China News: Nailhouse | China Digital Times (CDT)

China news tagged with: nailhouse (47)

RSS feed for this topic

Related tags

Defiant Beijing Family Loses Home
Another nail house has been pounded to the ground, this time in Beijing. From the BBC:
Bedecked with posters, slogans and flags, the city-centre shack had been attracting attention from neighbours and passers-by.
The Yu family were refusing to move because they said the compensation being offered was far too low.
It was not immediately clear where the family is now living. Family members were not answering their phones.
Later, the local government admitted it had taken matters into its own hands after negotiations with the Yu’s broke down.
“Because they had unreasonable requests and refused to relocate… they were forcibly moved,” said a statement posted on a government-run website.
» Read more
- July 18, 2008 8:31 PM
Stand-off at Beijing ‘Nail House’
From BBC News:
A Beijing family are refusing to move from their city centre home, despite a court order threatening to throw them out.
Family members say they are not being offered enough compensation for the home they bought 60 years ago.
Their campaign is attracting large crowds, who gather at the tumble-down shack in the heart of historic Beijing.
It could pose a problem for officials, who want to avoid embarrassing incidents ahead of the Olympic Games.
Yu Pingju, one of 14 family members who live in the house, said it was bought before the Communists took power in China in 1949.
Read also Threatened China household stares down wrecking ball by Lindsay Beck, and With posters and flag, Chinese family fights eviction by AFP.
» Read more
- July 16, 2008 7:17 AM
A Nail House in the Heart of Beijing
From the Time-blog:
Beijing is full of patriotism these days. National flags adorn cars and “I [heart] China” t-shirts are in fashion. But it’s hard to match the display of one small store in central Beijing. A national flag flies high above its roof, next to a white Olympic flag. Below hang a pair of Communist Party hammer-and-sickle flags, and much of the wall space is covered by images of Chinese leaders including Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. But the display isn’t so much about patriotism as it is defiance.
The store, which is also a residence, is a nail house—the Chinese phrase for residents who refuse to capitulate to the wrecking ball, leaving their house sticking out like a nail. It’s a fairly common phenomenon, but some nail houses can, because of their circumstances, become more than a local story. The most famous case was of a house in the southwestern city of Chongqing last year, where some extreme excavation left the structure looking more like an island than a mere nail. The dramatic images, plus a media-savvy homeowner, elevated the Chongqing house into a national case.
» Read more
- July 14, 2008 1:32 PM
The Most Powerful Nailhouses – Southern Metropolis Daily
A commentary translated by CDT from Southern Metropolis Daily:
There have been many “nailhouses” making headlines in China lately. But this one is different, and it seems to defy any power in Shenzhen, including the city government.
Actually these are not houses; they are a group of mansions, or luxurious villas at the Yinghu district in Shenzhen . They are part of an illegal construction that have come under “pressure” to dismantle or move. But things are moving very slowly, or not moving at all, to be exact. Numerous evictions from local government law enforcement officers have come to no avail. More than that, orders to stop building have been repeatedly defied, and construction keeps on going like nothing happened.
Then Shenzhen’s mayor Xu Zongheng publicly vowed to crack down with serious punishments on those who refuse to listen. Still, a group of more than 40 law enforcement officials left without any result. And none of the identities of the mansion owners or the builders have been disclosed. The name list of these rich men and woman have remained as guarded as national secrets over the past fours years of “evictions”.
But elsewhere, other evictions of nailhouses have had quick results, but only when carried out against those without any power. Recently a Shenzhen district government bulldozed the shed of many pig farmers, on a plot of land thousands of meters in size. These farmers’ shacks were also illegal structures, but the forced eviction triggered an outcry over the violent law enforcement incident. When it came to dismantling the property of the poor and powerless, the government demonstrated immense power and efficiency.
But when it comes to dealing with the rich or the powerful, the government has become the disadvantaged group. Over four years of “eviction” of the mansions, not a single property owner’s identity has been disclosed. This situation is very abnormal. Shenzhen very much needs a victory over this eviction mission. [Full Text in Chinese]
» Read more
- November 8, 2007 8:06 PM
Bringing Down the Nailhouse – Chen Peijin
The recent “Shengzhou nailbuilding,” in which up to 20,000 people protested over the forced eviction of a 90-year-old woman and others in Zhejiang, was clearly not an isolated case, as we know from the abundant coverage of the Chongqing nailhouse saga earlier this year. Now Shanghaiist draws our attention to another case, in Beijing:
And now, a similar situation has appeared in the Fengtai district of Beijing. A group of residents who did not agree to conditions offered them by land developers for compensation and resettlement are making a last stand in their homes. As you can see from these pictures (the report is in Chinese), deep ‘trenches’, in some places three meters deep, have been dug around the homes, making it nearly impossible for a person to enter or leave without a ladder or professional pole-vaulting skills. The electricity and water have also been cut off. [Full text]
» Read more
- June 24, 2007 9:04 PM
UPDATE: The Shengzhou Nailbuilding

John Kennedy at Global Voices provides extensive background on reports earlier today that a 90-year-old woman in the Zhejiang town of Shengzhou threatened police with a homemade gasoline bomb as violent protests erupted over her eviction.
It appears the woman, Zhang Xinghua, is just one of dozens of residents resisting demolition of their building, which online commentators have likened to the celebrated ‘nailhouse’ recently demolished in Chongqing. According to an account published earlier this week on the Paowang BBS forum by a poster calling himself Uncle Everpower, and translated by Kennedy, the residents’ fight with developers started roughly a year ago:
Since June 2, 2006 when the forced eviction from the house began, the twenty-odd home owners have been forced up onto the roof to live; despite the cruel heat, the water has been cut off for over eighty days; many houses’ installations have been destroyed. Further, receiving frequent inexplicable threats and intentional provocation has disrupted their daily lives. [Full Text]
Kennedy reports that several BBS posts on the clashes have been erased from other forums. The story has prompted a lively discussion on Paowang (also translated), with most commentators outraged. One anonymous poster says he witnessed the beating death of an innocent bystander, but others dispute that claim. Global Voices has put up several pictures of the ‘Awesome Building’ (ÁâõÊ•º) with Granny Zhang on top and crowds gathered below.
» Read more
- June 23, 2007 8:35 PM
‘Nail House’ Blogger is Homeowners’ Hope – Zhuang Pinghui
From the South China Morning Post, via Asia Media:
As mainstream media were forced to abandon coverage of the “nail house“, Mr Zhou’s site became a popular alternative source of updates. At its peak, it attracted more than 37,000 visitors a day.
Others hoping to negotiate better deals with developers or to highlight violations of their legal rights have asked Mr Zhou, a 26-year-old vegetable seller from Hunan, to feature their causes on his blog.
In a country where many feel the legal system and governments have failed them, people are increasingly turning to the media — official and unofficial — to get redress. The Chongqing saga is a case in point. [Full text]
» Read more
- April 30, 2007 9:29 PM
China’s Media Controls: Could Bloggers Make a Difference? – Dan Southerland
From the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief:
That the tightly controlled Chinese media even covered such a story came as much of a surprise, but Wu Ping’s nail house emerged just as the National People’s Congress was passing a new property rights law that purports to protect individual homeowners. This may have been more of an exceptional case than a breakthrough for the Chinese media, given that tens of thousands of Chinese fall victim to government-backed land development schemes and receive little compensation. The lenient treatment of Wu Ping may have helped the government to make a propaganda point, namely that the government respects private property, at least in certain cases. Yet, the “nail house” case may also reveal that downtrodden individuals in China are becoming more willing to challenge the system through unconventional means. Some bloggers are still trying to keep the story alive and have found a similar case in Shenzhen, although it has not received the same attention that Wu Ping’s case received. [Full text]
» Read more
- April 22, 2007 12:18 PM
Fifteen Days in Chongqing – Zhang Yue (Âº†ÊÇ¶)
From Southern Weekend, translated by EastSouthWestNorth:
Our newspaper had exclusive interviews with Chongqing Jiulongpo district party secretary Zheng Hong, Jiulongpo district court director Zhang Li and the “nail house” owner Wu Ping who “vanished” after the settlement was reached. This report describes in detail how the public crisis was resolved through mediation and what is in it for each of the parties involved.
» Read more
- April 14, 2007 3:37 PM
Nailing nail houses – South China Morning Post
Nail house domino in the works? Here is another from Shenzhen, reported by South China Morning Post, via Simon World (photo: the Shenzhen nail house, via Simon World):
Developers wanting to turn a Shenzhen site into the city’s tallest building are being blocked by an obstinate Hong Kong man whose building has become the mainland’s latest “nail house” holdout. Choi Chu-cheung’s six-floor villa in the booming central business district stands isolated in the middle of a huge construction site and the 57-year-old says it will stay until he gets more compensation. Mr Choi and his wife, Zhang Lianhao, are standing firm despite an order by the Shenzhen land resources and housing management bureau last month ordering his family to move out by yesterday.
He admits he has been inspired by a Chongqing couple who held out for 11 days, while their house stood on a mound in the middle of 10-metre-deep pit, until the developers paid up. “The couple is my model. I’m sure I will win this battle as they did,” Mr Choi said of the pair, whose home was dubbed the “coolest nail house” – slang for holdouts who refuse to be hammered down while their houses stand erect like nails after those around are demolished. [Full Text]
» Read more
- April 13, 2007 10:33 PM
Video: The Fall Of The Nail House – Cindy Martin
Wu Ping and Yang Wu gained international celebrity for their refusal to move out of their house to make room for a shopping mall. Their face-off lasted three years but it has now come to an end. They previously demanded a house the same size, height and exposure as theirs as well as 625-thousand dollars. It was a small fortune in this poor country. The couple have agreed to move across Chongqing City to another apartment. .
» Read more
- April 6, 2007 8:00 PM
The Hawker and The Property Law–How China Can be Ruled by Laws
CCTV recently reported that an unnamed hawker in Guangzhou City cried on the street after his goods and equipment were confiscated by the urban administrators. This event alone won’t cause much sensation. But it happened after the Property Law was passed at this year’s NPC meeting. People are asking whether the confiscation is in conflict with the spirit of the Property Law, which is supposed to protect private property.
Southern Metropolitan Daily published an editorial on this issue on Apr. 3. Below is a partial translation by CDT.
From the civil rights point of view, reclamation, demolition and relocation (ÂæÅÂú∞ÊãÜËøÅ) and urban law enforcement (ÂüéÁÆ°ÊâßÊ≥ï) are problems related to the protection of private property. From the perspective of the execution of government power, these issues raise the constitutional problem of whether the power of a government is checked. For the first time, the Property Law defines the limits of private property protection. But without a real checks-and-balances system, the law can’t harness today’s public power in China.
» Read more
- April 6, 2007 2:50 PM
A couple’s small victory is a big step for China – Howard W. French
From The International Herald Tribune, via A Glimpse of the World:
A glimpse of China’s future popped up last week as furtive as a groundhog emerging from its hole.
To trust appearances, it is a future involving some significantly greater measure of pluralism. And because the evidence made its appearance in broad daylight, and not in the realm of shadows, this does not, as some would have it, have the feeling of a dream.
When exactly this future arrives is, of course, unclear, but this harbinger of recent days suggests that it is not so far off. What seems clearer are the hints about how this future will and will not take form.
The event was the remarkable battle of a homeowner against the city of Chongqing and powerful allied property developers, who had earmarked a large site for fancy redevelopment and excavated a huge ditch around what came to be known as the “nail house,” because of the couple’s success in stalling its demolition until they could achieve a shift in what old-fashioned Marxists often used to call “the correlation of forces.” [Full Text]
» Read more
- April 5, 2007 7:58 PM
As a House Falls in China, Rights Debate Resonates – Edward Cody
From the Washington Post:

For weeks, the little house sitting stubbornly atop an earthen pillar in the middle of a busy construction site was a symbol of individual rights in the face of China’s breakneck and often heedless economic development.
Reporters from across China and beyond traveled to Chongqing, a sprawling Sichuan city 900 miles southwest of Beijing, to document the campaign by Wu Ping and her husband, Yang Wu, to get more compensation for the small building where they had lived and run a restaurant for years. As they repeated tirelessly into reporters’ microphones, they were the lone holdouts among the owners of 280 houses bulldozed since 2004 to make way for a shopping center — and they vowed not to move until they got what they wanted…
The nationwide attention given to the Chongqing drama hinted at the frustration felt by many Chinese over the lack of legal protection for individuals in a country where business and government are cooperating closely in the pursuit of economic growth. The house was gleefully labeled a “nail house,” borrowing from a popular Chinese expression in which a “nail” is a person who sticks out by refusing to submit to authority. [Full Text]
See FP blog and China Daily’s report on the “nail house” case.
» Read more
- April 4, 2007 10:57 PM
Chinese Media And Web Users Discuss The Winners And Losers Following Demolition Of China’s “Toughest Nail House” – CMP
China Media Project examines the online aftermath of the “nail house”:
Just after 7pm Monday, crews went to work destroying China’s “toughest nail house”, an isolated Chongqing residence where homeowners had vowed for days to fight for their rights and stand up to property developers [Chinese coverage]. As demolition work began, the homeowners reportedly reached a relocation agreement with city authorities. Yesterday, Chinese news media and Internet users turned to post-game analysis of the winners and losers in the standoff over the “nail house” and property rights in China — and the count was by no means unanimous. [Full text]

- See also photos of the demolition of the nail house, and a translation of an article about the terms of the settlement the nail house owners finally accepted, via ESWN.
» Read more
- April 4, 2007 3:19 PM