China: Increasing Trend in Mass Incidents

globalvoicesonline.org

Sunday, February 14th, 2010 @ 07:42 UTC

by Don Weinland

Protests, known in Chinese as “mass incidents”, grew fiercer and more violent in 2009, while methods of protest grew in variation, says a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher.

In a recent Southern Weekend article Shan Guangnai of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences analyzes new trends in “mass incidents”, an area of growing concern for the Chinese government and communist party alike.

Shan says socioeconomic tensions in 2009 led to an increase in localized protests largely instigated by local corporate reform and labor disputes, housing demolition and relocation, government expropriation of rural land, and pollution.

The characteristics of such incidents in 2009 are markedly different from years past, Shan says.  He says some noticeable trends include increases in fierceness and violence, increases in protests incited by online public opinion, labor-wage disputes, and pollution.  A catalyst culminating the matter is the public’s suspicion of formally searching out assistance and a general lack of confidence in local governments, he says.

Author of the blog Convey to Society attributes the exponential rise in mass incidents to historical problems swept under the rug during the last 30 years of development.  The author details the rapid increase in incidents in a December 2009 entry.

报告指出，今年群体性事件发生仍然保持着多发的态势，这是因为一些地方在加速发展和转型的过程当中，积累了很多历史上的矛 盾和问题，这些问题得不到及时解决，造成的民怨太深。据不完全统计，1993年我国发生群体性事件0.87万起，2005年上升为8.7万起，2006年 超过9万起，2008年群体性事件的数量及激烈程度都超过以往。如今，社科院学者称，今年群体性事件发生仍然保持着多发的态势。

[Reports have shown mass incidents [in 2009] have maintained an increasing posture.  This is because of an accumulation of historical problems and contradictions during the course of development and transition.  These problems have not received timely resolution, causing an all too deep feeling of resentment in the people.  Based on an incomplete set of statistics, 8,700 mass incidents occurred in 1993, rising to 87 thousand in 2005, and surpassing 90 thousand in 2006.  In 2008 the level of intensity of mass incidents surpassed that of previous years.  Today social scientists claim mass incidents this year still maintain an increasing posture.]

Shan Guangnai points to some of 2009’s most intense protests as evidence of a growing level of violence during such incidents.  Protests in the provinces of Hubei, Yunnan, Jilin and Henan indicate unprecedented levels of intensity.

Local resentment

An incident broke out on Jun. 17 in Shishou, Hubei Province after a controversy surrounding the death of a hotel cook swept more than ten thousand people into a protest lasting three days.  Images of the protest from a blog at zxmxd.com show hundreds of military police retreating from a large crowd of violent protesters.

The Jun. 17 incident in Shishou was a result of long-term, unresolved problems and built up tension, writes Qiu Xuebin at blogchina.com.

积怨不解，后患难除…群众利益诉求长期得不到解决，民众就象一堆干柴，遇到一点火星，就会燃起熊熊烈火。网络作为出气筒，已经发泄了不少民愤了，但如果民众的现实诉求渠道不畅，矛盾和问题长期得不到解决，最终还是要从网络的虚拟世界下来走向街头。

[An accumulation of unresolved resentment is difficult to get rid of once it becomes a problem.  When the interests of the people go unanswered long term, the people light up in fury like sparks on brushwood.  The internet is like an exhaust pipe, already spewing much public indignation. But if the people’s realistic means of making claims [of the government] are hindered, contradictions and problems going unanswered long term, in the end we slip out of the make-believe world that is the internet and hit the streets.]

Online public opinion

In February 2009 the term “duo-mao-mao” became one of the most commonly searched words on Chinese search engines.  Originally referring to a child’s game, the term now stands for the death of a 24 year-old man who died under questionable circumstances in a local jail in Yunnan Province.

After an investigation committee yielded inconclusive results, a barrage of online indignation expressed distrust in the investigation and the local government.  Some Chinese netizens advocated violence, as described in an article at ycwb.com.

Blogger Shuibin-Mengxiang dicusses the role online opinion played in the “Duo-mao-mao” incident.

云南“躲猫猫”事件发生后，网络声讨的言论犹如涛天洪水般一浪卷一浪扑天而来，这再次反映出网络放大传播的无形力量，也反映出因突发事件而被动应付舆论成了地方党委政府的头疼病。这个事件带给党委政府应对网络舆论几点启示

[After the Yunnan “Duo-mao-mao” incident happened, online denouncement poured in, wave after wave, like a flood that would wash away the sky.  This time and again reflects the invisible power of internet amplification.  It also shows that public opinion can become a headache for local governmental party committees due to careless handling of sudden incidents.  This incident has given party committees a few enlightening responses from online pubic opinion.]

Workers’ strike

A dispute over corporate restructuring left the general manager of a steel company dead on Jul. 24 of last year.  Nearly 3000 Workers at Tonggang Group in Jilin Province engaged in violent protest, beating to death General Manager Chen Guojun after dissatisfaction with a restructuring plan.

Blogger Zhengcheng-Manman describes the incident as a “restructuring tragedy.”  In a July 2009 entry the blogger describes the incident.

一位在现场的职工描述说，陈国军要求大家结束聚集，但随后集会员工情绪失控，几个人把他拉下台后进行群殴。后来，陈国军跑到一个会议室，将门反锁，人群用暖气片将门砸开，继续殴打陈。

[An employee on the scene said Chen Guojun requested an end to the gathering but the gathered workers then lost control of their emotions, a few of them pulling him from a platform and beating him.  Then Chen Guojun ran to a meeting room, locking the door.  The crowd used a heating panel to smash the door and continued beating Chen.]

Displeased with severance pay, a group 400 steel workers in Henan Province protested a similar corporate reform in August of 2009, taking over the factory floor and holding a party official under duress, reports an article at Sina.com.

The Chinese Government will watch these trends carefully in 2010, in the hopes that stimulus driven development will stabilize society and slow this increase in unrest.

China: More Violence Over Salary Dispute

globalvoicesonline.org

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

by Don Weinland

A migrant worker from Hebei was stabbed Jan. 9, resulting in the loss of a kidney, after requesting withheld salary from a subcontractor in Beijing, reports the Yangcheng Evening News.

A migrant worker in Guangzhou, Tianhe District. photo by Don Weinland

The incident has been dubbed the “beg for salary, lose a kidney” incident by Chinese media sources.

28 year-old Gao Zhiqiang, father of three, had his right kidney removed after a subcontractor from whom he had requested seventy yuan in withheld pay, ordered his stabbing, reports the Yangcheng Evening News. A doctor has estimated Gao’s medical bills at around fifty-thousand Yuan ($7,300).

Gao’s case is by no means an isolated incident. In November of last year the “beating and humiliation” of Wang Hongli draws a connection between the requesting of withheld salary and violence. According to the Shanxi News Network, Wang Hongli, and husband Hao Shi, were beaten and humiliated by Wang’s employer and three other men in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province upon the request of back pay.

These incidents, while extreme, draw attention to the larger, more widespread problem of the unlawful withholding of migrant workers’ salaries. Terms such as “begging for salary” and “ill-intentioned withholding of salary” have become commonplace in the Chinese media.

Wei Bin, in an article at Jingchu Net, describes the struggle migrant workers often face in claiming the pay they have rightly earned and the social implications of such dilemmas.

近年来关于农民工采取诸如静坐、示威、游行、跳楼等极端方式讨薪的报道不断见诸于报端、网络。选择这些极端的利益表达方式，背后隐藏着无尽的辛酸与无奈，同时也反映出现存的维权渠道成本过高，成为农民工“无法负担之重”。

[In recent years reports concerning a variety of methods migrant worker adopt in begging for their salaries, like staging sit-ins, demonstrations, marches, and jumping from buildings, have constantly appeared online and in newspapers. In choosing these extreme forms of expression, there is an underlying sense of unending misery and helplessness, while at the same time they reflect that the capital required of currently maintaining [worker’s] rights is too high. This has become a burden impossible for migrant workers to bear.]

A Worker’s Daily report on the recent stabbing – which quotes the requested back pay at 140 yuan – reminds readers that while many suggest migrant workers take their case up with the Ministry of Labor, many among the migrant worker population are without work contracts and have no means of getting legal representation.

Instead, the article questions why such incidents have become common in China, and whether or not the social status of migrant workers has been devalued.

与提醒农民工法律维权、组织维权相比，我们更该反思的恐怕是，为什么包工头的恶意欠薪行为没有收敛，为什么包工头有如此胆量叫嚣“谁要钱，捅死谁”？包工头的淡薄法律意识，是不是就在于恶意欠薪没什么大不了，捅农民工一刀也有可能没什么大不了？

[In contrast to reminding migrant workers of legal and organizational maintenance of rights, I’m afraid what we really should be considering is why ill-intentioned withholding of salary by subcontractors hasn’t been restrained, or why subcontractors so boldly clamor: “We’ll stab to death those who want their money.” Is it the subcontractor’s vague legal conception that ill-willed withholding of salary is no big deal? Or that stabbing a migrant worker is no big deal either?]

Article 50 of the People’s Republic of China Labor Law states:

第五十条　工资应当以货币形式按月支付给劳动者本人。不得克扣或者无故拖欠劳动者的工资。

[Salary shall be paid monthly and monetarily to the laborer. The laborer’s salary shall not be subject to reduction or delay.]

Chen Bulei, a researcher at the Labor Relations Research Institute of the People’s University, said in an interview with Shanxi News Network, that this law lacks the detail and clarity needed to institute an effective payment system for migrant workers:

缺乏一个很刚性的、明确的工资支付制度,在很大程度上依赖于用人单位的守法意识或者道德状况,依赖于雇主一些内在的约束,而法律给予的外在制度约束是不够的。

[Chinese Labor Law] lacks a clear and rigid system of salary payment and depends largely on the law-abiding consciousness and moral conditions within the unit of employment. It is dependent on the internal bindings of the employer; the external bindings of the system as granted by the law are not enough.]

The Chaozhou Daily and Yangzhou News both report an increase in withholding pay to migrant workers as the Chinese New Year’s approaches. The Chaozhou Daily reports that the number cases concerning the withholding of salary in the city of Chaozhou, Fujian Province increases by ten to twenty a day as workers prepare to head home for the New Year’s celebration.

~ par Alain Bertho sur 19 février 2010.

Publié dans émeutes, riots, 暴防