Senior Communist Party leader Zhou Yongkang said that in this situation China's security forces need to step up their efforts to quell unrest and protect people's lives and property.

"We must clearly realise that the country is still in a period where the internal conflicts among the public remain acute, criminal cases are peaking and the fight against hostile forces remains complicated," Zhou said.

"New tensions of disputes in the areas of labour, contract and debt keep emerging while old problems arising from issues like land acquisition, house relocation, company ownership reform and legal disputes are getting worse."

"These problems, if not handled properly, could easily trigger unrest," Zhou said in a speech given on May 18, but carried by the party's official magazine Qiushi, or "Seeking Truth", Tuesday.

The potential for tension has risen markedly in recent months since the global crisis hit China's export-dependent economy, causing millions to lose their jobs.

Zhou ordered greater resources and stepped up technology for police forces, while urging government departments to increase inter-ministerial coordination in snuffing out potential unrest.

The former minister of police said that since 2005, civil, judicial and police departments have investigated 16.91 million disputes among the people and successfully arbitrated 15.98 million of them.

While praising the work of law officials in maintaining social stability through the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Zhou said that such efforts must be strengthened, expanded and continued.

"Every region and every department must take care of prominent security issues that seriously influence social stability and endanger the lives and property of the people," Zhou said.

"We must quickly organise and deploy comprehensive actions to resolutely oppress the arrogance of the criminals."

Zhou currently sits on the party's powerful nine-member standing committee and heads its politics and law committee, the nation's top legal body that controls both courts and police.

Police fatally wound man during protest in China's Xinjiang
Police in China's western-most Muslim region of Xinjiang fired warning shots to disperse a crowd protesting against a real estate project Tuesday, fatally wounding a man, state media said.

The incident occurred in the regional capital Urumqi when a policeman identified as Kudelet Kurban accidently fired his gun into a crowd of about 60 people, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Kurban fired two warning shots to disperse the crowd, but to no use," the report said.

"While he continued to try to handle the crowd, his gun was accidentally triggered off and shot Yao Yonghai, a supervisor with the Guanghui company, in the neck."

Guanghui is the real estate company in charge of the building project objected to by the protesters, the news agency said.

Xinhua, citing the local government, said Yao died in hospital a short time later.

Xinjiang is home to about eight million Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, and many members of the mainly Muslim community say they have suffered under Chinese political and religious persecution for decades.

China has long claimed it faces a deadly threat from Muslim separatists as justification for extremely tight controls in Xinjiang.

Earlier this month, Chinese police announced that they had smashed seven terror cells so far this year in the region, which borders Central Asia.

It was not immediately clear if ethnic strife was linked to Tuesday's incident, but the name of the policeman appeared to be of a non-Chinese minority while the victim had a typical Chinese name.

The incident occurred as China's top law official, Zhou Yongkang, warned in remarks published Tuesday that social stability was under increasing threat from labour and business disputes in the midst of the global crisis.

China sees tens of thousands of protests or outbursts of violence every year, often stemming from dissatisfaction with local authorities, with attacks on police stations or government offices becoming increasingly common.

On Monday, hundreds of furniture makers and businessmen smashed police cars and blocked a highway in eastern China, protesting the implementation of proposed tax measures, officials and state press reported.

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