It is reported that the Beijing Public Security Bureau has established a database with information concerning the stealing, selling and buying of bicycles on the black market.

It is undoubtedly an approach by the police to track down lost bicycles and stem the prevalent stealing of bicycles by organised gangs.

But one regulation relating to the database seems to deviate from the principle that the police must always help solve problems for citizens.

This regulation says that any citizen who buys a second-hand bicycle from a dealer will be warned by the police if he or she is caught. The same person will possibly be detained or sent to a labour camp for re-education if he or she is caught doing the same thing a second time.

The explanation for such a harsh penalty goes that buying used bicycles from dealers is tantamount to keeping stolen goods for thieves. Theoretically speaking, such a claim holds water. It is indeed true that buying a second-hand bicycle from a dealer or the black market does potentially help bicycle thieves find a market for their stolen goods. However, it is a choice that citizens have to make considering the harsh reality that it's difficult to guarantee their new bicycles will be safe from bicycle thieves.

I bought a new 300 yuan (US$37) bicycle for my daughter two days after she received an admission notice from Peking University in the summer of 2003. It was stolen the following morning when we parked it together with my broken bicycle in front of a supermarket. I had locked both bicycles individually and used a separate lock to bind the two together.

My daughter rode her bicycle twice in the 18 hours she had it. She cried and my heart ached not so much for the money we spent as for the fact that it was a gift I had given my daughter for her admission into one of the country's top universities.

That was my eleventh bicycle to be stolen in the past two decades. When I shared this with friends, many had their own stories of bicycles being stolen.

"Never buy a new bicycle," was the advice I gave when the topic of bicycles was touched upon in conversation. You can hardly find a single local resident who has never had a bicycle stolen.

In the past, it was possible to buy a new bicycle and get a licence plate for five yuan (60 US cents). Whenever a bicycle was stolen, the owner could report it to the police in the hope that it might be retrieved some day. With such a hope becoming slimmer and slimmer, many now save the trouble of going to the police when their bicycles are lost. Instead, they choose to buy a second-hand bicycle which is cheap and less likely to be stolen.

Black markets for second-hand bicycles have existed for many years because there has been great demand. It was quite probable that bicycle thieves have contributed the most to and also benefited the most from such black markets.

Who is to blame for such a situation? Of course, the victims will certainly curse those thieves when they find their bicycles have been stolen. When they have to decide whether to buy a second-hand bicycle, many will certainly harbour grievances against the police who have failed to effectively crack down upon the thieves.

Instead of making greater efforts catching those thieves and cracking down on the black market selling second-hand bicycles, the police have shifted the blame upon those who have their bicycles stolen.

Their argument is that thieves have no channel to dispose of their stolen bicycles if no one buys from the black market or dealers. But if the police could have effectively cracked down upon bicycle stealing gangs, we would not have to worry that our bicycles may be stolen and so would not buy used ones from the dealers. We love riding new bicycles; they are much easier to ride than used ones.

I doubt if the police can really put this regulation into practice. How can they tell if a particular person has bought a used bike from a dealer or the black market? If they can send out large numbers of officers to check out whether residents have bought used bicycles, why not use this force to crack down on bicycle stealing?

(China Daily August 2, 2006)