Teaching Comparative

Violent protest in China

Protests in China are not confined to rural peasants unhappy with land use. The last paragraph probably explains why there have been no arrests.

Q+A-Chinese steel executive killed by protestors

Last week, an executive at a private Chinese conglomerate named to manage the takeover of state-owned Tonghua Steel was beaten, kicked and finally thrown down some stairs to his death...

Up to 30,000 workers kept riot police at bay for nearly a day with bricks. About 100 people were injured...

Workers were angry that Chen was paid about three million yuan ($440,000) last year, while Tonghua's retired workers received as little as 200 yuan a month, the group said.

State media said they feared the workforce would be trimmed to 5,000 people.

The government has announced the privatisation deal is now off. It will probably try to find funds to pay off the workers to ensure there is no repetition of the violence.

No arrests have been announced by state media. Police would not comment...

Recently, discontent over inequality and unemployment amid the economic downturn has exacerbated existing social frustration in China, with many cases of riots by angry citizens.

China's three northeastern provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning are often referred to as the "rustbelt" -- once a hub of heavy industry with massive state-run firms, but which have been left behind by the country's economic boom.

Some of these companies were so large and bloated they employed either directly or indirectly entire towns or parts of cities. They ran their own schools, hospitals and newspapers and provided cradle-to-grave care for workers and their families.

Now millions of people have been laid off from these behemoths, with little hope of finding new jobs and having to live off meagre or non-existent pensions or social security...

China is the world's top producer and consumer of steel. the official policy is to force the mammoth steel sector to slim down and consolidate.

But many top-down mergers have met with resistance from local bosses wanting to keep their fiefdoms and local governments anxious to preserve their tax revenue and avoid dealing with thousands of layoffs.

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Labels: China, economics, participation

posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:34 AM