ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the social order challenge that Xi Jinping and his team face, by tracing major social changes and the state's responses over the previous two administrations. The system of social control based on the work unit and to a lesser extent the street office-residents committee, worked well in the Mao era. The situation fundamentally changed in the reform era. Non-state enterprises replaced state enterprises as the largest employer; massive rural-to-urban migration occurred after the late 1980s. The state had been unable to thwart the mobilization of university students and a large number of other urban residents into major demonstrations in Beijing and cities all over China. Community building was a complex project with multiple goals. An important factor regarding the approach to social order in the Xi era oversees the relevant portfolio. In the Third Plenum's communique the term, 'social governance' was introduced to replace 'social management'.
