Xi Jinping wants to centralise power in China. Recently he’s created new law-enforcement agencies that are answerable to central-government ministries, as well as a new brigade of rural officials nicknamed nongguan. The public reaction has been loud and hostile. 

The Economist’s Beijing bureau chief, David Rennie, and senior China correspondent, Alice Su, discuss the online backlash to the reforms and assess the driving force behind Xi’s focus on law and order. They also ask farmers in Henan whether the nongguan will end the deep-rooted corruption in the countryside. 

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