Anarchy in China as Officials and Cops Beat Retreat from Village
Infantile Disorder | 15.12.2011 15:45 | Free Spaces | Social Struggles
Wukan, a village in the south-eastern corner of China, is currently being controlled and administered by its citizens, after Communist Party government officials and police were forced out of the area this week. This amazing situation followed clashes over privatisation of communal land - which threatened many with destitution - and the apparent state murder of one of the resistance movement's delegates.
This is what democracy looks like: the new rulers of Wukan rallied on Tuesday
The dispute began in September, when suspicions were raised that the local government was selling-off common land used for farming without compensation, to Country Garden - a company specialising in "high end residential property". On the 21st, hundreds of villagers non-violently demonstrated outside nearby Communist Party offices. As the crowds grew, protesters started blocking roads and attacking buildings in an adjacent industrial park. Three villagers were arrested, and the next day more than a hundred besieged the police station, demanding their release. The state reacted with ferocity, with police and mercenaries attacking community members - including children and the elderly.
Eventually police withdrew, and the government made reconciliatory noises. But this supposed truce ended violently on 11th December, with the death of Xue Jinbo. Xue was one of thirteen delegates elected by the resistance in September. According to his son-in-law Gao, Xue's "knees were bruised, his nostrils were caked with blood and his thumbs appeared to be broken." According to the state news agency Xinhua, Xue had died of a cardiac arrest, but if that is true, it clearly happened in the context of a brutal police assault.
This time, the residents stormed the police station, using overwhelming force. Police retreated to a roadblock a few miles away, and Communist officials fled in fear of their lives. As of today, the roadblock is still in force, and the town's food supplies are estimated at just over a week. But political decisions are being made collectively by the whole village.
According to a Daily Telegraph report, Tuesday saw:
"Thousands of Wukan’s residents, incensed at the death of one of their leaders in police custody, gathered for a second day in front of a triple-roofed pagoda that serves as the village hall. For five hours they sat on long benches, chanting, punching the air in unison and working themselves into a fury. At the end of the day, a fifteen minute period of mourning for their fallen villager saw the crowd convulsed in sobs and wailing for revenge against the local government. “Return the body! Return our brother! Return our farmland! Wukan has been wronged! Blood debt must be paid! Where is justice?” the crowd screamed out."
The Wukan story is currently being heavily censored by the 'great firewall of China', but tech savvy hackers on proxy servers will be spreading the world around the massive nation. In recent weeks, more industrialised areas have seen a new wave of worker rebellion - as multinational companies hit by a collapse in export demand from the richest countries seek to further increase the rate of factory exploitation.
Though China weathered this depression's first wave of economic collapse by artificially stimulating the economy, falling working class living standards in the US and Europe are now impacting on conditions in the 'sweatshop of the world'. A revolutionary upsurge in China next year would make the Arab spring look like a storm in a teacup, and would also have a huge influence on the direction of class struggles around the globe.
Eventually police withdrew, and the government made reconciliatory noises. But this supposed truce ended violently on 11th December, with the death of Xue Jinbo. Xue was one of thirteen delegates elected by the resistance in September. According to his son-in-law Gao, Xue's "knees were bruised, his nostrils were caked with blood and his thumbs appeared to be broken." According to the state news agency Xinhua, Xue had died of a cardiac arrest, but if that is true, it clearly happened in the context of a brutal police assault.
This time, the residents stormed the police station, using overwhelming force. Police retreated to a roadblock a few miles away, and Communist officials fled in fear of their lives. As of today, the roadblock is still in force, and the town's food supplies are estimated at just over a week. But political decisions are being made collectively by the whole village.
According to a Daily Telegraph report, Tuesday saw:
"Thousands of Wukan’s residents, incensed at the death of one of their leaders in police custody, gathered for a second day in front of a triple-roofed pagoda that serves as the village hall. For five hours they sat on long benches, chanting, punching the air in unison and working themselves into a fury. At the end of the day, a fifteen minute period of mourning for their fallen villager saw the crowd convulsed in sobs and wailing for revenge against the local government. “Return the body! Return our brother! Return our farmland! Wukan has been wronged! Blood debt must be paid! Where is justice?” the crowd screamed out."
The Wukan story is currently being heavily censored by the 'great firewall of China', but tech savvy hackers on proxy servers will be spreading the world around the massive nation. In recent weeks, more industrialised areas have seen a new wave of worker rebellion - as multinational companies hit by a collapse in export demand from the richest countries seek to further increase the rate of factory exploitation.
Though China weathered this depression's first wave of economic collapse by artificially stimulating the economy, falling working class living standards in the US and Europe are now impacting on conditions in the 'sweatshop of the world'. A revolutionary upsurge in China next year would make the Arab spring look like a storm in a teacup, and would also have a huge influence on the direction of class struggles around the globe.
Infantile Disorder
Homepage:
http://infantile-disorder.blogspot.com/
Comments
Hide the following comment
running scared
16.12.2011 12:06
China has ordered internet microblogs to require users to register with their real names, tightening rules in a bid to control its fast growing social networks.
An announcement posted online said all microblog companies registered in Beijing had to enforce real name registration within three months.
The rules, jointly issued by the government, police and internet management office, apparently apply to all 250 million users of the hugely popular Twitter-like service Weibo.com, regardless of location, because its operator, Chinese web portal Sina Corp, has its headquarters in Beijing.
Sina rival Tencent Holdings is based in the southern city of Shenzhen.
It was not immediately clear whether the company's microblog service would have to comply with the same rules.
China had more than 485 million internet users as of the end of June, the most of any country.
Government officials warned in October that tighter new guidelines for social media sites were coming.
Officials said then they were concerned about people using the internet to spread lies and rumours. But the government is also clearly worried about the use of Weibo and other sites to mobilise potentially destabilising protest movements.
The new rules explicitly forbid use of microblogging to "incite illegal assembly". Public protests are illegal in China and are a concern for the Communist leadership.
Microblogs helped mobilise 12,000 people in the north-eastern city of Dalian to successfully demand the relocation of a petrochemical factory and served as an outlet for public anger after a crash on the showcase high-speed rail system in which at least 40 people died.
They also have given a national platform to a handful of independent candidates who have run this year for local councils.
China blocked Twitter and Facebook after they were instrumental in anti-government protests in Iran two years ago, and instead encouraged homegrown alternatives in the apparent belief that domestic companies would be more responsive to government demands.
x