They came to the village of Shengyou, south of Beijing, in the early hours of
the morning.
A gang of more than 100 men wearing camouflage gear and construction
helmets, some armed with hunting rifles, clubs and shovels, clashed violently
with local villagers. Six people died.
The riot in Shengyou in June was actually nothing new. Such
skirmishes over land are getting increasingly common in China.
But what was different about this one - and what ultimately
made it stand out as an example of a much wider problem - was that the incident
was filmed by a local resident and smuggled out to the international media.
The battle of Shengyou village has come to highlight one of
China's sharpest social issues - the Communist Party's complete control of land
allocation.
More than 66 million Chinese farmers have lost their land in
the past 10 years. It is a land grab which has fattened the wallets of government
officials and left tens of thousands of people homeless.
In recent years, however, more and more farmers have become
aware of their rights, and have begun to resist - leading to rising social unrest.
Some estimates suggest more than three million people were
involved in demonstrations last year, and the government in Beijing is getting
increasingly concerned.
Violent exchange
Chinese state media said the residents of Shengyou village
had been resisting the takeover of their property by an electricity company,
which wanted to build a power plant there.
The gang was trying to force them to give up. It emerged
that there had been a similar clash earlier in the year, which had gone unreported.
It is a situation which is repeated tens of thousands of times
every year in China - most of them unmentioned in the country's tightly controlled
state media.
Many peasant farmers go to Beijing to file petitions and complain
to higher government offices about their losses.
But local governments often set up checkpoints to block the
petitioners, or send officials to Beijing to round them up and lock up the leaders
when they return home.
Other villagers seek legal help, but even if the court rules
in their favour, the rulings are sometimes totally ignored and the bulldozers
continue to roll in.
These land rights disputes go to the very heart of many of
the problems facing China.
In this vast country, all land is owned by the state, which
gives the Communist Party the ultimate decision on how it is used.
In the past this has been an important factor in the country's
rapid economic growth, allowing the government to requisition land it might
need for development.
But it has also caused massive discontent. When China built
the Three Gorges Dam, hundreds of thousands of people were either relocated,
often to poor agricultural land, or received inadequate compensation.
Hou Wenzhou, director of Empowerment and Rights Institute,
a Beijing-based non-government organisation, summed up the nature of this aggressive
land seizure in a recent interview with the BBC.
"Legal entitlement of farm land is not clearly defined
in China. It looks like it belongs to the farmers, but if the government wants
to take it away, it's very easy," he said.
"The farmers are told to give up their personal interests
and individual rights to serve the state. The interests of the farmers are totally
ignored."
The Communist Party's complete control over land allocation
has also led to corruption on an enormous scale.
Power rests in the hands of party cadres, and corrupt local
officials can often act with impunity. They sometimes take over land to sell
directly to developers, pocketing the profits.
They also take bribes or cream off much of the compensation
paid to those who are moved out of their homes.
This abuse of authority in the pursuit of wealth is one of
the dark sides of China's economic miracle.
Fear of dissent
All this is causing concern in Beijing. Throughout the centuries,
China's rulers have always feared instability.
In imperial times, rural rebellions and unrest sometimes led
to the downfall of dynasties.
In the modern era the Communist Party has kept a very tight
grip on power, ruthlessly suppressing any challenge to its authority.
Its response to these protests has been to try to strike a
delicate balancing act.
State-run media have talked about crushing threats to stability,
and provincial authorities have used force to break up demonstrations.
But at the same time senior officials have publicly declared
that local corruption is to blame.
China's President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao came into
office saying they wanted to do more to improve the lives of those living in
China's rural areas, but now they face a major challenge in the countryside.
If they fail to address it, the situation could spiral out
of control.
But dealing with the problem will mean rooting out endemic
corruption in the Communist Party. And that is something that successive Chinese
leaders have so far failed to do.
Source:
BBC
