Urban protests too
For years, many farmers in rural China have staged protests — sometimes violent — against government policies, high-handed administration, and continued poverty down on the farms. But most of them have taken place far away from non-Chinese reporters and cameras. What happens when the protests take place in an urban environment where Western reporters are close enough to describe and photograph protesters and police responses? (Well, the official news agency knows nothing about any protests and online reports have quickly disappeared.)Chinese truck drivers protest against rising fuel prices
Chinese police have clamped down on a protest by hundreds of truck drivers upset over rising fees and fuel prices.
Truckers blockaded a dock in the eastern Pudong district of Shanghai – China's busiest port city – on Wednesday, according to a logistics company employee…
The protest comes as China's communist leaders try to defuse mounting public frustration over inflation that spiked to a 32-month high of 5.4% in March, driven by an 11.7% jump in food costs…
Authorities reacted quickly to the Shanghai truckers' protest, deploying police and removing accounts of the unrest from Chinese websites…
Employees who answered the phone in the government press offices in Baoshan and Pudong and at the Shanghai city hall said they had no information on the protests or the arrests described by the trucking company owner…
The protest reflects the growing tensions over the gulf between China's tiny elite and its poor majority. Incomes are rising, but inflation is squeezing families and small businesspeople such as self-employed truckers, while profits at major state-owned companies are at record highs.
Higher costs have also hit farmers. In eastern China's Shandong province this month a 39-year-old farmer hanged himself because he could not sell his six-acre cabbage crop and had no way to take care of his family, state media said…
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Labels: China, civil society, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:11 AM
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