MCLC: Wukan protest

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Wukan protest
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Source: The Guardian (11/22/11):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/22/china-land-grab-protests

Chinese villagers demand return of illegally seized land
Thousands march to denounce corrupt officials and factory strikes spread
as sluggish demand hits workers' pay
By Reuters in Hong Kong

Thousands of villagers angry that officials failed to address their
grievances after riots two months ago marched to a government office in
southern China to demand the return of land they say was illegally seized,
witnesses and media said.

The protest came after a series of strikes in factories in Guangdong
province, China's economic powerhouse.

Rural land disputes are increasing and spreading to the undeveloped west
of the country, according to a poll published in October in a magazine run
by Xinhua news agency.

One witness identifying himself by his surname Yang said by phone that
4,000 villagers and farmers from Wukan surrounded government offices in
Lufeng City on Monday. The protesters denounced local officials as greedy
and corrupt. They dispersed after an hour without incident.

A villager surnamed Zhang, who sent photographs of the protest to Reuters,
said authorities had failed to tackle collusion between developers and
local officials. No progress had been made in renegotiating inequitable
land deals back to 1998.

"They have done nothing for us. They lied," Zhang said by phone from Wukan.

Residents of Lufeng ransacked government offices two months ago over the
same issue.

There are also reports of a round of industrial disputes over pay and
benefits in export hubs such as Guangdong, as overseas demand for Chinese
goods weakens amid a sluggish western economy.

Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily said on Tuesday at least 500 female workers at
a bra factory in Shenzhen had protested in the past few days about
overtime pay.

Thousands of workers at a factory in Dongguan city, Guangdong,
manufacturing shoes for brands including New Balance, Nike and Adidas went
on strike last week over wage cuts and redundancies, Ming Pao Daily
reported.

Workers at PepsiCo bottling plants in China protested earlier this month
at a deal in which beverage and noodle maker Tingyi will buy the
loss-making bottling business. The head of PepsiCo's China operations
pledged to protest workers' rights following the stoppages.