Order restored in SW China after violent protest
BEIJING » Order has been restored to a southwestern Chinese town after more than 1,000 people took to the streets and clashed with police to protest the rough handling of citizens by authorities, an official said Saturday.
Residents in Qianxi county in Guizhou province protested after a man who had parked a car illegally clashed with “chengguan,” or urban management corps, said an official with the propaganda department of the county’s Communist Party office.
Chengguan act like police auxiliary units but are notorious for corruption and violence against small businesses and the poor, and are widely disliked across China.
The protest, which started Thursday, spun out of control, with more than a dozen police cars smashed or set on fire, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported, adding that it took more than 24 hours to disperse the crowds.
“Several people, most of them teenagers, stirred up the trouble,” said the official, who would give only his surname, Wu, as is common in China.
Wu said that at the protest’s peak, more than 1,000 people had gathered, but that they had all dispersed by early Friday. More than 10 policemen were hurt, he said, but had no further details.
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Such protests — often fueled by illegal land seizures, environmental problems and abuse by local officials — number in the tens of thousands every year in China.
Generally apolitical, the incidents spark a deep unease among authorities who worry they may spill out of control and go from attacks on local issues to challenges to the ruling Communist Party.
Chengguan are a particular concern because they are seen as constantly overstepping their authority and abusing citizens’ legal protections.
The China Daily quoted an official from the media office of the prefecture that oversees Qianxi county as saying the government will order the chengguan to show more restraint.
“All the urban administration workers have been hired through open and legal procedures, although they may not be well-educated,” the official, Zeng Fanya, was quoted as saying.
