While the Danwei Propaganda Department has not yet decided the verdict of the case Net Nanny vs. Great Firewall, another news vocabulary question has become urgent:
What is the best translation of cheng guan (城管)?
These are the thuggish city management officials who are supposed to keep order on the streets but who often end up abusing citizens, as in the recent murder of Wei Wenhua, a man who tried to photograph cheng guan officers beating people up near Tianmen in Hubei Province.
Different English language media reports have used ‘urban and ‘city inspectors’, ‘city management forces’, ‘para-police’, ‘urban enforcers’, ‘city administrators’, ‘municipal officers’, ‘municipal government security force’ and several other translations.
What, Danwei readers, is the best way to render 城管?