Democracy activists resist land grabs in Wukan, China

[Tony Gosling]

Guardian/AP coverage much better
T

China punishes officials accused of embezzling Wukan village property
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/24/china-punishes-officials-embezzling-wukan
Villagers organised mass protests and held a 
standoff with police in late 2011 after accusing 
officials of stealing their farmland
Associated Press in Beijing - guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 April 2012 07.45 BST
Wukan residents marched to demand government 
action over illegal land grabs and the death in 
custody of a local leader in December 2011. 
Photograph: AFP Photo/AFP/Getty Images
Chinese authorities have punished 20 officials 
and former village leaders after a community in 
southern China held mass protests over land 
disputes that drove out local officials.
The official Xinhua news agency said the former 
Communist party chief of Wukan village in 
Guangdong province and the former head of the 
village committee were expelled from the ruling 
party and ordered to return nearly $45,000 
(£28,000) in what it described as illegal gains.
Six other former village officials and a dozen 
higher-level officials were also punished, but no details were provided.
Protests in Wukan last year flared into violence 
in which villagers smashed a police station and 
cars. After key activists were detained in 
December, the villagers drove out officials and 
barricaded themselves in for 10 days and held boisterous rallies.
The protests ended after provincial officials 
intervened and ceded to some demands.
Xinhua said authorities found that the village's 
former officials had been involved in illegal 
transfers of land-use rights, embezzling property 
that was collectively owned, accepting bribes and rigging village elections.
In March, two of the protest leaders were elected 
to run the village in a much-watched election 
that reformers hoped would promote democracy as a 
way to settle many of the myriad disputes besetting China.
Many experts, however, said it's far too soon to 
say if political leaders will summon the will to 
replicate Wukan's experience elsewhere.


Wukan holds its election after protests that cowed officialdom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/03/wukan-villagers-elections-protests
Chinese village goes to the polls to elect new 
leaders after running authorities out of town over land grabs
Associated Press - guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 March 2012 07.54 GMT
Chinese villagers in Wukan who staged a rebellion 
against local officials they accused of stealing 
their farmland voted for new leaders on Saturday 
in a much-watched poll that reformers hope will 
set a standard for resolving similar widespread and protracted disputes.
The Wukan protests flared in late 2011, with 
villagers smashing a police station and cars. 
After key village activists were detained in 
December, villagers drove out officials and 
barricaded themselves in for 10 days, keeping 
police out and holding boisterous rallies. 
Villagers said the local head, in power for 
decades, sold their farmland to developers without their consent.
There are tens of thousands of protests in China 
each year – many of them over land as in Wukan, 
and often provoked by the actions of indifferent or corrupt local officials.
Similar standoffs in China often end in arrests, 
but in Wukan the provincial government conceded. 
It offered to hold the new elections, return some 
of the disputed farmland and release the detained 
activists, as well as the body of one who died in detention.
China has allowed village elections for nearly 
three decades but local Communist party leaders, 
who hold the real power, often try to manipulate 
the results. By those standards Wukan is 
conducting what seems to be one of China's most free polls.
Huang Jinqi was among the several thousand people 
in the small fishing village in southern 
Guangdong province to fill in a ballot for the 
seven-member village committee. The 63-year-old 
farmer said the process was going smoothly and he 
was satisfied with how it had been organised. "It 
is open and transparent," he said.
Li Lianjiang, an expert on China's local 
elections and protests at the Chinese University 
of Hong Kong, said: "Hopefully local authorities 
in other places of Guangdong and even other 
provinces will refer to Wukan as a precedent when 
they face similar situations."
The election is being hailed by more liberal 
Chinese state media and democratic campaigners as 
the "Wukan model", a systematic approach in which 
the government uncharacteristically puts the 
interests of locals ahead of its usual emphasis 
on maintaining order. Wang Yang, Guangdong's 
party secretary who has a reputation as a 
reformer, said Wukan showed that a balance could 
be struck between "preserving stability and preserving rights".
Many experts said it was far too soon to say if 
political leaders would summon the will to replicate Wukan's lessons elsewhere.
"Wukan so far is an exceptional case," said Li 
Fan, who runs a private thinktank in Beijing that 
has been involved in local government 
experiments. "In this case, no matter how well 
the Wukan village elections proceed the impact on 
the development of grass-roots democracy is very limited."
The fact that many of the activists in Wukan's 
revolt ran for membership in the village 
committee is a precedent. To defuse protests 
local governments often make concessions, then 
arrest ringleaders when tempers have subsided, a 
practice known as "settling accounts after the harvest".


At 22:15 21/07/2012, Tony Gosling wrote:
>
>
>Wukan: a beacon for future Chinese democracy?
>2 April 2012 Reportage Online
>Recent anti-corruption protests and local 
>elections in the southern Chinese village of 
>Wukan has reignited discourse about China’s future. Cate Cadell investigates.
>http://www.reportageonline.com/2012/04/wukan-beacon-for-future-chinese-democracy/
>The discussion on Chinese politics has flared up 
>again following the riots in the Guandong 
>village of Wukan that led to village elections 
>earlier this month. However experts say the 
>political significance of the Wukan election has been overplayed by the media.
>The village was dubbed a ‘beacon of democracy’ 
>when a four month standoff between citizens and 
>party authorities ended with a democratic 
>election of new village representatives.
>Though according to Hans Hendrischke, a 
>Professor of Chinese Politics at the University 
>of Sydney, there has been a critical 
>misunderstanding in the media about how Chinese politics work.
>“The village level is in fact not a Government 
>level,” said Hendrishke. ”This was a village 
>election, it was never illegal. You could have one every week!”
>“It’s a case of the press reporting certain elements and not others,” he said.
>“If the whole level went above the village into 
>township level then the whole situation would be different.”
>The Chinese Government is made up of a hierarchy 
>of officials, each set elects the one directly 
>above. The lowest level is the township council, 
>and village level elections are below that; 
>meaning they have little or no bearing on the system.
>“What they have conceded, and what is important 
>in the Chinese context, is that they haven’t 
>used police force or brutal force to clamp down,” said Hendrishke
>“It’s unlikely that this will cause a bottom up 
>democratic process though because it was just a village election.”
>Hendrishke claims that the concessions made by 
>the Party were done in “a degree of disregard.”
>“They [the Chinese Government] are saying ‘lets 
>calm this thing down, lets show a soft side 
>because it’s not going to do us any harm’,” he said.
>
>Corruption
>The civilian protests began in September last 
>year and flared into riots in December, when a 
>village representative died suspiciously in 
>police custody. The townspeople protested what 
>they claim were ‘corrupted’ land grabs.
>Village authorities were responsible for 
>claiming collective land for development 
>purposes, and angry land owners claim they 
>weren’t compensated. They suspect the 
>authorities pocketed the profits themselves.
>Frank Ruanjie, who heads the Australian branch 
>of the Chinese Democratic Party, said this is a common occurrence in China.
>“It’s a big problem; the local officers and 
>people develop the farmland without offering compensation,” Ruanjie said.
>Ruanjie, a pro-democracy survivor of the 
>Tiananmen square massacre has since been exiled 
>to Australia, and publishes the Independent 
>Chinese newspaper ‘Tiananmen Times’.
>“I suspect the leadership of the village sold 
>farm land to business people and took the money 
>for themselves, they certainly didn’t consult the village people,” he said.
>Despite strong suspicion, there has been no 
>concrete evidence that corruption occurred 
>during the land sales. However it is known that 
>thousands of land grab protests have happened in 
>the past decade, largely unreported.
>“The way local industrialisation happens in 
>China is in land sales, that is how Chinese 
>enterprises are funded,” said Hendrishke. “The 
>central government is not able to control land 
>claims. Local governments have to find 60 
>percent of their budget, one of the few ways to 
>do this comes out of land sales and leasing.”
>“You could have corruption in the authorities 
>taking the money themselves but there is no 
>proof in the article which is quite interesting,” said Hendrishke.
>Ruanjie argues that unmonitored local land grabs 
>have potential to impinge on the human rights of 
>Chinese villagers throughout the country.
>“In some villages, there’s proof local 
>authorities develop viruses and use them on the 
>people. They hire members from the black 
>society, underground people, to take care of the 
>villagers who are on the developer’s land.”
>
>Media blackout
>Wukan has been set apart from other similar 
>incidents by comprehensive international 
>coverage. However it’s brought attention to the 
>limited media coverage within China.
>“The Chinese people know very little about what 
>happened in Wukan,” said Ruanjie.
>“The central government blocked the news from 
>the country. They [Party authorities] would want 
>to keep the election secret, they don’t want other villages to look to Wukan.”
>Search terms on China’s popular social media 
>site, Sina Weibo, were blocked shortly after the 
>riots escalated, with phrases such as ‘Wukan’ 
>and ‘WK’ returning no results until they were 
>unblocked on December 21, days after the protests ceased.
>According to Ruanjie, the blackout “is a very serious situation.”
>“If you want to comment on Wukan, you can’t be 
>in the country. If you are in China you don’t know China.”
>
>The future of Chinese democracy
>While dialogue is still playing out, there is 
>still doubt as to whether the uprising will have any lasting political effect.
>“The government gave into the villagers to a 
>very limited degree,” said Hendrishke.
>“It’s quite likely they can’t be bothered to 
>look into village finances because it’s got much 
>larger fish to fry; there’s a degree of 
>disregard. If there is a ripple effect in the 
>villages that is not something that’s all too 
>new, but it may have a ripple effect in terms of 
>the policy the government took.”
>As the elections wrap up, the potential for 
>political follow up movements appears slim, and 
>some argue that the win was not democratic in nature but economic.
>“The trouble is the demands of the Chinese 
>people are economic. Economic demands are easy 
>to satisfy, political demands require change,” said Ruanjie.
>“In terms of democracy, if you think it’s long, 
>it’s long away. If you think it is near, it’s very near.”
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"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic 
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Fear not therefore: for there is nothing covered 
that shall not be revealed; and nothing hid that 
shall not be made known. What I tell you in 
darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye 
hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27

Die Pride and Envie; Flesh, take the poor's advice.
Covetousnesse be gon: Come, Truth and Love arise.
Patience take the Crown; throw Anger out of dores:
Cast out Hypocrisie and Lust, which follows whores:
Then England sit in rest; Thy sorrows will have end;
Thy Sons will live in peace, and each will be a friend.
http://tinyurl.com/6ct7zh6  
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