AFTER DAYS of destabilising protests over land grabs, local government officials in a southern Chinese town have promised an investigation into the sale of farmland for property development.
Hundreds of villagers in Wukan in Guangdong province overturned cars, laid siege to government buildings and clashed with police on Wednesday and Thursday last week before settling into a stand-off for two more days.
The protests marked the latest challenge to the authority of the Communist Party in China. The protesters focused their anger on the local government, and an angry mob attacked public buildings including the headquarters of the local Communist Party and a police station.
There have been various high-profile outbreaks of public anger against the government this year, ranging from demonstrations against a chemical plant in Dalian and complaints about Beijing’s handling of the Wenzhou rail crash to reaction to anti-authoritarian action in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, in the city of Zengcheng, also in Guangdong, thousands of angry migrant workers rioted over the alleged maltreatment of a female worker, burning government offices and smashing police cars.
Local officials from Shanwei city, which has administrative responsibility for Wukan, struck a compromise with leaders from the village on Saturday, the Southern Dailynewspaper reported.
The Chinese government owns all the land in China, but local governments can decide how land is parcelled out, and land grabs have been a catalyst in breeding dissent.
The protests were sparked by the seizure of hectares of land and their sale to property developer Country Garden for one billion yuan (€120 million), local media reported.
Guangdong province lies at the heart of the Pearl Delta, the engine of China’s economic boom, which produces almost one-third of the country’s products for export.
In this province, which has a dense population of 100 million, demand for land to build factories and housing has led to a sharp increase in the cost of real estate.
Unscrupulous local governments have forced farmers off their land or allowed the construction of factories in residential areas, prompting an increase in land disputes in the area.
By some reckonings, last year there were 280,000 so-called “mass incidents”, including petitions, demonstrations and strikes, both peaceful and violent, in China.
In many cases they were believed to be linked to anger over corruption and other forms of abuse of power such as illegal land seizures.