The official media of China uses the words “urban management officers” for “Chengguan” but the foreign media like to use its pinyin directly.

I’m not an expert on it. Here is just my own opinions. Chengguan are hired by the city government to make the streets in order, for example, drive away the unlicensed vendors. Chengguan are involved so many violence in China so that their reputation is very bad.

I have seen a lot of pictures about Chengguan beating people, including women and kids. I even saw a picture that they beat with each other because of the competition of area of influence. Anyway, in their area of influence, they can fine the people who violate some rules and put part of the fine in their own pockets. The government like to use this method to stimulate the people to “work hard”.

Here is the picture I just saw online: in the picture, the unlicensed vendor was beat to be unconscious and his goods was smashed by Chengguan. And the onlookers surrounded the scene. The official media of China like to use the words “the masses who don’t know the truth” for this kind of onlookers.

Before, a manual of training Chengguan had been exposed online. Some sentences of it were posted on many Chinese forums by Chinese netizens and it’s said that at last, the related organization showed up to explain and delete those sentences from the manual. Here I tried to translate some sentences:

1, Don’t let the relative who is against law with violence easily. You should seize him/her to Chengguan’s car and bring him/her to the office…
2, Don’t control the violence against law in public. If you can not avoid the onlookers, try to alleviate the manner.
3, When dealing with the violence against law, note that, make the blood unseen, make the relative’s injury unseen, and no other people see it. Be fast, clear, and once you act, with all your strength.

Some netizens teases about them: if give me three thousands of Chengguan, I can recover Taiwan.
Reference: the link in Chinese