'Thousands riot' in China protest

BBC ^ | Monday, March 12, 2007

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

A protest staged by thousands of rural workers in central China ended in violent clashes last week, media reports and an official said.

Several people were injured as up to 20,000 people clashed with 1,000 police in Hunan province on Friday, a local official told Reuters news agency.

A report on the Boxun Chinese news website said the clash was sparked by rising public transport costs.

Rural regions of China have mounting unrest in recent years.

Thousands of protests were held last year amid growing discontent over the widening gap between rich and poor and corruption among officials at local level and above.

The latest reported unrest came as the Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress, held its annual session in Beijing.

Discontent

At least nine police cars were burnt during the clashes, the Boxun report said.

Protesters clashed with police armed with guns and electric cattle prods, the Reuters news agency reported.

A number of police and protesters were injured - with some taken to hospital - but none were thought to be in a serious condition.

The official, from the Hunan city of Yongzhou, told Reuters that the protesters "were not satisfied with some government behaviour".

"They were also unhappy about official corruption," the official added.

The overseas-based Boxun, which is blocked inside China by the Beijing government, reported that protesters had been dissatisfied with the rising cost of bus prices.

The government has introduced a series of measures to try and address the sources of discontent in rural communities.

They include pumping billions of dollars into the rural economy in the form of farm subsidies, as well as reining in the seizures of farmland for development and tackling government corruption.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

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[FormerACLUmember]

These protest/riots are extremely frequent in China, and are never reported in the US media.

The leaders are rounded up, jailed, executed, harvested for organs, or sold for anatomical specimens (as in the disgusting "Bodies" exhibit of executed dissidents)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Wife and I saw The Bodies in Seattle. Not for everyone...

[Domicile of Doom]

I understand that in many Chinese cities that rural peasants/farmers need some sort of pass/permit to enter the city. Is that true?

[Basheva]

Much of this unrest has been predicted.

China has a huge demographic problem. Because of the one child per family rule which resulted in many more males than females - there are now not nearly enough females to keeep the males "happy" - and busy.

Young males with no females are a problem.

[carolinalivin]

We were in Tian'amen Square last month. We had a 25 year old tour guide. She pointed out the statue of the People's Hero. Some student who demonstrated in 1917.

I asked her what she thought of the student protest in which a student stood in front of a tank and the picture was broadcast all over the world. And the three day protest with hundreds in the square. Never heard of it.

[Steel Wolf]

Corruption is a deep and systemic problem in the Chinese government. The hard line Communist rules that kept it in check have fallen completely by the wayside. The Chinese goverment occasionally jails or executes officials that are too egregious. Mostly, though, they find some scapegoats, or some officials who weren't giving their bosses enough of the cut.

At any rate, these protests are the tip of a very big iceberg. They're much more common than most people realize, and are becoming more so. And larger. The Chinese government won't be able to avoid this problem indefinitely.

[CarrotAndStick]

I understand that in many Chinese cities that rural peasants/farmers need some sort of pass/permit to enter the city. Is that true?

How else do you think Chinese city-streets lack the poverty that's just beyond the cities? The places the "authorities" wouldn't let tourists/travellers go to... ?

[DungeonMaster]

No way!

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

I understand that in many Chinese cities that rural peasants/farmers need some sort of pass/permit to enter the city. Is that true?

That doesn't appear to be the case in any of the cities I've been to there. I can imagine requiring rural folks to have a permit to work in a city -- in any business that's conducted in full view of city officials, anyway.

[Paul Ross]

That doesn't appear to be the case in any of the cities I've been to there.

Were you allowed to drive on your own...or did you have a driver? And what of Housing permit issuance? Any box shelter put up by some unauthorized squatters likely wouldn't last long....

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Frightening. And thanks are due in part to Google, who is an enabler to their censorship.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Were you allowed to drive on your own...or did you have a driver?

I've got in-laws there, so I've been way off the tourist-beaten path.

And what of Housing permit issuance? Any box shelter put up by some unauthorized squatters likely wouldn't last long....

I think I remember reading some time ago that the influx of migrant workers from the countryside into some of the heavy-industry cities simply overwhelms the local law-enforcement resources. Never mind housing permits, these folks couldn't afford housing in the first place. They just sleep wherever they can (sometimes abetted by whoever is employing them), and when they get booted out of the city in the next sweep, they'll just find a way to get back in. It's worth the trouble, because whatever work they can get (either over or under the table) is a matter of survival for them and their families back home.

The original post to which I responded asked if rural folks were required to have a permit/pass of some kind to even enter some cities, and as far as I can tell, that just ain't the case.

[Zhang Fei]

We were in Tian'amen Square last month. We had a 25 year old tour guide. She pointed out the statue of the People's Hero. Some student who demonstrated in 1917. I asked her what she thought of the student protest in which a student stood in front of a tank and the picture was broadcast all over the world. And the three day protest with hundreds in the square. Never heard of it.

That 25-year-old was probably was probably taught in school that Chairman Mao (that how every Chinese I've spoken has referred to him) should be thought of as their grandfather. (Since Mao is known among China-watchers for one-night stands, orchestrated by his staff, with early teen women, this is more than a little creepy). Chinese youth are taught Communist lies from elementary school onwards. They will typically believe these lies over their parents' personal accounts of what happened during the Party-engineered famines and political unrest of the past. Even their parents will make excuses for the Party's behavior and have assimilated and accepted its lies about how Party-engineered hardship wasn't really the Party's fault.

Don't expect the average Chinese national to have anything but admiration for China's top leadership. Provincial officials may be schemers, but the Party's leaders are beyond reproach. This is consistent with traditional Chinese historical myth that the emperor was almost always virtuous, and it was their court officials who were devious and corrupt.

[Zhang Fei]

I understand that in many Chinese cities that rural peasants/farmers need some sort of pass/permit to enter the city. Is that true?

This used to be true in every Chinese city. It's no longer universally the case. The cities of Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai don't have this restriction. (I don't personally know about other cities). But the benefits available to city residents are not available to non-residents - subsidized school tuition (it's not free in China), retirement benefits, medical care, et al, for a given area are all restricted to residents. You can't get residency by being born in a given area or by living there for a specific time - the only way to get it is to apply and pay a pretty large fee, which in some cases is equivalent to several years the average wage in that city.

[DanielLongo]

If you would, please add me to your list.
Many thanks.

[Zhang Fei]

Frightening. And thanks are due in part to Google, who is an enabler to their censorship.

I don't think it's fair to blame Google. It had a choice - comply or be blocked. I think it made the right decision for its shareholders. I don't think too many Chinese minds would have been changed by a few Google links, anyway. If Chinese youth won't believe the tales of hardship and starvation as told by their parents, why would they believe the words of either Westerners, whom they have been brought up to think of as China's despoilers and enemies, or Chinese dissidents, whom they have been told are traitors to the Han Chinese race, and thieves and ingrates who have sold out the land of their ancestors?

[Paul Ross]

...or Chinese dissidents, whom they have been told are traitors to the Han Chinese race, and thieves and ingrates who have sold out the land of their ancestors?

And this NAZI-style smearing is often done via the Party, albeit by indirect means, and the criticism that this is racist, fascist thinking is also apparently not broadly countenanced.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

I see your point, and I didn't mean to single out Google entirely for the blame. I was using them to make a more general point.

Here are two points I would make concerning this issue:

1. If Leftists believe divestiture was necessary to end apartheid in South Africa, it is hypocritical for them to turn around and invest and have business dealings with other oppressive countries. The point here is that they are hypocritical and they deal with whatever regimes they want to so long as it suits and benefits them. They could have taken a moral stand and refused to do business with China until China allowed full internet searches.

2. One of the items blocked from Google searches performed within China -- the last I heard -- were such things as the US Constitution. You would think Google, an American concern, would have an issue with anyone not being allowed to read the Constitution that guarantees them their freedom to do business as they please and that could very well open enough eyes within China to spur a revolution for true freedom.

I saw another post where someone stated they went to China and were given a tour by a girl in her 20's. She pointed out a statue of a young boy who took part in the revolution in the teens. They asked her about the man who stood in front of a tank at Tiananmen Square. She'd never heard of the entire incident.

I think part of our duty as a freedom-loving country is to dispel as much propaganda as we can. Truth is, after all, the first step toward a free people. Though we can never fully know what "truth" is, certainly the best hope we have of success as we strive toward that goal is having access to as much substantial, verifiable information and as many views as possible.

[Paul Ross]

I think part of our duty as a freedom-loving country is to dispel as much propaganda as we can. Truth is, after all, the first step toward a free people. Though we can never fully know what "truth" is, certainly the best hope we have of success as we strive toward that goal is having access to as much substantial, verifiable information and as many views as possible.

Indeed, the ADMINISTRATION should have immediately intervened when China attempted to censor the U.S. firms. Clearly, corporations don't have the muscle to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party megalith.

Hence, the need for the U.S. government to go to bat for the U.S. citizens. And our corporations. Indeed, make it easier for them. Tell the corporations that any such censorship would be illegal under our laws. The White House should have simply said...no censorship...not now, not ever again. You will play by our rules...or you're out. All the way out. Kapisch? No more trade. And Taiwan can go independent.

We need a lot more spine in the White House.