From the Washington Post comes news of what may be the return of people power in China:
SANZHOU, China — For 24 hours, thousands of rampaging farmers here unleashed their rage over confiscated farmland this month — holding local officials hostage and, clubs and bottles of acid in hand, forcing a band of private security guards to spend the night cowering behind locked doors.
The riot in many ways resembled other uprisings in rural China in recent years. But this one ended with a twist: The villagers won significant concessions.
By dusk on June 14, the villagers had agreed to let everyone go home — or to the hospital for treatment — and officials had pledged a high-level review of 750 acres of rice paddies and fish ponds, property that had been confiscated by the village committee and resold for development in what the villagers said was a corrupt transaction.
Moreover, the villagers said, they were promised an explanation of how the 200 private guards, many with buzz cuts and tattoos typical of Chinese gangsters, came to be in Sanzhou protecting a multistory apartment complex built on a prime piece of the confiscated farmland.
And it appears that the farmer’s have had an impact:
President Hu Jintao’s government, in an indication of concern about the unrest among suddenly landless farmers, has launched a campaign to preserve the fields and paddies that feed China’s 1.3 billion people. In addition, it has allocated $42.5 billion to improving the lives of the 700 million Chinese still attached to the land and filled official propaganda with stories of Communist Party cadres out in the countryside solving problems for grateful farmers.
Despite the two-day riot here, the first signs have emerged that the campaign may be having an effect. Although party censorship makes information in China hard to assess, reports of violent protests in farming villages have declined sharply over the past six months. This marks a significant shift from 2004-05, when clashes between farmers and police escalated dramatically. The Public Security Ministry reported 84,000 violent protests in 2005, more than 200 a day.
The government has also become increasingly frank about the corruption that often accompanies land seizures, outraging farmers and corroding their willingness to abide by official decisions. Sun Wensheng, minister of land and resources, told reporters Friday that more than a third of land confiscations involve illegal action on the part of local party and government officials.
Maybe we need a little Chinese-style people power here in the United States.
