HONG KONG: In one of the more serious instances of rioting in China in recent years, over 300 persons besieged a police station in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province in southwest China, smashed and overturned police vehicles and clashed with police earlier this week.  

The violence was only the latest manifestation of public anger over abuse of authority by government officials; last year, there were nearly 75,000 instances of public disorder. Widespread income disparity and land grabbing by corrupt local officials has pushed millions of people to the brink of despair, and with no legitimate channels for articulating their concerns, citizens are increasingly resorting to violence. 

In the latest instance, the trouble started on Monday night when a 43-year-old migrant worker, Guo Chungui, was allegedly beaten up in Guiyang by local security officials for failing to secure a temporary residence permit. The permit is required by migrant workers if they wish to stay in a city. Millions of workers from China’s poorer western regions travel across the country to take up jobs in the booming eastern and southern coastal areas.  Guiyang, which produces nonferrous metals and tobacco, and has machinery, steel making, food processing, and chemicals industries, has a large migrant population. 

According to reports, Guo refused to pay the five-yuan (about Rs 30) fee for his permit, following which he was alleged set upon and beaten up. Police, however, denied the charge, and Guo himself was quoted as telling the Guizhou Metroplis Daily he had gashed his forehead in a fall when he was drunk, but had told people in town that he had been beaten up by the police.  Eye-witness accounts have it that a crowd gathered outside the police station after word of the alleged assault spread. The violence spilled over onto the next day, when over 300 people – migrant workers and local residents – again clashed with the police. 

The violence is certain to cause deep disquiet within the Communist Party as it struggles to build a “harmonious society”. Income disparities have widened in recent years, and there have been many instances of corrupt local officials grabbing land from villagers and assigning them for factories or property development.