China officials urged to solve grievances before Games

BEIJING, July 16 (Reuters) - Beijing has directed officials to redress local residents' grievances, state media reported on Wednesday, as the government seeks to head off any potential social unrest in the final weeks ahead of the Olympics.

Outbreaks of rioting by migrant workers in coastal Zhejiang province last week and by tens of thousands of others last month in southwestern Guizhou province have raised official sensitivities to potentially embarrassing publicity while global media attention is focused on China during the Games.

"The central government recently ordered all the Party chiefs of 2,300 counties to act on people's complaints and try to resolve their disputes," the China Daily reported, citing the government Outlook Weekly magazine.

All Party bosses need to keep track of key public complaints until they are solved, and should make every effort to ensure a harmonious social atmosphere, the magazine said.

Last week, migrant workers in eastern Zhejiang rioted and protested for three days after a migrant worker came to a local security office to complain about injuries from "colliding with a wall" there the previous day.

In June, more than 30,000 residents stormed police and government headquarters in Weng'an of Guizhou province after allegations spread that police had covered up the rape and murder of a local teenage girl.

Thousands of protests, riots and "mass incidents" occur in China every year, most of them small and never openly reported. But the recent spasm of reported unrest comes at a sensitive time as the country seeks to promote an image of social progress and harmony to foreign visitors and Olympics spectators. (Reporting by Beijing newsroom; editing by Ken Wills and Jeremy Laurence) (For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china)