(Ecns.cn)-- In April of this year, a total of 84 volumes of personal files had been put online for sale in Chengdu, capital of southwestern China's Sichuan Province, with a price of 12,500 yuan ($1,932). These files belonged to zhiqing, or educated urban youth who were sent to farm the countryside during the "Rustication Movement" from 1967 to 1979.
The sale rocked the long blamed local government. Official statistics revealed by the Archives Bureau of Chengdu showed that 70% of aged zhiqing found that their personal files were missing, causing them trouble when they applied for social benefits and insurances. Some of them even appealed and protested to the government regarding the missing files.
Zhiqing files in online market
Xu Dongsheng, a man working in the files classification department of the Archives Bureau of Chengdu, was alarmed when he surfed online and saw eight pictures of personal files of the zhiqing which included picture notes of mobilization reports before the "Rustication Movement", texts of speeches by returned zhiqing, letters of introduction, as well as a list of zhiqing made by the former Chengdu Zhiqing Office.
According to the country's archives laws, it's illegal to sell government files. On the morning of April 15, Xu then contacted the online seller who ensured that these were authentic government files.
Five days later, Xu returned to the seller's house with some of his colleagues. After informing the seller, Zhong Jiaqiang, of his crime, they asked Zhong to donate the files to the Archives Bureau of Chengdu, but were rejected by him.
Before the interference of the local police, Zhong continued his sales online for about half a month.
Zhong confessed at the police station that he purchased these files from a salvage station with three other men and each of them owned such files.
Who disposed the files?
On May 5, a top leader of Chengdu called an investigation into the missing files.
The Human Resources and Social Security Bureau in the local city found it to be a challenging case as the original persons in charge of the office had long been dismissed and related retired personnel, in their old age, found it hard to recall the details about the storage of zhiqing files.
In a conference with the local Archives Bureau, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau admitted that in the past few years they had disposed of some zhiqing files, yet were not able to find the disposed of records, Beijing News said on Thursday.
Sources from the local Archives Bureau told the Beijing News that it was possible that the former Human Resources and Social Security Bureau had made a mistake in classifying the files, and might have sold them as waste to recyclers.
According to the source, such things did happen in some government departments, especially when they were too busy.
Zhiqing files become the rage in collection markets
Wang Hua (alias), a devoted collector of zhiqing files, was quoted as saying that he had bought the discarded files from several state-owned companies and one branch of the municipal police station, on the Beijing News, July 7.
He also claimed to have purchased more than 1,000 zhiqing files with 200 yuan (about $31).
According to the Beijing News, most zhiqing files have been purchased by private collectors from salvage stations. In the collection market, it costs 50 yuan ($8) for one zhiqing file regarding government policies.
Wang Hong, a devoted collector since 1983, helps zhiqing to locate their missing files. He once even spent 6 hours helping a female zhiqing, who had been searching on her own for 6 months, to find her file among 10,000 files.
Wang noted zhiqing files are rarely seen nowadays in antique market.
Chen Bing (alias), a zhiqing as well as a collector of zhiqing files, said Thursday in the Guangming Daily that many of such sales forzhiqing files continued in secret between acquaintances. Usually, in the market, the buyer will deliver a note to the seller about his intentions to buy files.
The local authority has now realized the loopholes in the management of files and has conducted regular investigations into the market.
