Posted on 02/22/2005 4:45:37 AM PST by eluminate
Police statistics show the number of public protests reached nearly 60,000 in 2003.
That is an average of 160 per day. That marks an increase of nearly 15 percent over 2002 and was eight times as high as the number recorded a decade ago. Martial law and paramilitary troops are commonly needed to restore order when the police lose control.
China does not have a Polish-style Solidarity movement. Protests may be so numerous in part because they are small, localized expressions of discontent over layoffs, land seizures, use of natural resources, ethnic tensions, misspent state funds, forced immigration, unpaid wages or police killings. They rarely last longer than a day or two.
Yet several mass protests, like the one in Wanzhou, show how people with different causes can seize an opportunity to press their grievances together.
In November, up to 100,000 farmers in Sichuan Province, frustrated by months of fruitless appeals against a dam project that claimed their land, seized Hanyuan County government offices and barred work on the dam site for days. It took 10,000 paramilitary troops to quell the unrest.
Also in November, in Wanrong County, Shanxi Province, in central China, two police officers were killed when enraged construction workers attacked a police station after a traffic dispute. Days later, in Guangdong Province in the far south, riots erupted and a toll booth was burned down after a woman claimed she had been overcharged to use a bridge.
A week ago, a village filled with migrant workers in Guangdong erupted into a frenzy of violence after the police caught a 15-year-old migrant stealing a bicycle and beat him to death. Up to 50,000 migrants rioted there, Hong Kong newspapers reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
China is in complete control of her internal affairs.
"China is in complete control of her internal affairs."
The best quote I have seen related to this is that India appears chaotic but is actually stable.....China appears stable but is actually chaotic.
China is not monolithic.....many ethnic and regional interests compete and will potentially clash. They will deal with any internal threats with a heavy hand, I'd wager.
"They will deal with any internal threats with a heavy hand, I'd wager."
The concept of "face" is worth dying for in China. This is not limited to ethnic differences. For instance, recently a driver from one village hit and killed a girl in another village. This requires payment. When the plaintiff villagers went to the other village to seek payment a fight broke out resulting in 150 deaths. Hear about that one?
That's okay, sad but okay, it's cultural. When it becomes political, is when the "hand" appears.
This is exactly why Lil' snot-nosed Kim keeps the lid on in NK.
i first heard about this about 10 years ago.
it was a c.i.a. prediction that with a free market economy, the ethnic and class divisions within china would again come to the fore.
the idea was that the same thing would eventually happen to china as happened to the soviet union.
francis fukuama in his book "trust" says that one huge, extended family controls china. it only makes sense that their control would be an issue as china modernizes.
i disagree. I believe china is much more stable than in the 80's and 90's. Its middle class has grown immensely. And we all know that economics trumps politics in human nature.
That's what microwave popcorn is for...
BTW, China has REAL class divisions... I was watching a Frontline documentary following 5 different Chinese around China through their daily lives for 5 years. The rich guy at the end of the show had 2 kids and they asked him why he had two kids, China having a one child policy. He said the reason he had two kids was that since he was wealthy, he was "better than other people" and allowed to reproduce more.
Cant wait to see this pressure cooker blow off.
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