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Monday 15 August 2011

China: Mass demonstration against pollution in Dalian

Sunday, 14 August 2011.

Over 12,000 protest against polluting chemical plant and occupy central square

Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info

In one of the biggest urban protests for many months in China, an estimated 12,000 people flooded central Dalian to demand the relocation of a petrochemical plant making the carcinogenic liquid paraxylene or “PX”. The sheer size of this illegal protest in the northeastern city’s People’s Square, mobilised largely through microblogging sites and other online media, will have shaken China’s autocratic rulers, as will the signs that youth in China are assimilating lessons from events in the Arab world. Jonathan Watts of the Guardian newspaper, an expert on environmental issues in China, writes that up to 70,000 may have taken part in the Dalian demonstration.

In this Youtube video, viewers can see the so-called ‘communist’ party boss of Dalian (standing atop the vehicle) telling the crowds that “the government will shut down the factory”. This is greeted by a vocal ensemble from the demonstrators: “when?” Later in the same clip another city official warns, “this gathering is illegal, you should disperse now”, to which the unanimous response is “No”!

This public confrontation sums up the nightmare facing China’s rulers in trying to navigate mounting popular unrest while economic storm clouds approach. The regime’s tried-and-tested formula of making limited concessions backed up with repression (‘carrot and stick’) is beginning to wear thin. The masses have become increasingly distrustful of official promises and disrespectful of repression, as graphically captured in this two minute Youtube clip.
Dalian is a relatively wealthy city with nominal per capita GDP more than double the national average. Calls on the internet in the days before Sunday’s march for people to join a “group stroll” are just one sign that Chinese youth are adapting and improvising in the face of increased repression and media controls. That term has been borrowed from the – largely unanswered – online calls for a “Jasmine Revolution” earlier this year. The attempt to occupy and stage a sit-in in the central square in Dalian is also a sign that protests in the Arab world and parts of Europe (most recently the mass protests in Israel) have had an effect on Chinese youth in particular.

Evacuations

The Dalian protest was triggered when rain and high waves heralding the approach of Typhoon Muifa overwhelmed a protective dike around the Fujia petrochemical factory in an industrial complex close to the city. This forced the evacuation of residents living near the plant last Monday. Although the damaged dike was repaired, the incident heightened residents’ fears of the effects of a toxic chemical spill.

Following today’s mass protest and the refusal of demonstrators to disperse, the Dalian government ordered the plant be closed “immediately” and also pledged to relocate the plant, the Xinhua news agency reported. The protest seems to enjoy overwhelming support among local people in this city of 3.5 million. Pictures posted on Sina’s Weibo service (similar to Twitter), showed demonstrators carrying a banner that read: “We want to survive, we want a good environment, give me back my Dalian.”

Some scuffles were reported and other online pictures show a massive presence of riot police and security forces. Typically, searches for “Dalian” yield no results on internet search engines as a government clampdown went into force. There are reports of arrests and police sweeps to clear away protesters who remained in Dalian’s central square in the evening after the main demonstration had finished. Having witnessed the rapid spread of protest movements in the Arab world and elsewhere, and with the knowledge of what happened in 1989, this type of mass gathering is something the Chinese authorities will want to prevent at all costs.

Dalian protest against PX plant on 14 August 2011

There has been a rising tide of pollution-related unrest in China. In May, Inner Mongolia was rocked by street protests in more than six counties against the destruction of grasslands by fast-expanding coal mining companies. There have been dozens of local protests over lead poisoning, including strike action by workers in Zhejiang province earlier this year (as reported on chinaworker.info, 30 June 2011). China is now the world’s number one producer of greenhouse gases, emitting as much as the US, Japan and Germany combined. Its corrupt mode of state capitalist development, with local governments largely free to cut dirty deals with polluting companies, under lax controls, using unsafe (but cheap) construction and production methods, makes for a hazardous cocktail. As the government embarks on the world’s biggest nuclear power expansion programme – by 2020, 40 percent of the world’s new reactors will be set up in China – that issue too is likely to spawn massive protests, especially given serious concerns over industry safety.

The eastern city of Xiamen saw huge protests in 2007 against another petrochemical plant set to produce “PX”. This too resulted in a climbdown by city authorities and the relocation of the planned installation. Unfortunately there is no shortage of local governments willing to welcome such potentially dangerous projects in return for increased investment and the accompanying bribes.

Socialists give full support to the protests in Dalian against the Fujia “PX” plant. Chinaworker.info calls for:
• Mass struggle to block construction of unsafe and environmentally dangerous industrial projects! No repression, no arrests – for freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in China!
• For full democratic election and control of all levels of government – end the dictatorship!
• Independent and democratic trade unions to represent workers’ interests and oversee workplace and public safety. For the right of veto by local residents over environmentally dangerous projects.
• For democratic workers’ control and management of a fully publicly owned and democratically planned oil, gas and chemical industry – end privatisation and profiteering! Reduce fuel prices now!
• No to nuclear power! Massive investment in renewable energy and ‘green’ construction.

China infos

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