Not an expert by any stretch, Denis
But I can tell you what the Hong Kong papers have been reporting out of Dongzhou this week about this. I had been hoping to get a post up about some China stuff in the news here and there, but I just hadn't got around to it (to busy singing Light my Candle to myself).
The story about a riot in Guangdong province, Dongzhou village of Shanwei city, has gone from being a rumor to having an actual body count in the past few days. On 8 December, the Hong-Kong based newspaper reported that eight villagers were shot and killed on Tuesday (2 days before) in Dongzhou, but that number was unconfirmed. Of course, a local city official denied the report, saying in this article, "It's not a simple case, because in such a harmonious society, our armed police won't presume to open fire on villagers." Interesting in the 8 December article titled "Villagers reportedly shot dead during land dispute" by Minnie Chan are quotes from a villager who claimed his brother was among those killed. He claimed that the armed police were from the neighboring cities of Lufeng and Luhe, and he made a plea to the HK-newspaper: "We call on the central government to help us and allow overseas media to report what's happened because local media won't report our story." Another unnamed villager described to the SCMP that the protest stemmed from an ongoing disagreement between the villagers and the local government over what the protestors describe as inadequate compensation for land taken from them to build a coal-fired power plant. Further, the villagers claim a loss of access to Baisha Lake, a salt-water lake used for both fishing and power generation. The local government in this article is reported as using the proceeds from the land sale to finance the power plant which the villagers believe will pollute the lake. A sixteen year old girl quoted in this article says that they have tried to sue, but court channels have been blocked by the government, and that the local officials were already patrolling the roads to keep journalists out. That is when the locals began to protest and blocked the construction roads. The article also refers to a similar land-dispute that happened in June in Dingzhou, Hebei province that left 6 protesters dead, implying that the local crackdown may have been to prevent something like that (worldwide reporting or fatalities? Your guess is as good as mine).
On Saturday, an unnamed staff reporter for the SCMP.com filed an article titled "Riot village sealed off in hunt for protestors." The city is described as being guarded by hundreds of paramilitary police carrying shields but otherwise unarmed. There was already talk of a cover-up, with a villager reporting that local officials offering hush money to surrender his relative's body; the family refused. Others are reported in this article as hiding their relatives bodies from local authorities. The SCMP had been given a photograph of one villager who was killed, a bullet hole clearly in his chest. City and provincial officials when asked by the press either deny or issue the simple "no comment." This same article is the first one I read that the protest was not peaceful, though. They report that the police did not open fire until the protestors began to assault them with Molotov cocktails, according to the villagers. They were already "battling" before that--probably normal riot control and crowd suppression (which still isn't pretty). The interesting rumor in this article is that the local official associated with public security had resigned already and provincial officials had been brought in to investigate.
In Sunday's SCMP.com, there is another article by an unnamed staff reporter following up on this story, "Villagers fear reprisals against rioters." The article confirms three dead (CNN reports 20), with the hospitalized injured under police watch. It reports that one injured villager who received surgery was visited by some family members in the hospital that were then themselves put into custody. This same man had spoken to Hong Kong television. The widow of Wei Jin, 31, is reported as having been offered 2,000 RMB in condolence money from a senior city official. An unnamed 57-year-old villager who said he was not involved in the protest but went down to see what was going on was hit in the head with a tear gas canister, and said that there was tear gas, then bright flashes of light, then gunshots (which is consistent with the story that the gunshots followed Molotov cocktails, but doesn't prove it).
Xinhua had this official release in English. It isn't completely inconsistent with the Hong Kong news reports, and gives so much specific details, it makes me wonder the veracity (you know, the truth can be vague but a lie needs to be precise). I also haven't had a chance to ask Randy what he has heard about it, though I expect very little outside of what he may have caught in the SCMP he sometimes gets at his hotel. Since Tuesday he has not been able to access the blog, and Skype has been spotty. All of this occurred in the province where he is living, Guangdong, though in a very undeveloped rural area.
Now, as for a lot of the links Denis has that compare this action to Tiananmen Square greatly diminish (or ennoble, depending on your point of view) Tiananmen Square. The protest in Tiananmen was about economic instability and widespread political corruption. It was led by intellectuals and students and led to 3,000 (maybe? Some estimate in the hundreds) dead. Dongzhou is yet another in a line of property disputes in China, including this one of the Catholic school, one in Shenyang in July and one in June in Dingzhou. None of these have been pretty, to say the least. And these land disputes are probably rooted in the same political corruption that was protested in Tiananmen, now with local officials making land deals with developers and corporations that do not take into account the local population's immediate needs (but maybe their long-term needs? or maybe officials lining their own pockets?), maybe even shortchanging them or cheating them--I'm not sure. But what those who are calling this incident in Dongzhou a Tiananmen are ignoring or not taking into account is that in 2004, by the Chinese government's official count, there were 70,000 incidents of rural unrest---protests--and this number is higher this year (source is the CNN link above). "Old Zhou" has referred to a similar number in some of his Open Comments, and that we in the US really have no idea the protest culture in China, and what is being protested. I AM NOT EXPERT. Maybe my referring to these as land disputes and not something else is insulting to what is at stake. But Tiananmen was a higher-minded protest, with students yelling the equivalent of "Breakin the Law" (remember being taught that, when Ming told us we needed to learn Beavis and Butthead lines in Chinese, LC?). Three thousand people died.
The land disputes are happening all over rural China. They have more recently begun to escalate into deaths. Local authorities do attempt blackouts and then a controlled release of information. But is this in anyway heir to Tiananmen Square? Protest organized by highly educated (elites we refer to them sneeringly in the US) intellectuals versus farmers and fishermen taking spears and home-made Molotov cocktails. Was Dongzhou more than a simple protest? By even sympathetic accounts there are reports of sabotage of commercial enterprise involved. Is this the same as Tiananmen? Some of the US and Hong Kong media has been portraying as well these disputes and protests as part of the growing have/havenot situation in china as the economic boom is slow if it is reaching these rural areas at all. In Dongzhou you have fishers and farmers who live on a few hundred dollars a year, maybe, watching their local authorities making deals for incomprehensibly large power plants. Who benefits from these? The locals?
Look at Shekou, where Randy lives. It took only ten years for it to be transformed from fishing village with some industry to being a shiny metropolis, teaming with prosperity and expats. I wonder what it was like in the meantime? I am anxious to learn.
So Denis, if you want copies of the articles I cited from the Hong Kong paper I can email you PDF's. But I probably didn't answer any questions you had, but rather posed more questions of the gaps in the story. I really wouldn't refer to Dongzhou as the new Tiananmen. There is just too much going on in China to simplify it as such. This wasn't a solitary protest, but rather part of a larger movement (that may not even be aware that the larger movement exists). Maybe more of a sentiment. Maybe it will be larger than Tiananmen; maybe it will have a eral lasting impact.
The story about a riot in Guangdong province, Dongzhou village of Shanwei city, has gone from being a rumor to having an actual body count in the past few days. On 8 December, the Hong-Kong based newspaper reported that eight villagers were shot and killed on Tuesday (2 days before) in Dongzhou, but that number was unconfirmed. Of course, a local city official denied the report, saying in this article, "It's not a simple case, because in such a harmonious society, our armed police won't presume to open fire on villagers." Interesting in the 8 December article titled "Villagers reportedly shot dead during land dispute" by Minnie Chan are quotes from a villager who claimed his brother was among those killed. He claimed that the armed police were from the neighboring cities of Lufeng and Luhe, and he made a plea to the HK-newspaper: "We call on the central government to help us and allow overseas media to report what's happened because local media won't report our story." Another unnamed villager described to the SCMP that the protest stemmed from an ongoing disagreement between the villagers and the local government over what the protestors describe as inadequate compensation for land taken from them to build a coal-fired power plant. Further, the villagers claim a loss of access to Baisha Lake, a salt-water lake used for both fishing and power generation. The local government in this article is reported as using the proceeds from the land sale to finance the power plant which the villagers believe will pollute the lake. A sixteen year old girl quoted in this article says that they have tried to sue, but court channels have been blocked by the government, and that the local officials were already patrolling the roads to keep journalists out. That is when the locals began to protest and blocked the construction roads. The article also refers to a similar land-dispute that happened in June in Dingzhou, Hebei province that left 6 protesters dead, implying that the local crackdown may have been to prevent something like that (worldwide reporting or fatalities? Your guess is as good as mine).
On Saturday, an unnamed staff reporter for the SCMP.com filed an article titled "Riot village sealed off in hunt for protestors." The city is described as being guarded by hundreds of paramilitary police carrying shields but otherwise unarmed. There was already talk of a cover-up, with a villager reporting that local officials offering hush money to surrender his relative's body; the family refused. Others are reported in this article as hiding their relatives bodies from local authorities. The SCMP had been given a photograph of one villager who was killed, a bullet hole clearly in his chest. City and provincial officials when asked by the press either deny or issue the simple "no comment." This same article is the first one I read that the protest was not peaceful, though. They report that the police did not open fire until the protestors began to assault them with Molotov cocktails, according to the villagers. They were already "battling" before that--probably normal riot control and crowd suppression (which still isn't pretty). The interesting rumor in this article is that the local official associated with public security had resigned already and provincial officials had been brought in to investigate.
In Sunday's SCMP.com, there is another article by an unnamed staff reporter following up on this story, "Villagers fear reprisals against rioters." The article confirms three dead (CNN reports 20), with the hospitalized injured under police watch. It reports that one injured villager who received surgery was visited by some family members in the hospital that were then themselves put into custody. This same man had spoken to Hong Kong television. The widow of Wei Jin, 31, is reported as having been offered 2,000 RMB in condolence money from a senior city official. An unnamed 57-year-old villager who said he was not involved in the protest but went down to see what was going on was hit in the head with a tear gas canister, and said that there was tear gas, then bright flashes of light, then gunshots (which is consistent with the story that the gunshots followed Molotov cocktails, but doesn't prove it).
Xinhua had this official release in English. It isn't completely inconsistent with the Hong Kong news reports, and gives so much specific details, it makes me wonder the veracity (you know, the truth can be vague but a lie needs to be precise). I also haven't had a chance to ask Randy what he has heard about it, though I expect very little outside of what he may have caught in the SCMP he sometimes gets at his hotel. Since Tuesday he has not been able to access the blog, and Skype has been spotty. All of this occurred in the province where he is living, Guangdong, though in a very undeveloped rural area.
Now, as for a lot of the links Denis has that compare this action to Tiananmen Square greatly diminish (or ennoble, depending on your point of view) Tiananmen Square. The protest in Tiananmen was about economic instability and widespread political corruption. It was led by intellectuals and students and led to 3,000 (maybe? Some estimate in the hundreds) dead. Dongzhou is yet another in a line of property disputes in China, including this one of the Catholic school, one in Shenyang in July and one in June in Dingzhou. None of these have been pretty, to say the least. And these land disputes are probably rooted in the same political corruption that was protested in Tiananmen, now with local officials making land deals with developers and corporations that do not take into account the local population's immediate needs (but maybe their long-term needs? or maybe officials lining their own pockets?), maybe even shortchanging them or cheating them--I'm not sure. But what those who are calling this incident in Dongzhou a Tiananmen are ignoring or not taking into account is that in 2004, by the Chinese government's official count, there were 70,000 incidents of rural unrest---protests--and this number is higher this year (source is the CNN link above). "Old Zhou" has referred to a similar number in some of his Open Comments, and that we in the US really have no idea the protest culture in China, and what is being protested. I AM NOT EXPERT. Maybe my referring to these as land disputes and not something else is insulting to what is at stake. But Tiananmen was a higher-minded protest, with students yelling the equivalent of "Breakin the Law" (remember being taught that, when Ming told us we needed to learn Beavis and Butthead lines in Chinese, LC?). Three thousand people died.
The land disputes are happening all over rural China. They have more recently begun to escalate into deaths. Local authorities do attempt blackouts and then a controlled release of information. But is this in anyway heir to Tiananmen Square? Protest organized by highly educated (elites we refer to them sneeringly in the US) intellectuals versus farmers and fishermen taking spears and home-made Molotov cocktails. Was Dongzhou more than a simple protest? By even sympathetic accounts there are reports of sabotage of commercial enterprise involved. Is this the same as Tiananmen? Some of the US and Hong Kong media has been portraying as well these disputes and protests as part of the growing have/havenot situation in china as the economic boom is slow if it is reaching these rural areas at all. In Dongzhou you have fishers and farmers who live on a few hundred dollars a year, maybe, watching their local authorities making deals for incomprehensibly large power plants. Who benefits from these? The locals?
Look at Shekou, where Randy lives. It took only ten years for it to be transformed from fishing village with some industry to being a shiny metropolis, teaming with prosperity and expats. I wonder what it was like in the meantime? I am anxious to learn.
So Denis, if you want copies of the articles I cited from the Hong Kong paper I can email you PDF's. But I probably didn't answer any questions you had, but rather posed more questions of the gaps in the story. I really wouldn't refer to Dongzhou as the new Tiananmen. There is just too much going on in China to simplify it as such. This wasn't a solitary protest, but rather part of a larger movement (that may not even be aware that the larger movement exists). Maybe more of a sentiment. Maybe it will be larger than Tiananmen; maybe it will have a eral lasting impact.
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