By Didi Tang on October 27, 2012
Thousands of people in an eastern Chinese city clashed with police during a protest over the proposed expansion of a petrochemical factory that they fear would spew pollution and damage public health, townspeople said Saturday.
It was the latest in a string of protests in China this year over fears of health risks from industrial projects, as members of the rising middle class become more outspoken against environmentally risky projects in their areas.
Past protests have targeted a coal-fired power plant in southern China, a waste-water pipeline in eastern China, and a copper plant in west-central China.
The Zhenhai district government in Zhejiang province's Ningbo city said in a statement Saturday that "a few" people disrupted public order by staging sit-ins, unfurling banners, distributing fliers and obstructing roads. It said the proposed project is under evaluation and the public has opportunities to offer its input….."Government officials are only concerned about GDP and climbing up their career ladders, which is incompatible with local residents' desire to have a pleasant life," he said. "The officials will move on after a few years, but we will be living here generation after generation. It is irresponsible to build this project." To Read More….
My Take – I know most will not see the hidden importance of the statement;
"Government officials are only concerned about GDP and climbing up their career ladders, which is incompatible with local residents' desire to have a pleasant life,".
But those of us who remember the Korean War remember the massed charging waves of Chinese soldiers wearing out American machine guns with their bodies. That was one of the great shocks of the war. There were Bonsai charges by the Japanese during WWII, but it was nothing like this. Things have changed. It becomes much more easy to understand why the communist leadership is so concerned about stability. They are building an aircraft carrier to intimidate their neighbors and they keep shooting off their mouths about a lot of things, but those are nothing more than distractions. It is my opinion that they know their economy is shaky at best and are doing what they can to distract the people. I don’t think it will work if there is a serious downturn in their economy and I don’t think it will be easy to start a ruckus with their neighbors as it was during Mao’s monstrous reign. I’m even getting hits from China every so often, and for a while I was getting quite a few. Which means someone there has unlimited internet access and if that is true……that means the Chinese now know….and that changes everything.
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