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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:17
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There are increasing numbers of rural protests and riots breaking out across China, this one was unusually successful.
These are not rebellions against the Party, the villagers involved are typically patriotic toward the CCP. In fact, sometimes ministries of the central gov't and the villagers are on the same side! The enemy is corrupt local officials, the age-old bane of rural Chinese existence. Only these days corrupt local officials can do things like sell off entire villages without the knowledge or consent of the inhabitants.
This village fought back. Two accounts, the first from The Times UK:
quote:
Chinese farmers riot over crop poisoning
By Clifford Coonan in Huaxi
Factories built during the country’s new economic boom have sparked a violent backlash
THOUSANDS of Chinese farmers overturned buses, smashed cars and attacked policemen during a riot in a village in eastern China against chemical plants that they say are destroying their crops.
Villagers said that 3,000 police officers armed with electric batons and teargas descended on the village of Huaxi before dawn on Sunday to clear roadblocks that villagers had set up to stop deliveries to and from chemical plants built on land where rice and vegetable farms once stood.
The scene yesterday was one of complete devastation and anarchy: 40 buses lay smashed in the grounds of a local school and 14 cars were piled upside down in an alley, some draped with police uniforms. There were unconfirmed reports that two of the elderly protesters died during efforts to disperse them, and more than a hundred people were treated for minor injuries in hospital.
In a country where dissent normally brings swift retribution, the weekend riots were just the latest clashes between local authorities and farmworkers, who feel marginalised by the extraordinary growth of China’s economy and the expansion of its industrial base deeper into rural areas.
The 13 chemical plants in Zhejiang, built during the current economic boom and operational since 2002, produce fertiliser, dyes and pesticides. Farmers say that waste from the factories is poisoning the wells that provide their drinking water and that the plants periodically release clouds of stinging gas. They also claim that the effluents are causing stillborn babies and birth defects.
“I’m afraid my children won’t live to reach my age. I want my land back, I want my food back and I want my water back,” said one 60-year-old woman, who, like a third of the 30,000 villagers, has the surname Wang. She was speaking at a makeshift shelter put up by the local old people’s association, which displayed police riot shields, identity cards and helmets, as well as machetes and scissors, which the locals said had been used against them.
Elderly women were eager to talk about the night that they drove the police out of the village. The atmosphere was jubilant.
Soon after I left the village, I was stopped on the road to the county town of Dongyang and detained by government officials for almost six hours.
Chen Qixian, a Dongyang government spokesman, said that 1,000 officials had taken part in the operation to remove the roadblocks, which were set up on March 24 and had stopped production at the chemical plants. Hospitals treated 128 people, of whom 36 were still inpatients. Of these, three were villagers and the rest police or cadres. Five were seriously injured. The factories have suspended operations as many labourers are too frightened to report for work.
In China, farmers do not own the land; they receive 30-year leases from the State that allows the Government to reallocate the land for industrial use without the consent of the farmers if it is approved by the village committee.
Farmers have been given compensation, but for many this is not enough. “It’s not compensation we want, we don’t want these plants beside us,” Wang Weikang, a smallholder, said.
“I tried to grow cauliflower last year, but the plant didn’t grow bigger than a walnut before it shrivelled and died. The groundwater is completely poisoned.”
Landgrabbing and rural land rights are big political issues in China and the government has made public commitments to bridge the gap between urban rich and rural poor.
Recent riots in China have often been sparked by demonstrations of public anger with local corruption or abuse of privilege. More than three million people staged about 58,000 protests nationwide in 2003, according to the latest available official figures. The number of demonstrations jumped 15 per cent from the previous year.
(...) |
And a similar account from the South China Morning Post (cannot link directly to the paper, article is quoted in a blog):
quote:
In riot village, the government is on the run
Didi Kirsten Tatlow
Huaxi is a village in mutiny. Instead of going to work or school on Monday morning, thousands of people milled around its broad, paved streets and - despite the steady rain - the atmosphere was upbeat, even jubilant.
Huaxi has the government on the run.
More than 1,000 police and officials, who arrived before dawn on Sunday to tear down road blocks erected by villagers, instead found themselves involved in a pitched battle.
The police fled.
As I walk towards the middle school at the edge of town, the crowd thickens. Broken bricks and sticks litter the ground.
Inside the school compound, 14 cars lie upside down, windows smashed, interiors ripped up, number plates bent.
A police uniform is draped over one car - a trophy.
On the other side of the large school yard lie dozens of buses. Their tyres have been slashed, and windows smashed. Some have been heaved on their sides.
The trouble in this verdant, hilly part of Zhejiang province , two hours south of the provincial capital of Hangzhou , started in 2001 when local officials handed 66 hectares of land to 13 private and state-owned chemical plants. Wang Weikang , 58, who still farms 933 square metres of land, said villagers didn't know what was happening when they suddenly discovered the land they farmed belonged to someone else.
Villagers say the village committee signed a contract with nearby Dongyang city behind their backs. Dongyang government spokesman Chen Qixian said the deal was lawful, since the village committee had the right to represent villagers.
Mainland farmers do not own their land, instead farming it on 30-year contracts from the government, so no-one had to ask the farmers individually.
The plants were built in 2002 and then, said Mr Wang and other villagers, the sicknesses started.
"Lots of people started falling ill. Some days our eyes would sting ... from the gas from the plants. Babies were born dead or malformed. Nine in the past year alone," he said.
Villagers said the chemical plants polluted the village's water supply. "It had become the colour of soy sauce," said one.
Huaxi's river, the Huashui, runs a strange caramel colour, though the main eyesore are the heaps of plastic bags that cling to its edges.
"We want our land back. We don't want compensation. We want vegetables to grow again and the water to run clean," said Mr Wang.
Opposition to the plants grew.
Unable to get the attention of local officials, villagers went to Beijing to petition the central government - also without success.
Then in March, Dongyang Mayor Tan Yong barred them from a meet-the-public forum.
To stop shipments from the plants, villagers threw up road blocks on March 24 and built straw shelters.
One leader, Wang Zhongfa, was arrested for allegedly inciting the overthrow of the government. That inflamed tempers further. Many of those manning the shelters were members of the Huaxi old people's association, one of the main groups opposed to the chemical plant.
On Monday, many of them sat in one remaining shelter, which they had decorated with trophies from Sunday's battle: police uniforms, riot shields, an ID card, empty tear gas canisters and machetes.
Villagers say when the police - numbering 3,000, they say - arrived, they also brought cattle prods. Wang Xiaomei , 70, said: "Those police. They were worse than the Japanese".
Early on Sunday, rumours started spreading that two elderly women had died when police tried to storm the village and angry villagers poured out of their homes, driving police into the school yard. The police barricaded the gate, but villagers bashed down the brick school wall.
They stoned police. Hand-to-hand combat ensued.
Mr Chen, the Dongyang official who was at the scene, said 36 people, 33 of them police or officials, had been admitted to hospital. "Five of the injured are in serious condition," he said.
But Mr Chen denied anyone had died, and villagers were unable to provide any details of the deaths. "Please believe me. There's no way the government could be covering it up," said Mr Chen.
Yet the government is spooked.
On the way out of town, a siren started up behind us and a tannoy barked: "Pull over!"
I was detained by police, my notes destroyed and pictures wiped from my camera. I have to sign a confession - I broke the relevant reporting regulations of the People's Republic of China by going to Huaxi without asking for permission.
Officials say they generally get a month or two's notice from foreign journalists. Enough time to miss the story, they agree.
Mr Chen said local officials might have stolen money intended for villagers.
He said the situation turned nasty after an influential member of the village committee was unable to persuade a hard-nosed plant boss to pay more for the land.
"Also we are unable to control the factories 24 hours a day. It may be that sometimes they discharge pollutants illegally," he said.
Mr Chen said the government would arrest corrupt local officials if any wrongdoing was confirmed.
But for now, the villagers are in charge of Huaxi and the government is on the run. |
Chinese villagers claim their own justice! 
 Attachment: trophies from huaxi riot.jpg
This has been downloaded 193 time(s).
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:17
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could you tell us a little about the village committees UR, like who votes for them, who can be part of them, what they are responsible for, what powers they have, that sort of thing?
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:17
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quote:
Originally posted by C0ckney
could you tell us a little about the village committees UR, like who votes for them, who can be part of them, what they are responsible for, what powers they have, that sort of thing? |
Until UR comments, I can give a little general background. The elections take place at the lowest level of local Party representation, rural villages. This was started some years ago (ten?), and remarkably, some locals really have been able to elect non-Party representatives. However, as far as I know, non-Party representatives have not been very effective, as any actions unpopular with local CCP officials are simply throttled at the next higher level of local gov't (keep in mind the very high degree of autonomy of local officials, especially in remote rural areas).
The net result has been essentially a fig leaf of democracy without any real political impact. Despite some talk (which is particularly cheap in China  ), there has been no further expansion of voting rights since this experiment was begun.
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Ogie Oglethorpe
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Marietta, GA
Dec 1999
time: 05:17
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New words added to the filter, these just in:
Potable Water
Pollution
Environmental damage
Local Corruption
quote:
China Soups Up Internet Censoring Filters
Email this Story
Apr 14, 9:43 AM (ET)
By ANICK JESDANUN
NEW YORK (AP) - The Chinese government has become increasingly sophisticated at controlling the Internet, taking a multilayered approach that contributes to precision in blocking political dissent, a report released Thursday finds.
The precision means that China's filters can block just specific references to Tibetan independence without blocking all references to Tibet. Likewise, the government is effective at limiting discussions about Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square and other topics deemed sensitive, the study from the OpenNet Initiative finds.
Numerous government agencies and thousands of public and private employees are involved at all levels, from the main pipelines, or backbones, hauling data over long distances to the cybercafes where many citizens access the Internet.
That breadth, the study finds, allows the filtering tools to adapt to emerging forms of communications, such as Web journals, or blogs.
"China has been more successful than any other country in the world to manage to filter the Internet despite the fast changes in technology," said John Palfrey, one of the study's principal investigators and executive director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Saudi Arabia, for example, largely controls the Internet by having all traffic flow through a central agency, where it can be monitored. Visitors trying to access a banned site get a message saying it has been blocked, Palfrey said.
"China is much more subtle than that," Palfrey said. "You don't know what you don't know. It's more effective than if you see it but know you can't access it."
With filters at multiple points, including some search engines, content is simply removed rather than replaced with a notice, he said.
Google Inc. (GOOG) has acknowledged its Chinese-language news service - introduced on a test basis last fall - leaves out results from government-banned sites, though the company says that is done so users won't end up clicking on links that lead nowhere because of the Chinese filters.
China, which has the world's second-largest population of Internet users behind the United States, promotes Internet use for business and education, while trying to curb access to political dissent, pornography and other topics the communist government deems sensitive. Many users do find ways around the controls - for instance, using "proxy" servers that mask a site's true origin.
It is through similar proxy servers and long-distance calls that researchers outside China managed to test what users inside China see. The researchers also employed volunteers inside the country to conduct more extensive testing.
The researchers deployed software and physical equipment called packet sniffers to monitor the flow of traffic and try to gauge where content gets dropped. Palfrey would not elaborate on techniques, other than to say many Internet systems have security flaws through which outsiders can sneak in software.
Funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute, the OpenNet Initiative is a collaboration of researchers at Harvard, the University of Cambridge and the University of Toronto working on issues of Internet censorship and surveillance.
Their testing determined that:
_Though some dissidents complain that e-mail newsletters sent in bulk are sometimes blocked, individual messages tend not to get filtered.
_Much of the filtering occurs at the backbone, but individual Internet service providers sometimes deploy additional blocking. Cybercafes and operators of discussion boards also control content proactively under threat of penalties.
_Filtering tends to be triggered by the appearance of certain keywords, rather than a visit to a specific domain name or numeric Internet address. The keyword-based filters also allow blogs to keep people from completing posts containing banned topics.
"You can filter much more precisely at a keyword level," Palfrey said. "China wants to be able to enable its citizens to use the Internet and grow its economy. Shutting down all blog servers doesn't seem like a great idea, but it doesn't want to let through all forms of political dissent."
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