Straits Times
DONGZHOUKENG (GUANGDONG) - JUST how worrisome is the spike in rural unrest for China's overall stability
For now, experts do not think the country is close to any 'tipping point', citing the lack of an organised political opposition. Neither is there a serious split within the Chinese leadership or signs of a breakdown in the overall governance structure.
Furthermore, the majority of aggrieved peasants eschew violence. Activists and most peasants in the southern villages of Panlong, Dongzhoukeng and Aoshi told The Straits Times they preferred to use legal means.
'We are just ordinary people,' said Aoshi villager Li Xiangui. 'We don't want to see any violence or bloodshed. We just want to be able to make a living and to survive.'
But it would be a mistake for Beijing to take comfort from such observations, said Associate Professor Jiang Wenran of the University of Alberta in Canada, adding that every new protest inched the regime closer to a potential crisis.
While the government has not revealed the number of rural protests, a study by Professor Yu Jianrong, a rural expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, recorded 87 land-related clashes in the first half of 2004 alone.
His research also showed how the protests themselves have changed. In the past, peasants unhappy with unreasonable fees levied on them wrote petitions or resorted to civil disobedience.
But land disputes have now become the main firestarter, with peasants staging sit-ins at government offices, highways or railways, or even organising street rallies.
Most clashes took place in the more economically developed southern and coastal regions, such as Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei and Guangdong, where better communications and a better-informed populace were fuelling a growing rights movement among peasants.
'It is by now commonplace for the local governments to mobilise the security forces to suppress peasants fighting for their rights,' wrote Prof Yu, adding that the problem had the potential to provoke large-scale social conflict.
The top Chinese leadership is clearly alarmed, and has been repeatedly expounding on the urgency of rural reforms of late.
In December, Premier Wen Jiabao openly blamed illegal land grabs by local officials for igniting the unrest, adding that China could not make a 'historic mistake' on such land issues.
The State Council, China's Cabinet, also issued a wide-ranging document on Tuesday in support of President Hu Jintao's vision for a 'new socialist countryside'.
The document stipulates that 'farmers must be properly compensated when their land is acquired for non-agricultural purposes'.
The question, however, is whether the central government's directives are implemented in far-flung places such as Dongzhoukeng.
Most peasants still perceive the central government as being caring and sympathetic to their plight, which they blame on local officials.
But many observers wonder how long their store of faith and goodwill will last.
EQUAL RIGHTS
'The government has the right to acquire the land, but we peasants need to survive. We have our rights too.' -- A DONGZHOUKENG VILLAGER
FEARFUL ON BOTH SIDES
'We are not sure whom to be more fearful of these days, the 'red' or the 'black' forces. If you have money, you can do anything to anyone here these days.' -- A BUN-SELLER in Xiangyang Village, referring to Communist Party cadres and the local thugs