Vice minister for public security Yang Huanning said the government faced undiminished risks to control, despite fast economic growth, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
A senior Chinese police official has vowed "pre-emptive attacks" against threats to Communist Party control in a speech published days after the nation's most prominent dissident was jailed for criticising the Party.
Vice minister for public security Yang Huanning said the government faced undiminished risks to control, despite fast economic growth, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
In a speech on December 18 to security officials, published only on Monday, Yang singled out perceived threats from political foes of the ruling Communist Party, including separatist sentiment in the far-western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.
"The schemes of Western anti-China forces seeking to Westernise and split us, friction and disputes between countries, and hostile forces stirring up chaos and sabotage ... remain major factors affecting our national security and social stability," Yang said in his address.
"Strike hard against hostile forces at home and abroad. "Strive to anticipate and prevent, staging pre-emptive attacks."
"Hostile forces" is a sweeping Chinese term for perceived political threats to Communist Party rule.
Yang's speech on police work was published after a court in Beijing on Friday sentenced Liu Xiaobo, the country's most prominent critic of Party rule, to 11 years in jail on charges of "inciting subversion of state power".
The court said Liu was guilty of subversion for helping organise the 'Charter 08' petition urging democratic reforms, and for publishing essays critical of the party on the Internet.
Liu's sentence and Yang's warning suggest China's leaders will continue tough measures to stifle political dissent, control the Internet, and quell ethnic unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang.
"The sentencing of Liu Xiaobo shows the authorities are afraid. They wanted to issue a warning," said Yu Meisun, a former official in Beijing who campaigns for political liberalisation. Yu spent three years in jail on charges of "revealing state secrets".
"They're afraid of the consequences of political relaxation, but also afraid of the social discontent that the current system can't resolve," said Yu, a signatory of Charter 08. "The result is economic development but political stagnation."
The vice minister Yang said police forces had to raise their "political vigilance" and intensify collecting intelligence about groups threatening order and control.
"In the New Year, there will be no relaxation of stability preservation, and no lightening of pressure on stability," he said.
Liu has been the only organiser of the 'Charter 08' campaign who has been jailed for the petition that was launched late last year. Others have been placed under heavy police surveillance or warned away from activism.
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