"In 2005, public security bureaus handled 87,000 criminal cases linked to the disturbance of public order, up 6.6 percent over the year earlier," Public Security Ministry spokesman Wu Heping told a press conference.

"Mass gatherings that disturbed social order" climbed 13 percent, while crimes involving "interfering in government functions" rose by 18.9 percent, Wu said, according to the state run Xinhua news agency.

The release of the figures reflect the struggle by China's Communist rulers to deal with rising social discontent at rampant corruption through all levels of government and society, as well as environmental and labor concerns.

The government released figures last year showing there were 74,000 riots and other "incidents involving the masses" in 2004, compared with just 10,000 such incidents in 1994.

The number of people involved had increased five-fold -- from 730,000 in 1994 to 3.76 million people in 2004.

An ever-widening wealth gap has accompanied nearly 30 years of robust economic growth in China, leaving hundreds of millions of urban and rural poor lamenting their lack of opportunities.

Meanwhile, anger has erupted over how the government and Communist Party elite and their families and relations have been able to enrich themselves through political connections and corruption.

One of the leading causes of unrest in recent years has been the rampant land confiscation by local officials, who often collude with developers in lucrative real estate and industrial deals.

In the latest such incident, villagers said a teenaged girl was killed in the southern province of Guangdong on Saturday when police violently cracked down on a crowd of locals who were protesting against a land grab.

It followed a protest in December in Guangdong's Dongzhou village, in which paramilitary forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing three people according to official accounts, and as many as 30 according to villagers.

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