Social Unrest a Growing Problem
PM - Thursday, 7 July , 2005  18:52:16

For Audio Broadcast:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1409542.htm

Reporter: John Taylor

PETER CAVE: The founder of modern China, Mao Zedong advocated peasant revolution over land, but a new outbreak of public unrest between peasants and local authorities has Mao's successors worried.

Almost everyday reports are filtering through of incidents despite an overwhelming silence by the official media.

In eastern China, up to 20,000 villagers were involved in a battle with thousands of police trying to break up a protest outside an industrial park.

And, as our China Correspondent John Taylor reports, there was another incident on the weekend. This time in the southern Guangdong Province involving thousands of farmers angered by a Government-backed land grab.

JOHN TAYLOR: Within the last year there has been at least seven major riots in China. Martial law has been declared in a number of areas. Thousands of police along with regular and paramilitary People’s Liberation Army troops have been mobilized to restore order. Property has been destroyed; people hurt, and even tear gas and rubber bullets used.

Civil unrest is threatening the Communist Party’s rule over China.

Only last weekend thousands of farmers in Southern Guangdong province demonstrated against a Government-backed land grab. Clashes erupted after police detained some protesters.

Hou Wenzhuo from the independent Chinese organisation, the Empowerment and Rights Institute, witnessed some of the violence.

HOU WENZHUO: People were protesting and there was some clash between the people and the police. So several people were beaten up and one woman was beaten up very severely. Her name was Sou Sin-Chen (phonetic), and the police beat her up and kicked her and knocked her down on the ground, and stabbed her even on her body.

JOHN TAYLOR: China’s Government-controlled media gives little or no coverage to incidents like this, but the Government admits social unrest is a growing problem.

The Communist Party magazine Outlook reported that in 2003 about 58,000 major incidents of social unrest happened – an average of 160 per day. That was an increase of 15 per cent on the year before.

There’s plenty of fuel for social unrest.

Poverty is widespread, as is anger of corruption and Government transparency. Then there are mass lay-offs, workplace disputes, concern over industrial pollution, police brutality, unpaid wages. As China’s economy opens up to the world and investment booms, land is also needed.

Hou Wenzhuo says there is great anger in rural China particularly about land requisitions. People are alleging everything from corruption, to inadequate consultation and compensation.

HOU WENZHOU: You know, land is getting so hot. You know, development is getting so crazy in China, land acquisition's going through an uncontrollable degree.

JOHN TAYLOR: And it's causing considerable social unrest.

HOU WENZHOU: Absolutely. We have collated about over 2,000 different cases and different type of violations, and about half of them - about 1,000 cases – involving all sorts of land disputes.

Late last year, the Communist Party urged officials to improve governance, warning that the life and death of the party was at stake.

A senior Communist agricultural official this week told Hong Kong media that protests were inevitable as the country undergoes huge changes, and he said bloody riots were a sign of democracy, with farmers seeking to protect their rights.

PETER CAVE: John Taylor reporting from Beijing.

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