This will be America too. Right after US and China neutralize
eachother's power. No more T-bonds to fund those fucking houses selling
at $3 million a pop.
This process is what will also force China into a more confrontational
policy with the US and it's allies. Reformed communists go to repalce
communism with nationalism. Things will come to a head once North Korea
War II kicks off.
Asia-Pacific
China's Great Divide
China's 'Haves' Stir the 'Have Nots' to Violence
By Joseph Kahn
Staff Writer
What started as a mildly annoying encounter on Oct. 18 between a porter
and a man who claimed to be a senior official in Wanzhou, in central
China, turned into a full-scale riot, fed by resentment among poorer
residents. Courtesy NYT
WANZHOU, China - The encounter, at first, seemed purely pedestrian. A
man carrying a bag passed a husband and wife on a sidewalk. The man's
bag brushed the woman's pants leg, leaving a trace of mud. Words were
exchanged. A scuffle ensued.
Easily forgettable, except that one of the men, Yu Jikui, was a lowly
porter. The other, Hu Quanzong, boasted that he was a ranking
government official. Mr. Hu beat Mr. Yu using the porter's own carrying
stick, then threatened to have him killed.
For Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city, the script was incendiary.
Onlookers spread word that a senior official had abused a helpless
porter. By nightfall, tens of thousands of people had swarmed Wanzhou's
central square, where they tipped over government vehicles, pummeled
policemen and set fire to city hall.
A Wanzhou street at night
Minor street quarrel provokes mass riot. The Communist Party, obsessed
with enforcing social stability, has few worse fears. Yet the Wanzhou
uprising, which occurred on Oct. 18, is one of nearly a dozen such
incidents in the past three months, many touched off by government
corruption, police abuse and the inequality of the riches accruing to
the powerful and well connected.
"People can see how corrupt the government is while they barely have
enough to eat," said Mr. Yu, reflecting on the uprising that made him
an instant proletarian hero - and later forced him into seclusion. "Our
society has a short fuse, just waiting for a spark."
Though it is experiencing one of the most spectacular economic
expansions in history, China is having more trouble maintaining social
order than at any time since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in
1989.
Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
Police statistics show the number of public protests reached nearly
60,000 in 2003, an increase of nearly 15 percent from 2002 and eight
times the number 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 labor movement. Protests
may be so numerous in part because they are small, local expressions of
discontent over layoffs, land seizures, use of natural resources,
ethnic tensions, misspent state funds, forced immigration, unpaid wages
or police killings. Yet several mass protests, like the one in Wanzhou,
show how people with different causes can seize an opportunity to press
their grievances together.
The police recently arrested several advocates of peasant rights
suspected of helping to coordinate protest activities nationally. Those
are worrying signs for the one-party state, reflexively wary of even
the hint of organized opposition.
Passengers aboard an airliner on Paris-Wanzhou route
Wang Jian, a researcher at the Communist Party's training academy in
Changchun, in northeast China, said the number and scale of protests
had been rising because of "frictions and even violent conflicts
between different interest groups" in China's quasi market economy.
"These mass incidents have seriously harmed the country's social order
and weakened government authority, with destructive consequences
domestically and abroad," Mr. Wang wrote in a recent study.
China's top leaders said after their annual planning session in
September that the "life and death of the party" rests on "improving
governance," which they define as making party officials less corrupt
and more responsive to public concerns.
But the only accessible outlet for farmers and workers to complain is
the network of petition and appeals offices, a legacy of imperial rule.
A new survey by Yu Jianrong, a leading sociologist at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, found that petitions to the
central government had increased 46 percent in 2003 from the year
before, but that only two-hundredths of 1 percent of those who used the
system said it worked.
Kids from well-to-do family are on the computer
Last month, as many as 100,000 farmers in Sichuan Province, frustrated
by months of fruitless appeals against a dam project that claimed their
land, took matters into their own hands. They 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 policemen 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. In
mid-December, 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.
Wanzhou officials initially treated their riot in October as a fluke.
They ordered Mr. Hu to declare on television that he is a fruit vendor,
not a public official, and that his confrontation with Mr. Yu was a
mistake. The police arrested a dozen people and declared social order
restored.
Economy is growing fast in Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
But the uprising alarmed Beijing, which told local officials they would
be sacked if they failed to prevent recurrences, according to Chinese
journalists briefed on the matter. Luo Gan, the member of the Politburo
Standing Committee who is in charge of law and order, issued national
guidelines warning that "sudden mass incidents" were increasing and
calling for tighter police measures.
More than a dozen people interviewed in Wanzhou, part of Chongqing
Municipality, described the city as tense. All said that they still
believed that Mr. Hu was indeed an official and that the government
concocted a cover story to calm things down. They say the anger excited
by the riot awaits only a new affront.
The Chance Encounter
Like many farmers in the steeply graded hills along the Yangtze, Mr.
Yu, 57, supplements his income hauling loads up and down city roads -
grain, fertilizer, air conditioners, anything that he can balance on a
bamboo pole and hoist on his slender shoulder. Sweaty and dirty,
porters put their low-paying profession on parade. They are often
referred to simply as bian dan, or pole men.
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
Mr. Yu's lot is better than some others. He has another sideline
collecting hair cuttings off the floors of beauty salons and barber
shops, packing them in big burlap bags and selling them to wig-makers
down south.
On Oct. 18, he spent several hours collecting hair from upscale salons
along Baiyan Road, a busy shopping street that runs near the government
square downtown. His load was light - two bags of loose locks - and he
scurried down the sidewalk to lunch.
"Hey, pole man, you got dirt all over my pants!" he heard a woman
shout. When he turned to face her, the man by her side, Mr. Hu, was
glaring at him.
"What are you looking at, bumpkin?" Mr. Yu recalls Mr. Hu saying.
Mr. Yu is mild mannered, with a slightly raffish grin stained yellow
from chain smoking. Mr. Hu, wearing a coat and tie and leather shoes,
looked like he might be important. Mr. Yu said he should have let the
moment pass. He did not.
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
"I work like this so that my daughter and son can dress better than I
do, so don't look down on me," he recalled saying. Then he added, "I
sell my strength just as a prostitute sells her body."
Mr. Yu said he was drawing a general comparison. Mr. Hu and his young
wife, Zeng Qingrong, apparently thought he had insinuated something
else. She jerked his shirt collar and slapped his ear. Mr. Hu picked up
Mr. Yu's fallen pole and struck him in the legs and back repeatedly.
Perhaps for the benefit of the crowd, Mr. Hu shouted that it was Mr.
Yu, sprawled on the pavement, who was in big trouble.
"I'm a public official," Mr. Hu said, according to Mr. Yu and other
eyewitnesses. "If this guy causes me more problems, I'll pay 20,000
kuai" - about $2,500 - "and have him knocked off."
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
Those words never appeared in the state-controlled media. But is
difficult to find anyone in Wanzhou today who has not heard some
version of Mr. Hu's bluster: The putative official - he has been
identified in the rumor mill as the deputy chief of the local land
bureau - had boasted that he could have a porter killed for $2,500. It
was a call to arms.
Mr. Hu's threat, spread by mobile phones, text messages and the
swelling crowd, encapsulated a thousand bitter grievances.
"I heard him say those exact words," said Wen Jiabao, another porter
who says he witnessed the confrontation. "It proves that it's better to
be rich than poor, but that being an official is even better than being
rich."
Xiang Lin, a 18-year-old auto mechanic, had seen China's rising wealth
when he worked near Shanghai. But when he returned home to Wanzhou, he
felt frustrated that his plan to open a repair shop foundered. He was
drawn downtown by the excitement.
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
"Don't officials realize that we would not have any economic
development in Wanzhou without the porters?" Mr. Xiang asked.
Cai Shizhong, a taxi driver, was angered when the authorities created a
company to control taxi licenses, which he says cost him thousands of
dollars but brought no benefits. The police also fine taxi drivers left
and right, he said.
"If you drive a private car, they leave you alone because you might be
important," Mr. Cai said. "If you drive a taxi, they find any excuse to
take your money."
Peng Daosheng's home was flooded by the rising reservoir of the Three
Gorges Dam. He was supposed to receive $4,000 in compensation as well
as a new home. But his new apartment is smaller and less well located,
and the cash never arrived.
"The officials take all the money for themselves," said Mr. Peng, who
spent eight hours protesting that night. "I guess that's why that guy
had $2,500 to kill someone."
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
It took the police more than four hours to remove Mr. Hu and Mr. Yu
from the scene. The crowd surrounded police cars and refused to budge,
afraid the police would cover up the beating, and even punish Mr. Yu.
"People knew the matter would never be resolved fairly behind closed
doors," Mr. Yu said.
Even after the police formed a cordon around two cars - one for Mr. Hu
and his wife, another for Mr. Yu - the crowd smashed the windows of the
car carrying the couple. It was nearly 5 p.m. before the vehicles
crawled through the assembled masses.
A Loss of Control
The police may have hoped that removing the main actors from the scene
would defuse the tension. Instead, the crowd rampaged. At 6 p.m., a
police van was surrounded and the policeman inside was beaten with
bricks. Seven or eight people tipped the car over, stuffed toilet paper
into the gas tank and set it ablaze, according to witnesses and a
police report.
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
When a fire truck arrived, the fire fighters were forced out and their
truck commandeered. A driver smashed it into brick wall, then backed up
and repeated the move to render the truck immobile.
"They lost control at once," recalled Mr. Cai, the taxi driver, who
wandered through the crowd that day. "Suddenly the police were nobody
and the people were in charge."
The local government never published an estimate of how many people
took part in the protest. But unofficial estimates by Chinese
journalists on the scene ranged from 30,000 to 70,000, enough to stop
all traffic downtown and fill the government square.
By 8 p.m., the rally focused on the 20-story headquarters of the
Wanzhou District Government, with its blue-tinted windows and imposing
terrace facing the square. The crowd chanted, "Hand over the assassin!"
Riot-police officers in full protective gear - but carrying no guns -
held the terrace. Officials with loudspeakers urged the crowd to
disperse, promising that the incident would be handed according to law.
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
But the mob now followed its own law. An assembly line formed from a
nearby construction site. Concrete building slabs were ferried along
the line, then shattered with sledgehammers to make projectiles.
Front-line rioters hurled the rocks at the police - tentatively at
first, then in volleys.
Under the barrage, the police retreated. Protesters charged the
terrace, shattered the windows and doors of government headquarters and
surged inside.
Official documents were scattered. Protesters dumped computers and
office furniture off the terrace. Soon, a raging fire illuminated the
square with its flickering orange glow.
Li Jian, 22, took part in the plunder. A young peasant, he had found a
city job as a short-order cook. But he longed to study computers, said
his father, Li Wanfa. The family bought an old computer keyboard so the
young man could learn typing.
"He wanted to go to high school but the school said his cultural level
was not high enough," Mr. Li said. "They said a country boy like him
should be a cook."
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
The police arrested young Mr. Li scurrying through the melee with a
Legend-brand computer that belonged to the government, according to an
arrest notice.
Yet even at the height of the incident, rioters set limits. They did
not attack any of the restaurants or department stores along the
government square, focusing their wrath on symbols of official power.
By midnight, the crowd dwindled on its own. When paramilitary troops
finally arrived on the scene after 3 a.m., there were only a few
thousand hard-core protesters left.
"Most people went home," said Mr. Peng, the man whose home had been
flooded by the dam. "But the armed police were fierce. They beat you
even if you kneeled down before them."
The Tensions Persist
The local government praised its own handling of the riot. An
assessment published three days afterward in The Three Gorges City
News, the daily paper of the Wanzhou Communist Party, also declared the
uprising had no lasting ramifications.
"The district government displayed its strong governing ability at a
crucial moment," the report said. "This incident was caused by a
handful of agitators with ulterior motives who whipped up a street-side
dispute into a mass riot."
Views of Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city
The uprising did dissipate as quickly as it emerged. Baiyan Road now
bustles with afternoon shoppers. After work, dancers bundled against
the damp chill use government square as an outdoor ballroom, a
synthesized two-step beat filling the night air.
Yet the underlying tensions did not disappear.
When the Wan Min Cotton Textile Factory declared bankruptcy in
mid-December, scores of policemen occupied the factory grounds to
prevent a riot. The next day, a handful of workers from the factor went
to city hall to protest. Several hundred uniformed police surrounded
them.
Mr. Xiang, the auto mechanic, was arrested for throwing stones and
taken into custody. One day, returning from the cold showers inmates
were required to take in the unheated jail, guards told him to kneel.
One elbowed him in the back and several others kicked him in the gut.
As he lay prostrate, a prison supervisor said: "Nothing happened to you
here, did it? You're a smart kid."
He could not eat for two days.
"We were all brothers inside," he said of his fellow detainees. "The
officials despise the ordinary people and are not afraid to bully
them."
Then there's Mr. Yu. He missed the riot that occurred in his name, but
has been under pressure ever since. The government kept him isolated in
a hospital for nearly two weeks, even though bruises on his legs and
the stitches he needed above his eye had healed.
His daughter and son were told to take a vacation, paid by the
government, to avoid contact with the news media. "They told us not to
talk or it would hurt the city," Mr. Yu said in his first interview.
Yet he said what really shook him was the reaction to the statement he
made to Wanzhou television on Oct. 20, two days after the riot. The
government told him to appear - he was still under guard - and had
prepared questions in advance.
"They told me to emphasize the importance of law and order," he said.
"I was told just to answer the questions and not to say anything else."
What he said on the evening news sounded innocuous enough. "Let this be
handled by law," Mr. Yu told viewers. "Everyone should stay at home."
So he was unprepared for the backlash.
Relatives of those arrested criticized him for propagandizing for the
government, saying their kin felt betrayed. Neighbors warned him not to
plant rice this year because his enemies would just rip it out. His
wife says she wants to move because she has heard too many threats.
Mr. Yu is understandably confused.
"First an official tries to break my legs because I am a dirty porter,"
he said. "Now the common people want to break my legs because I spoke
for the government."
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