Police fired teargas to break up demonstrations today over a proposed power plant in a southern China town, where protests have escalated into clashes with police this week and officials tried to calm tempers by suspending the project.
Riot police were out in force and blocking entrances to Haimen town, aiming teargas canisters at lines of protesters on motorbikes to quell the latest outbreak of unrest in the southern province of Guangdong, an economic powerhouse.
Haimen, a coastal town of about 120,000 people, is about 130km east of the village of Wukan, where a 10-day siege of villagers protesting against a "land grab" ended yesterday after the provincial government brokered a deal.
Protests in China have become relatively common over corruption, pollution, wages, and land grabs that local-level officials justify in the name of development. Chinese experts put the number of "mass incidents", as such protests are known, at about 90,000 a year in recent years.
The grip of Communist Party rule is not directly threatened by such bursts of unrest, but officials fear they could coalesce into broader, more organised challenges to their power.
The Haimen tensions have flared for three days as residents protest against plans for another coal-fired power plant, some turning over cars and throwing bricks in clashes with police.
Today, riot police fired teargas into an open space to hold back a large band of protesters on motorbikes, according to footage shown on Hong Kong's Cable TV.
"What place in the world builds two power plants within one kilometre?" said one of the Haimen residents as he watched police lines. "The factories are hazardous to our health. Our fish are dying and there are so many people who've got cancer.”
Officials said yesterday they would suspend construction on the project, but residents refused to back down, demanding the plan be scrapped completely.
The Haimen unrest is the latest challenge for Guangdong Party chief Wang Yang, a contender for promotion to the highest echelons of the Communist Party in a leadership transition in late 2012.
Residents of Wukan had fended off police with barricades and held protests for days over the land dispute and death in police custody of a village organiser, rejecting the government's position that an autopsy showed he died of natural causes.
But after talks with senior officials, village representatives told residents to pull down protest banners and go back to their normal lives - provided the government kept to its word.
Reuters