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It all began with a protest over illegal land sales and rigged elections. According to the investigative Chinese journal Caixin,
the local government in Wukan village in southern Guangdong province
had earned over 700 million yuan (roughly US$110 million) from selling
collectively-owned farmland but it disbursed only 550 yuan (roughly
US$86) to each villager. Moreover, the highly unpopular village party
secretary and director had rigged the local elections, managing to hold
on to power for 40 years as a result. The villagers had been unhappy
about the situation for a number of years and have complained by
petition since 2009. However, there was no resolution until they finally
took to the streets in September.
The good news is that by late
November after a few months of protest — some of it violent — the villagers
succeeded in ousting the two village leaders. The Chinese media argued
at the time that Guangdong, under Party Secretary Wang Yang (a candidate
for the Standing Committee of the Politburo in the 2012-2013 leadership
transition), was pursuing a new approach to social unrest, one that tried to “balance maintaining stability and basic rights while helping people to express their needs.”
The
bad news is that the balance still isn’t quite right. In recent days,
the Wukan villagers have seized control of the village, demonstrating
against the alleged cover-up of police brutality that led to the death
on December 11 of Xue Jinbo, a demonstration leader. The Chinese media
have also gone dark. There is no more talk about the new way of handling
protests. On December 14, the acting mayor of Shanwei City Wu Zili said
that in regards to organizations planning to “incite trouble,” the
government is determined to crack down on the destruction of public
property and the obstruction of official business. The local government
is now trying to starve the villagers out by setting up five roadblocks
with guards all around the village to prevent food and other resources
from coming in and workers from leaving.
Eventually the siege
will end but the fundamental challenge to Beijing will not. Every year,
despite the country’s impressive economic growth, the number of protests
grows. By one estimate,
Beijing now contends with 180,000 so-called “mass incidents”. The why
of these protests is no mystery: the lack of the rule of law,
transparency, and official accountability. These are the structural
elements that define the country’s political system and allow corruption
to flourish. In the Wukan case, the villagers are protesting corruption
in both land sales and the electoral process. Whether the protests are
over these issues or the environment or defective products, the root
cause is the same.
Beijing’s take away from the Wukan protest
probably won’t be much more than “It’s time to launch another
[ineffective] anti-corruption campaign.” The real take away, however, is
that it is time to listen to what Premier Wen Jiabao had to say a few months ago
in Dalian: “We must govern the country by law … We need to uphold
judicial justice … People’s democratic rights and interests prescribed
in the Constitution must be protected. The most important ones are the
right to vote and to stay informed about, participate in, and oversee
government affairs.” Put more bluntly, if the 5th generation of Party
leaders doesn’t listen to Wen and seize the initiative on political
reform, it is looking more and more likely that the Chinese people will.
This article originally appeared at CFR.org, an Atlantic partner site.
