# Biểu Tình Lớn Xảy Ra Tại Trung Quốc Liên Tiếp Trong 5 Ngày Liền
Mass protest over dam project in Yunnan
Thursday, 31 March 2011.
3,000 villagers in five-day protest over hydroelectric dam on the upper Yangtze River
chinaworker.info
Up to a thousand armed police equipped with an armoured car were sent to quell an angry demonstration involving up to 3,000 rural residents in Yunnan province in southwest China. The protests over housing and loss of farmland took place in Suijiang county, a remote and mountainous region on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, where a hydroelectric dam is displacing tens of thousands of rural residents. They continued throughout the week until an overwhelming paramilitary presence restored "order and harmony".
For four days the protesters occupied and blocked a main road and a bridge over the Yangtze River. Clashes occurred and bricks and stones were hurled at police on Tuesday 29 March, according to a report from the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy based in Hong Kong.
Poor quality housing
The Suijiang protesters complained over the quality of proposed housing being offered to up to 40,000 people from the county, from a total 100,000 who are being displaced to make way for the Xiangjiaba dam. They also protested at the government's refusal to pay the full cost of relocating a local graveyard from the dam site. The protest reportedly began after an earthquake struck neighbouring Burma on 24 March, which heightened concerns among the dam refugees about the quality of the proposed housing.
"We are very disappointed at being undercompensated for our land and houses, which will be destroyed or inundated because of the power station," said one local resident.
The rights group also said 30 protesters and 20 police were injured in the clashes. One ambulance was badly damaged according to a government local source. Pictures posted on the internet showed hundreds of riot police moving in a column around an armoured personnel carrier.
Dam dangers
Environmentalists have opposed construction of the Xiangjiaba dam, which is just one of twelve dams being built along the upper reaches of the Yangtze. When completed in 2015 it will be the fourth-largest hydropower plant in China and one of the 20 largest power plants of any kind in the world, according to industry figures.
But this and other dams on the upper reaches of the Yangtze will destroy unique canyons, ruin fisheries and displace hundreds of thousands of people, with huge dissatisfaction as in this case over compensation levels and offers of alternative housing. There are also growing concerns as big dams are being built in a seismically active region that has suffered a number of earthquakes, including the huge one in Sichuan in 2008. The logic of building dams in this area is also questioned on grounds of climate change, which scientists say is causing southern China to experience longer and more frequent droughts placing greater strains on water levels.
The Suijiang protest is reportedly one of the biggest 'mass incidents' so far this year in China. Local governments chasing after GDP growth and ambitious infrastructure projects are increasingly running foul of local populations who lose rather than gain from this 'development'.
This disconnect was partly recognised, in words, in the central government's new five-year plan, which pledged to rebalance growth towards personal consumption and actually cut GDP targets (to an annual 7 percent). But the plan also increased spending on 'internal stability' i.e. police and security forces, which for the first time takes a bigger share of government spending than the military. This shows that despite talk of a 'people first' policy, the Chinese dictatorship expects and is preparing for more Suijiangs in future.
chinaworker.info
Up to a thousand armed police equipped with an armoured car were sent to quell an angry demonstration involving up to 3,000 rural residents in Yunnan province in southwest China. The protests over housing and loss of farmland took place in Suijiang county, a remote and mountainous region on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, where a hydroelectric dam is displacing tens of thousands of rural residents. They continued throughout the week until an overwhelming paramilitary presence restored "order and harmony".
For four days the protesters occupied and blocked a main road and a bridge over the Yangtze River. Clashes occurred and bricks and stones were hurled at police on Tuesday 29 March, according to a report from the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy based in Hong Kong.
Poor quality housing
The Suijiang protesters complained over the quality of proposed housing being offered to up to 40,000 people from the county, from a total 100,000 who are being displaced to make way for the Xiangjiaba dam. They also protested at the government's refusal to pay the full cost of relocating a local graveyard from the dam site. The protest reportedly began after an earthquake struck neighbouring Burma on 24 March, which heightened concerns among the dam refugees about the quality of the proposed housing.
"We are very disappointed at being undercompensated for our land and houses, which will be destroyed or inundated because of the power station," said one local resident.
The rights group also said 30 protesters and 20 police were injured in the clashes. One ambulance was badly damaged according to a government local source. Pictures posted on the internet showed hundreds of riot police moving in a column around an armoured personnel carrier.
Dam dangers
Environmentalists have opposed construction of the Xiangjiaba dam, which is just one of twelve dams being built along the upper reaches of the Yangtze. When completed in 2015 it will be the fourth-largest hydropower plant in China and one of the 20 largest power plants of any kind in the world, according to industry figures.
But this and other dams on the upper reaches of the Yangtze will destroy unique canyons, ruin fisheries and displace hundreds of thousands of people, with huge dissatisfaction as in this case over compensation levels and offers of alternative housing. There are also growing concerns as big dams are being built in a seismically active region that has suffered a number of earthquakes, including the huge one in Sichuan in 2008. The logic of building dams in this area is also questioned on grounds of climate change, which scientists say is causing southern China to experience longer and more frequent droughts placing greater strains on water levels.
The Suijiang protest is reportedly one of the biggest 'mass incidents' so far this year in China. Local governments chasing after GDP growth and ambitious infrastructure projects are increasingly running foul of local populations who lose rather than gain from this 'development'.
This disconnect was partly recognised, in words, in the central government's new five-year plan, which pledged to rebalance growth towards personal consumption and actually cut GDP targets (to an annual 7 percent). But the plan also increased spending on 'internal stability' i.e. police and security forces, which for the first time takes a bigger share of government spending than the military. This shows that despite talk of a 'people first' policy, the Chinese dictatorship expects and is preparing for more Suijiangs in future.
