[Editor’s Introduction: This Special CRM focuses on an often overlooked area of China studies: “grassroots” China. Today China’s rural areas are suffering from the effects of policies that place economic growth above social welfare. While this CRM does highlight ongoing problems in Chinese society, its numerous references to official media coverage of these events also suggest a surprising willingness of the state media to address challenges like pollution and forced relocation.]
July 10:
Two conflicting stories have arisen out of a dispute over relocation due to pollution emanating from a tungsten mine in northeastern Dongxia, Jiangxi province. According to residents, at least two villagers died after thousands clashed with hundreds of police and government officials. Mainland authorities have denied the deaths. In 2003 China Minmetals Corporation bought a tungsten mine close to Dongxia and pollution from the mine forced villagers to move. Villagers claim they have been paid only 2500 yuan in compensation, but the local government said it offered more than 20 million yuan to help 66 village households relocate.
According to the official Zhongguo Xinwen She’s version of events, about 100 residents of Dongxia stormed a government building protesting evacuation of their homes. Several police and government officials were injured and vehicles damaged but there were no reports on the number of residents hurt or detained. Earlier in the day, villagers had set out for Beijing in 12 buses to submit a petition to central government authorities but police stopped them. Some became angry and blocked the road, while others threw bricks at police. Another crowd gathered that evening and tried to storm the township government building. Windows and office equipment were broken and police vehicles damaged, but, said the official version, the riot was quickly brought under control.
Villagers tell a different story, according to the South China Morning Post. They claim to have protested several times this year about pollution emanating from nearby tungsten mines. In response, more than 300 armed police stopped all vehicles leaving the town, beating unarmed villagers who tried to break through the blockade. Internet posts, which include photos showing a large crowd protesting in front of the government building, claimed at least two were killed and dozens detained when angry residents responded by stormed the government office that night.
July 13:
Abuses at China’s “re-education through labor” camps have led to an unprecedented open debate in the official Beijing News newspaper about whether they should be closed. Inmates have been imprisoned at the camps for a maximum of four years without trial, shackled upside down, electrocuted and forced to work when sick. While 5-10% of the detainees are political prisoners, the camps are commonly used for drug addicts, street hawkers, prostitutes and pickpockets. In an editorial, Yu Jianrong, a legal scholar and a key advisor to the China’s government, called for the camps to be closed. “The system has already seen its day. From its establishment until before the Cultural Revolution, re-education through labor was ‘a tool of political struggle.’ After reform and opening, it became a 'method of social management.’ But its fundamental nature has not changed. It is still a method of social control outside of judicial procedure,” Yu wrote. Jiang Mingan, a professor of law at Peking University, opposed Yu arguing that it was essential that China retain a system where small-time troublemakers could be punished without recourse to the courts, the London Telegraph reports.
July 14:
More than 100 people have been injured in clashes between thousands of Zhaung ethnic minority villagers and hundreds of Han Chinese. The Shandong Xinfa Aluminium Co. is accused of a land grab and the Zhanug accuse the Han, who the company brought in to work its mines, of polluting sources of drinking water throughout Jinxi, Guangxi. The violence erupted when hundreds of Han workers attacked Zhuang villagers holding up banners calling for “Shandong Xinfa to return to Jinxi our clean river.” Thousands of Zhaung villagers counterattacked with makeshift weapons in the following days, smashing the company office and damaging cars including police and military vehicles. More than 1,000 anti-riot police officers were deployed but thousands of villagers from nearby cities and villages have continued to protest. Staff at the Guangxi government office told Kyodo News that only about five people were injured and the crowd has dispersed.
July 15:
In an expose entitled “Mine pollution ravages farmland,” reporters at the official China Daily have identified heavy metal pollution from the Dabaoshan Mine in Shaoguan, Guangdong as the cause of cancer and the destruction of large swaths of farmland. The mine, which produces 6,000 tons of copper and 850,000 tons of iron ore annually, also produces “a growing amount of sludge and wastewater that has contaminated some 585 hectares along the lower sections of the Hengshui River running atop the mountain.” Mining for iron ore exposes naturally occurring arsenic and cadmium, both carcinogens. Plus, in response farmers spray an “ever-increasing amounts of pesticides daily to fend off erosion [sic].” Since 1987, the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences has recorded more than 250 cancer-related deaths associated with soil pollution in Shangbai village at the foot of the mine. A decade ago, 0.06 hectares of farmland area there yielded about 350 kg of rice, now that area produces less than 100 kg.
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