China is sending more policemen to its rural regions following a government call to build a peaceful countryside, a senior public official said on Monday in Beijing.

More than 30,000 police stations have been built in rural regions as the government streamlines its larger police stations and redeploys more police officers to "frontier grass roots" rural regions, said Public Security Vice-Minister Liu Jinguo.

Police have been researching the public security situation in villages, safeguarding social order and taking preventive measures against possible security incidents, he said at a meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security.

The Ministry of Public Security claimed that 17,900 incidents involving mass participation were handled nationwide in the first nine months of the year, down 22.1 percent from the same period last year.

"It's overall stable in terms of public security in the rural areas", he said, though he warned China's fast urbanization poses public security concerns in areas bordering urban and rural regions and in relatively developed countryside.

The number of criminal cases investigated by police around the country also fell in the first nine months of the year by 1.2 percent to 3.34 million.

Source: Xinhua