Massive riot in northwestern China

John M. Glionna, Los Angels Times, 11/18/08

Thousands, angered over a plan to raze a city center,

burn cars and battle police with rocks, iron bars and axes. A

Communist office is overrun and 60 officials are injured.

Reporting from Beijing -- An angry crowd of 2,000 rioted in

northwest China's Gansu province over a government

plan to demolish a downtown area, torching cars and

attacking a local Communist Party office, injuring 60

officials, state-run media reported Tuesday.

At one point, rioters met a surging wall of armed police

officers with a hail of rocks, bricks, bottles and flowerpots.

The crowd later confronted police with iron bars, axes and

hoes as they tried to hijack a fire truck and smashed

windows and office equipment in two government

buildings.

The violence, one of the most marked instances of social

unrest to grip China in recent months, was sparked by

government plans to relocate the city of Longnan's

administrative center after May's devastating earthquake,

according to the Xinhua news agency.

State-run press has reported on numerous pickets and

demonstrations that have broken out across China in

recent weeks, including a two-day strike by disgruntled

taxi drivers in the southwestern Chinese city of

Chongqing.

Earlier this month, a crowd of 400 in the southern

boomtown of Zhenzhen threw stones and set fire to a

police car after officers tried to stop a motorcyclist at a

checkpoint. The cyclist fled and was killed when he hit a

lamppost.

In June, 30,000 people demonstrated in the southwestern

province of Guizhou, setting fire to cars and the local

Communist Party building following rumors that officials

had tried to cover up the death of a teenage girl.

Activists warn that tensions over the sudden downturn in

the Chinese economy could provoke similar public

outbursts, even though police have made efforts not to

immediately resort to violence in quelling the riots.

"The government's emphasis on maintaining a harmonious

society just extenuates the levels to which it is worried

about these kinds of threats to social stability," said

Joshua Rosenzweig, a Hong Kong manager of research

at the Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights group.

"I don't think we're even close to seeing the real impact of

the global financial crisis on Chinese society. I'd be

surprised if the government wasn't very concerned about

the increasing level of social unrest all over China."

Chinese economists say that rising wages throughout

China have led many laborers to expect better working

conditions and residents to demand more accountable

government. "The local government has become the front

line of conflict," said Hu Xingdou, an economics professor

at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

"But there is no channel to allow people to express their

will. They lack the right to speak, the right to organize and

unionize to represent their interest, therefore they can

only use an irrational way by demonstrating or rioting to

solve problems."

But government officials have recently began to forego a

decades-old policy of swift repression to meet public

demonstrations. Following a two-day strike, Chongqing

taxi drivers were able to air their grievances in a three-

hour meeting with government officials that was available

online across China.

And officials in Zhenzhen moved quickly to counteract

claims of police violence following the motorcyclist's death

-- promising compensation of nearly $30,000 to the

victim's family.

"In these cases, as well as labor and factory strikes, the

government policy now seems to involve much less police

response," said Rosenzweig. "Fewer labor leaders have

been detained and prosecuted for criminal offenses. There's much more emphasis on trying to mediate

disputes."

The melee in Longnan began when about 30 angry

residents gathered Monday outside the party office, but

the crowd soon swelled into the thousands, Xinhua

reported.

He Zhouwa, manager of a local machine brick factory,

said people were ready to use any means possible to

stop the government plan to relocate the city center.

"People are still at the municipal party office compound,"

he said late Tuesday. "I did not dare to go there, but

everyone is talking about this. There were hundreds of

petitioners there last night and this morning."

A Longnan city government statement said the protesters,

many of whom had come to petition government officials

over the loss of their homes and land, were "incited by a

few people with ulterior motives."