It is reported that the Beijing Public Security Bureau has
established a database with information concerning the stealing,
selling and buying of bicycles on the black market.
It is undoubtedly an approach by the police to track down lost
bicycles and stem the prevalent stealing of bicycles by organised
gangs.
But one regulation relating to the database seems to deviate
from the principle that the police must always help solve problems
for citizens.
This regulation says that any citizen who buys a second-hand
bicycle from a dealer will be warned by the police if he or she is
caught. The same person will possibly be detained or sent to a
labour camp for re-education if he or she is caught doing the same
thing a second time.
The explanation for such a harsh penalty goes that buying used
bicycles from dealers is tantamount to keeping stolen goods for
thieves. Theoretically speaking, such a claim holds water. It is
indeed true that buying a second-hand bicycle from a dealer or the
black market does potentially help bicycle thieves find a market
for their stolen goods. However, it is a choice that citizens have
to make considering the harsh reality that it's difficult to
guarantee their new bicycles will be safe from bicycle thieves.
I bought a new 300 yuan (US$37) bicycle for my daughter two days
after she received an admission notice from Peking University in
the summer of 2003. It was stolen the following morning when we
parked it together with my broken bicycle in front of a
supermarket. I had locked both bicycles individually and used a
separate lock to bind the two together.
My daughter rode her bicycle twice in the 18 hours she had it.
She cried and my heart ached not so much for the money we spent as
for the fact that it was a gift I had given my daughter for her
admission into one of the country's top universities.
That was my eleventh bicycle to be stolen in the past two
decades. When I shared this with friends, many had their own
stories of bicycles being stolen.
"Never buy a new bicycle," was the advice I gave when the topic
of bicycles was touched upon in conversation. You can hardly find a
single local resident who has never had a bicycle stolen.
In the past, it was possible to buy a new bicycle and get a
licence plate for five yuan (60 US cents). Whenever a bicycle was
stolen, the owner could report it to the police in the hope that it
might be retrieved some day. With such a hope becoming slimmer and
slimmer, many now save the trouble of going to the police when
their bicycles are lost. Instead, they choose to buy a second-hand
bicycle which is cheap and less likely to be stolen.
Black markets for second-hand bicycles have existed for many
years because there has been great demand. It was quite probable
that bicycle thieves have contributed the most to and also
benefited the most from such black markets.
Who is to blame for such a situation? Of course, the victims
will certainly curse those thieves when they find their bicycles
have been stolen. When they have to decide whether to buy a
second-hand bicycle, many will certainly harbour grievances against
the police who have failed to effectively crack down upon the
thieves.
Instead of making greater efforts catching those thieves and
cracking down on the black market selling second-hand bicycles, the
police have shifted the blame upon those who have their bicycles
stolen.
Their argument is that thieves have no channel to dispose of
their stolen bicycles if no one buys from the black market or
dealers. But if the police could have effectively cracked down upon
bicycle stealing gangs, we would not have to worry that our
bicycles may be stolen and so would not buy used ones from the
dealers. We love riding new bicycles; they are much easier to ride
than used ones.
I doubt if the police can really put this regulation into
practice. How can they tell if a particular person has bought a
used bike from a dealer or the black market? If they can send out
large numbers of officers to check out whether residents have
bought used bicycles, why not use this force to crack down on
bicycle stealing?
(China Daily August 2, 2006)