Two Chinese police stations — one in Fushun, Liaoning, the other in Changsha, Hunan — now describe themselves as heirs of Lei Feng, the mid-20th century soldier whose image has been a staple of Communist moral education. Though separated by geography and decades, the stations have forged an institutional dialogue that blends political symbolism with practical policing: mutual training, joint study of Lei Feng’s diary, shared service innovations and a formal co‑building agreement signed in 2024.
In Fushun the link to Lei Feng is literal. The local “Lei Feng” police station, founded in the 1950s and located within walking distance of the unit where Lei Feng served, still displays a half‑bust of the man and traces acts of contact between early officers and the historical figure. The station has preserved and exported a set of civic service practices born in the 1960s — things with a populist ring like the “seven comforts” at the registration window — and has produced several nationally recognized police role models.
The Changsha counterpart, situated in Lei Feng’s home province, projects a more managerial, performance‑oriented model. It boasts a string of measurable achievements — “four zeros” on disciplinary and case‑handling metrics — and recent operational innovations such as fast recovery of stolen property, cross‑province arrests, and non‑face‑to‑face administrative services. Its routines include weekly readings of Lei Feng’s diary, regular party lessons and long‑term care for vulnerable residents.
Their cooperation has been both symbolic and technical. The two stations run “cloud co‑building” activities where officers read the same texts, take the same party lessons and jointly design cultural artefacts such as police‑campus walls and Lei Feng‑themed signage. They exchange operational know‑how, with Fushun studying Changsha’s “police‑enterprise linkage” and Changsha adopting Fushun’s elderly care measures like QR identity tags for those at risk of getting lost.
The story is a study in dual objectives: heritage and modernization. By reviving Lei Feng as a living template for police behaviour, officials are simultaneously tapping an established moral lexicon and updating it with digital services, expedited administrative procedures and community policing initiatives. That combination aims at both bolstering the police’s public service credentials and improving efficiency in everyday governance.
For international readers, the significance lies less in hagiography than in what this reveals about statecraft in contemporary China. The Communist Party has long used historical exemplars to inculcate norms; here a well‑worn symbol is being repurposed to legitimise grassroots security forces, to humanise policing, and to spread locally tested administrative innovations across regions. The result is a hybrid model where emotive ritual and measurable outputs are deployed to strengthen social order.
There are practical gains. Faster case clearance, elder care programmes and tailored services to local industry address real needs in ageing industrial districts and burgeoning high‑tech zones alike. The “cloud” sharing of best practice reduces transaction costs for cross‑regional learning, and the focus on party‑led civic education helps produce disciplined, careerist police cadres who can be mobilised for both public service and public order tasks.
But this merging of moral education with law enforcement also invites scrutiny. The same mechanisms that foster community trust can be used to normalise greater party presence in everyday life, and performance metrics or public spectacle risk crowding out independent oversight. Observers should therefore watch whether the emphasis on Lei Feng translates into measurable improvements in citizen rights, transparency and accountability as well as responsiveness and speed.
The two stations have become national exemplars, collecting honours and reproducing rituals for new cohorts of officers: reading Lei Feng’s diary, visiting memorials, and wearing badges that evoke a lineage of service. Whether this model becomes a template for broader police reform in China — one that reconciles political education with genuine community policing — will depend on how effectively it balances symbolism, administrative innovation and safeguards for civil liberties.