Anarchy in China

[crispini]

This is a Guardian article, via Salon:

April 15, 2005 | HUANKANTOU, China -- There is a strange new sightseeing attraction in this normally sleepy corner of the Chinese countryside: smashed police cars, rows of trashed buses and dented riot helmets. They are the trophies of a battle in which peasants scored a rare and bloody victory against the Communist authorities, who face one of the most serious popular challenges to their rule in recent years.

In driving off more than 1,000 riot police at the start of the week, Huankantou village in Zhejiang province is at the crest of a wave of anarchy that has seen millions of impoverished farmers block roads and launch protests against official corruption, environmental destruction and the growing gap between urban wealth and rural poverty. China's media have been forbidden to report on the government's loss of control, but word is spreading quickly to nearby towns and cities. Tens of thousands of sightseers and well-wishers are flocking every day to see the village that beat the police.

But the consequences for Huankantou are far from clear. Having put more than 30 police in the hospital, five critically, the 10,000 residents should be bracing for a backlash. Instead, the mood is euphoric. Children have not been to school since Sunday's clash. There are roadblocks outside the chemical factory that was the origin of the dispute. Late at night the streets are full of gawking tourists, marshaled around the battleground by proud locals who bellow chaotic instructions through loudspeakers. ...

More...


(Salon link) http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/15/china_protests/index.html

Afraid I can't find the Guardian original -- dunno if content has been repackaged for Salon or what. :shrug:

Anyway, it's a really interesting article. This quote totally blew me away:

"The Communists are even worse than the Japanese," said one man.

When I lived in China -- which was over 10 years ago -- it was already common knowledge that much of the gvm't was very corrupt and very not much in favor of the common citizen. I really wonder which way China will go as it continues to industrialize? This occurence fascinates me. An early harbinger of change to come or an isolated incident?

[Kagemusha]

1. It's only been coming for the last 20 years.

Amazing it took this long. Or maybe it just took until instant messaging to become common.

[Filius Nullius]

2. "Thousands march in Chinese demonstrations: Protestors upset..."

"...with WWII history in Japanese textbooks"

The way CNN.com and other members of the mainstream media are handling the story about Chinese-Japanese tensions makes it seem that it is all about righteous Chinese indignation over revisionist Japanese history textbooks. It is not. The textbooks are a pretext for China's true intentions, which are quite sinister.

The report barely mentions the dispute over drilling in the East China Sea. This is the real reason for the bellicose chest pounding in China. They are trying to intimidate the Japanese into allowing themselves to be "whipstocked," as they say in the oil and gas industry. By drilling at an angle into the natural gas deposits that lie under the portion of the East China Sea controlled by Japan in accordance with international law, the Chinese can use what amounts to a "long straw" to suck out Japanese natural gas reserves.

This is why the Chinese have refused Japanese requests to see the records of exploratory drilling by the Chinese in the ocean floor between the two countries. When the Japanese announced they would drill their own exploratory wells, the Chinese government arranged these demonstrations as a non-too-subtle means of threatening their neighbor.

Buried in the last paragraph in the main story is a chilling quote from a marcher that makes it clear that this is all about a different kind of state-sponsored terrorism, one of which the world has not seen the likes since Hitler was permitted to march unopposed into the Sudetenland and take over the coal deposits there:

"'The Chinese people are angry,' said one marcher, Michael Teng, a graduate student at Donghua University. 'We will play along with Japan and smile nicely at them, but they have to know they have a large, angry neighbor.'"

As we approach what some experts believe is the time of “peak oil,” i.e., the crest of the petroleum/natural gas supply curve, could we be seeing some of the warning signs of the disputes that will inevitably arise around the globe as countries vie over dwindling oil and gas supplies?

[Toby109]

4. Slant-drilling, eh?

Now where have I heard THAT before? A hundred years from now history will call these the Oil Wars starting with the Iran/Iraq war. So that would be Oil War I. Currently we are only at Oil War IV. Expect many more coming soon to a theater near you.

[gizmo1979]

3. I also read in the USA today

that China is suffering a labor shortage,because alot of the people are going back to farming because the pay is better.Through their own grapevine it seems the workers now know who pays what and who abuses their workers.So the owners are having to raise wages and offer incentives to lure workers.I thought this was a great sign that China will start going through major changes and soon.