ABSTRACT
In June 1985, against the backdrop of constant tension and confrontation between Shanyang migrants and the government, a sagacious leader of the prefecture, deputy commissioner Dong guoguang, stepped in Shanyang’s petition case and became a key representative of the government in the later period of petition. After dealing with the petition representatives for many times, deputy commissioner Dong realized that the migrants’ requests were complicated and changed constantly. It wouldn’t settle the problem by simply distributing economic compensation to the petitioners. Deputy commissioner Dong summarized several basic principles of “kai kou zi” (bending the rules), including the affected people should receive compensation directly, the resettlement funds should not be disbursed in one lump sum but little by little in a steady flow, and various affected groups should be treated differently. These principles were a revolutionary improvement of the government’s rule-bending tactic. It tried to truly link the solution of migrants’ living difficulty with the goal of ending petition and appeals and separated united migrants from inside.
