Revolution Watch / China

The first of two detailed reports in the New York Times. First, the macro view:

BEIJING, Jan. 19 – Chinese took to the streets to protest land seizures, corruption, pollution and unpaid wages in record numbers in 2005, the national police said Thursday, with mass incidents that involved violent confrontations or attacks on government property surging at the fastest rate.

The number of “public order disturbances” rose 6.6 percent last year, to 87,000. Mass protests that involved “disturbing social order” jumped 13 percent, while those that “interfered with government functions” surged 19 percent, the Public Security Bureau, the national police, told Chinese reporters at a news conference on Thursday that was reported by the New China News Agency.
. . . .

Unrest has worsened especially quickly in the last several years because the government has seized millions of acres of rural land, which peasants can farm but not own, to make way for factories and real estate developments. Compensation is very low and many peasants say they have no choice but to protest to win attention for their claims.

The scale of unrest is extraordinary for any country in peacetime, with an average of 240 incidents each day. In 2004, when the country had 74,000 recorded protest events, 3.76 million people were involved, the police said. They were no figures provided for the total number of protesters in 2005.

Now, the close-in view from the Chinese “everytown” of Panlong, scene of last week’s protest, at which police killed a 13 year-old girl.

[A]s evening approaches the streets fall eerily quiet, and if you look carefully at the cars that drive by every few minutes you see that they are filled with police officers, both uniformed and, unmistakably, plainclothes. Track down a resident, if you can find one, and that impression is confirmed.

“You’d better be gone before dark,” one man told a stranger. “Pretty soon the police will be everywhere, and no one will dare go outside.”

As I guessed here, the government’s efforts to cover up its brutality aren’t working. Most Panlong residents knew about last month’s Dongzhou massacre, where the Times now reports that up to 30 villagers were killed. The reporter sees a consistent pattern:

The strands that come together in Panlong are so typical of rural protests as to be very nearly generic.

There are small people dispossessed of their land to make way for industries or development projects.

There are fruitless efforts to seek help, from city hall to the provincial administration and all the way to the capital. There is environmental destruction on a huge scale and the loss of long-held livelihoods.

When a spark ignites the people’s discontent, there are police state tactics to suppress the protests and enforce a silence over the details. Ultimately there are brass knuckles, jail and, lately, death for those who refuse to take the hint and desist.

The result is mismatched battles with police and their electric cattle prods against villagers armed with fireworks, and citizens arrested, beaten, or forced to spend long days under house arrest. When the results are fatal, families are offered a mixture of large payments and dire threats to hand over the bodies of their loved ones for speedy cremation, and to conceal the true cause of death. A heart attack, after all, isn’t a typical cause of death for a 13 year-old girl. What would make anyone confront such a brutal regime?

As with so many recent rural protests, Panlong’s problems began with land. Many villagers told stories of having been deceived by corrupt local officials who they said had enriched themselves by selling off rights to the villagers’ farmland.

“Two years back, one day some villagers were asked to attend a routine meeting,” said a 42-year-old farmer who gave his name as Fang. “They went and they paid 10 yuan for participation fees, and they signed in as usual. Later, when we discovered our land was being sold, we asked the village committee to explain what’s going on, and they answered that we had signed the contract. Suddenly we remembered that meeting, and everyone understood that we had already been cheated.”

Great reporting. Both articles, particularly the second of these, are must-reads.