Unrest increases protests in China
BEIJING — In one of the largest demonstrations against China’s government in years, tens of thousands of farmers in southwestern areas of the country who were furious over plans to build a hydro-electric dam organized a protest movement that lasted more than a week, according to witnesses and foreign press accounts.
The first demonstration, in late October in Sichuan province, drew more than 70,000 people, while another one on Friday was said to involve at least 30,000 people. Two protesters were run down and killed by military vehicles, and at least one police officer was reported dead.
The government-controlled media was silent on the demonstrations, and local officials refused to confirm the incidents, making it difficult to get a complete picture of the violence.
In the last month there have been several major incidents of civil unrest in China, including a deadly riot in central Henan province between Chinese Muslims and ethnic Han over a traffic accident. That conflict left at least seven people dead and was quelled after the government declared martial law and sent in thousands of police and military.
The spate of incidents has drawn China observers into a debate over the scope of unrest and the question of whether the country could reach a tipping point in which public anger with the government coalesces into a national protest movement capable of challenging Beijing’s rule.
Over the last five to 10 years there has been an apparent explosion in the number and size of anti-government protests. According to a recent article by Murray Scot Tanner of the California-based Rand Corp., Chinese government statistics indicate the number of “mass incidents” jumped from 8,700 in 1993 to 32,000 in 1999 and has kept increasing. China Outlook magazine, published by the official Xinhua news agency, said that 3 million people participated in about 58,000 incidents of social unrest last year.
Few if any analysts see any immediate possibility of another national uprising like the 1989 democracy movement that led to the Tiananmen massacre, but the Hong Kong-based Sunday Morning Post said in an editorial that the recent spate of riots represented “warning signs” to the government that it needs to address issues of corruption and mistrust.
The apparent difference between 1989 and today is that almost every demonstration that takes place in China is motivated by a specific, local incident rather than a broad challenge to the central government’s legitimacy. The government also takes a very different approach to dealing with unrest today: It stamps out protests as quickly as it finds them.
Except in the largest, most volatile situations, the government’s approach is to monitor protests and allow them to end peacefully. It reacts later, in some cases addressing the complainants’ issues, but almost always aggressively prosecuting the organizers to send a message that more demonstrations will not be tolerated.