Tense Standoff in China

A breaking story out of China about a tense standoff is making some news reports around the world. Apparently this has been going on for about a week and has been reported for the last two days.

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From the BBC

A Chinese village where at least three people were shot dead by police in 2005 during a land protest has again become the scene of angry unrest.

Residents of Dongzhou in southern Guangdong province are reported to have taken eight local officials hostage after a villager was detained.

Tensions mounted after police and anti-riot troops were deployed, residents told Reuters news agency.

The latest protest was sparked by the detention last week of villager Chen Qian, who was hanging up anti-corruption posters when he was taken into custody, according to Radio Free Asia.

"The villagers grabbed eight government officials and have kept them locked the temple for seven days," a Dongzhou resident told Reuters.

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From The Standard - Hong Kong English Version

Dongzhou police and officials in Shanwei did not answer phone calls or comment.

Dongzhou gained notoriety in December last year after police and troops fired on locals in a violent standoff over the construction of a coal- fired power station.

Some reports at the time said dozens of protesters may have died, but the government said only three were killed - a number confirmed by residents, including kin of the dead.

Read more here...

From Same Article - Interesting Stat
Police dealt with 17,900 "mass incidents" from January to September - a fall of 22.1 percent on the same period last year.

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Even more interesting then the statistic above is this map and excerpt for the Asia Times below it.



Map Of Violence in China


Asia Times - Government officials were shocked when a traffic incident erupted into pitched street battles between majority Han Chinese and ethic Muslims in a small village in Henan, an impoverished province in east-central China. The government put the number of people killed at seven, with 42 injured. The New York Times, quoting unnamed local sources, said that some 148 people were killed in the disturbance, including 18 policemen.

The incident was just the latest in a string of protests that have taken place in recent weeks around China, and that have deeply worried central government leaders.


Read on...

In October, as many as 50,000 demonstrators lined up in front of government offices in a small town in Sichuan province and set a police van on fire to protest the beating of a migrant worker, allegedly by a government official. Ten days later, in Hanyuan county, also in Sichuan, an estimated 100,000 farmers stormed a government building and battled police over land lost to a dam project and what they called inadequate compensation. Order was not restored until martial law was declared and paramilitary forces were scrambled to the scene.

And more...

Outlook Weekly, a Communist Party mouthpiece, reported recently that China experienced more than 58,000 major incidents of social unrest in 2003 - up 15% from a year earlier - with more than 3 million people taking part in the protests.

Yes, even more...

On October 29, hundreds of heavily equipped security forces imposed a curfew on university campuses in Inner Mongolia after a planned concert by a popular Mongolian rock band was canceled, according to the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center in New York.

And when security guards this month stopped Uighur Muslims in Guangzhou selling fried mutton from a street mall, fighting erupted between riot police and angry Uighurs, leaving several people injured.

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I'll ask the question forming in your head as you read this article, "Why aren't we hearing more about this unrest in China?" I thought this was the new land of milk and honey...and of course Walmart.