Posted on 04/12/2005 8:17:25 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
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Mon Apr 11, 6:11 AM ET
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By Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers rioted in eastern China, injuring dozens of police, after two of about 200 elderly women protesting over factory pollution died during efforts to disperse them, residents and officials said on Monday.
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The rioting on Sunday in Huankantou village, Dongyang city, in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang coincided with violent anti-Japanese protests in China's capital, Beijing, and the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen over the weekend.
It was the latest in a string of outbreaks of rural violence as the world's most populous nation faces disgruntlement over a widening wealth gap and widespread corruption.
The ruling Communist Party is keen to curb dissent and preserve social stability, but a spate of recent protests and their scale illustrate the extent of grievances in rural China.
More than 50 police were injured on Sunday and rushed to hospital, with five listed in critical condition, a doctor told Reuters. About four villagers were injured.
Police had tried to disperse about 200 elderly women who had kept a 24-hour vigil for two weeks at sheds and at a roadblock outside an industrial park housing about 13 chemical factories, villagers and local officials said by telephone.
Two of the women were killed, two villagers said. "They were run over by police cars," one said.
A source with knowledge of the incident who requested anonymity said the two had died during an attempt to arrest them. He did not elaborate, but a statement from the city government denied that anyone had been run over and killed.
Thousands of villagers clashed with police in riot gear, overturned about 10 police cars and hurled rocks at officers holed up in a local high school, residents and officials said.
"Villagers knocked down the wall of the school and charged in," one villager surnamed Wang said.
Residents also smashed the windows of about 50 buses which carried some 3,000 police, paramilitary police and security guards to the scene at about 3 a.m. on Sunday to try to disperse protesters, they said.
"Many policemen were injured ... Tens of thousands of people surrounded the school," one government official told Reuters.
"Our leaders required us not to retaliate so we could only use shields to protect ourselves."
"ULTERIOR MOTIVES"
In an official comment, the Dongyang city government said the sheds and roadblocks around the industrial zone had seriously disturbed order and "endangered people's safety."
Officials from construction, transportation, land administration and women's affairs departments had begun to pull down "the illegal bamboo sheds" on Sunday morning.
"They were attacked by rocks, cudgels and choppers" by thousands of people and more than 30 were hurt and taken to hospital, five in serious condition, the Dongyang statement said.
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Some people "with ulterior motives" spread the rumor that one old woman had been run over and killed by the government team, and that had sparked the violence, the faxed statement said.
Police were outnumbered and many fled after taking off their uniforms to try to blend into the crowd, the residents told Reuters.
"We hate the people in command of the police. We are waiting for the government to respond," a second villager said.
A third said: "We demand the provincial government send a team to investigate this case."
Villagers told stories of withered trees and grass near the factories, inedible vegetables and undrinkable water.
"Give me back my land. Save my children and grandchildren," read a banner hanging outside the industrial park.
Eight villagers were taken into police custody after the roadblock was set up, residents said.
More than 3 million people staged about 58,000 protests nationwide in 2003, according to the latest available official figures. The number of demonstrations jumped 15 percent from the previous year.
At least seven people were killed and 42 injured in the central province of Henan last November after a car accident involving an ethnic Han Chinese and a member of the Hui Muslim minority sparked rioting.
The southwestern province of Sichuan grappled with another protest that killed at least one person when tens of thousands of farmers took to the streets in anger over a hydroelectric dam project that will flood 100,000 people out of their homes.
And last October, rioters in the southwestern region of Chongqing burned police cars and looted government buildings after a quarrel between residents escalated into a clash that was finally dispersed with teargas and rubber bullets.
Dissent is usually quickly quelled and leaders jailed, but analysts said protests were becoming more common and word leaks out more regularly as technology makes it increasingly difficult to block news.
Ping!
go for it! maybe when they start taking out some semiconductor fabs, we can bring the tech industry back to the US.
Kind of fits in with our discussion of the CCP trying to ferment hate with Japan to try to keep the people distracted. Maybe there's more pressure in the boiler than we knew.
I've read accounts that the air there is terrible. I guess the common people are getting fed up.
next time you buy that glossy photo paper for your inkjet printer, smell it. then wonder what its like to work in an unventilated factory where they apply the coatings.
Major water pollutions there too. From what I heard, they put in systems to clean the water, but to make their quotas the operators turn the machines off unless inspectors are around. (sounds like the big dig in Boston)
http://www.clo2.com/reading/waternews/China_water_crisis.html
China's Water Crisis Blamed On Waste and Pollution
CHANGCHUN (July 21) XINHUA- Chinese scientists say that wasted resources and pollution are the major causes of China's water shortage and that it may become a major crisis by the mid-21st century.
Many Chinese still believe that water supply in their country is inexhaustible and do not try to find ways to improve water use, according to Chen Mengxiong, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
China has more than 2,800 billion cu.m. of water, but with only a per-capita share of 2,700 cu.m., a fourth of the world's average, and even though theirs is a water deficient country, people still squander water resources and water pollution is getting worse, Chen told an international symposium on water in Changchun, the capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, last week.
About 70 percent of the water used for irrigation, or half of the country's total water consumption, has been wasted because of a low utilization rate, he said, and a fifth of China's rivers are polluted to varying extent, and 5 percent of them have serious pollution.
He went on to say that some 70 percent of China's fresh water may not be available for direct use by the beginning of the next century because of grave pollution from waste water discharge, and that at least 300 cities are suffering from water shortages, and approximately 20 million ha. of arable land is hit by dry spells each year.
Ground subsidence and seawater are becoming problems because of the over-use of groundwater in some coastal cities like Shanghai and Tianjin, Chen said.
god forbid they should try and close the trade deficit by buying some pollution control and water treatment equipment made in the USA.
Hmmm,so maybe the "anti-Japanese protests" weren't "anti-Japanese protests".
When I lived in south China teaching English, the air there was so foul that your boogers came out black when you would pick your nose.
Couple of things stand out from this brief, none-too-reliable report. One, the folks are demanding more government; that doesn't sound like an impossible demand in Red China. Two, after some 50 years of Communist rule and several thousand of officialdom, a Chinese cop is still mighty quick to shed his uniform when the need arises.
If it gets in the way of corrupt officials making a lot of money, then it becomes an impossible demand.
But, did you stick that nice thick gooey booger in your mouth and taste it?
Chinese Nationalisim - what will replace Chinese Communisim. The Communist are preparing the transition from Communisim to Nationalism? Red to Brown?
National Socialism to keep populace in line. When their economy goes south, it won't be enough.
China is already "red" and "brown." Look at their flag. Red background with 5 brown stars.
They riot naked in China?
I kid you not-
The term is "nose crap."
Seriously!
(bei si in romanization)
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