children or relatives of government officials at various levels, including the grandson of Zhu De, demonstrating the principle of "equality before the law".

The campaign itself was the subject of much controversy due to reported use of torture, extrajudicial detentions, arrest quotas, forced confessions and miscarriages of justice, in which innocents were executed and or imprisoned for extended periods of time. The long-term effectiveness of the "strike hard" campaign on public safety has also been questioned. Almost immediately after the 1996 campaign, initiated by new president Jiang Zemin, came to an end, criminal cases began to climb. According to Liu Renwen, a lawyer who studied the campaigns; by September 1997, crime rates had fully recovered. {{Cite web|last=by|title=Interview with Renwen Liu, Director of the CASS Criminal Law Department – Finnish China Law Center|url=https://blogs.helsinki.fi/chinalawcenter/renwenliu/|access-date=2021-08-02|language=en-US}} The New York Times stated that the result of the campaign were largely ineffective due to the underfunding, training and financing of the police force. According to the Times, the percentage of policemen killed in the line of duty in during the campaign was several times higher than the United States and as many as 10 times the rate during the Mao era.

During the 1980s crackdown, many people were sentenced to death for engaging in open sexual relationships. People who had sexual relations with multiple people or premarital sex were regarded by the Communist Party as "crime of hooliganism."{{Cite web|title=More Than A Decade After “Hooliganism” is Abolished, One Hooligan’s Re-incarceration Sparks Debate |url=https://www.duihuahrjournal.org/2010/12/decade-after-hooliganism-is-abolished.html }}

{{See also|Anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping}}

Chinese president Jiang Zemin initiated the Second Strike Hard campaign in 1996, and third Strike Hard campaign in 2001. In 2001, the state newspaper the People's Daily reported multiple cases of execution of gangsters and individuals involved in organized crime, specifically in cases of robberies, kidnapping, blackmail, drug trafficking.{{Cite web|date=April 23, 2001|title=Police in Shanxi Capture 1,682 Criminal Suspects|url=http://en.people.cn/200104/23/eng20010423_68381.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802074231/http://en.people.cn/200104/23/eng20010423_68381.html|archive-date=August 2, 2021|access-date=2021-08-02|website=en.people.cn}}{{Cite web|date=March 16, 2001|title=Six Bank Robbers Executed in Jiangxi|url=http://en.people.cn/200103/16/eng20010316_65242.html|access-date=2021-08-02|website=en.people.cn}}{{Cite web|date=March 16, 2001|title=Major Drug Trafficking, Trading Gang Smashed in Shanghai|url=http://en.people.cn/english/200103/16/eng20010316_65229.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802074318/http://en.people.cn/english/200103/16/eng20010316_65229.html|archive-date=2 August 2021|access-date=2021-08-02|website=en.people.cn}}{{Cite web|date=May 21, 2001|title=15 Gangsters Executed in Northeast China Province|url=http://en.people.cn/200105/21/eng20010521_70531.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802075154/http://en.people.cn/200105/21/eng20010521_70531.html|archive-date=August 2, 2021|access-date=2021-08-02|website=en.people.cn}}

Jiang's successor Hu Jintao initiated a fourth Strike Hard Against Crime Campaign in (2010). This was followed by the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism campaign in Xinjiang, involving the detention of millions of Uyghurs, political and religious repression, and widespread dissemination of surveillance within the region.{{Cite web|date=2019-01-14|title='Counter-Extremism' in Xinjiang: Understanding China's Community-Focused Counter-Terrorism Tactics|url=https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/counter-extremism-in-xinjiang-understanding-chinas-community-focused-counter-terrorism-tactics/|access-date=2021-08-02|website=War on the Rocks|language=en-US}}

Under the anti-corruption campaign launched under CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, a parallel campaign has been operating since 2013 against organized crime and local party officials who shelter criminal networks and criminal groups. In July 2021, the South China Morning Post reported that Chen Yixin, secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, stated that the new "strike hard" campaign against organized crime in 2018 would target the telecoms, resources, transport and construction sectors, industries in which rent seeking and corruption are known to take place in China.{{Cite web|date=2018-01-26|title=Detentions, torture, executions: how China dealt with mafia in the past|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2130679/chinas-decades-long-battle-organised-crime|access-date=2021-08-02|website=South China Morning Post|language=en}} The campaign was originally meant to run for three years, but in March 2021, Guo Shengkun, party secretary of the commission, said the campaign would continue as it had "won the people's support" for cleaning up the grass roots governance system (referring to residential communities in cities and villages in rural areas).{{Cite web|date=2021-07-30|title=China to 'strike hard' on four sectors in organised crime crackdown|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3143232/china-strike-hard-four-sectors-organised-crime-crackdown|access-date=2021-08-02|website=South China Morning Post|language=en}}

• Strike Hard Against Crime Campaign (1996)
• Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries
• Cultural Revolution
• Reform and opening up
• Constitution of the People's Republic of China
• Legal history of China

{{Reflist}}

{{China national security}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:1983 Strike Hard Anti-crime Campaign}}

Category:1980s in China

Category:Deng Xiaoping

Category:Abuse of the legal system

Category:Massacres committed by the People's Republic of China

Category:Judicial misconduct