Some demonstrators wore symbolic masks and brandished posters warning against the dangers of a paraxylene (PX) spill.

“We want to survive, we want health, get PX out of Kunming”, a banner read.

Two years ago, protests against a PX factory in the city of Dalian forced the city government to close the plant, though it reportedly re-opened later.

Saturday’s protest in Kunming, in the south-west of the country, attracted at least 200 people, according to state media.

Chinese bloggers, however, put the number at up to 2,000.

A Xinhua report claimed about 100 protesters gathered, along with 1000 “onlookers” who were also wearing face masks and holding banners. But witnesses say the number of protesters was higher:

#Anti-PX protest in kunming. News says 100s of protesters & 1000+ onlookers. But i saw different, teach-in style protest. All participated.

— Brian Eyler (@aikunming) May 4, 2013

Anti-PX protest in Kunming. Photo from height of protest. 90min mark. twitter.com/aikunming/stat…

— Brian Eyler (@aikunming) May 4, 2013

Possibly the best picture of Kunming anti-PX protest I saw today pbs.twimg.com/media/BJZtUV2C…

— Yaxue Cao (@YaxueCao) May 4, 2013

Weibo photo showing anti-PX protesters in #Kunming are holding self-made banners. twitter.com/Edourdoo/statu…

— edde (@Edourdoo) May 4, 2013

Also on Saturday, calls went out online, and were quickly squashed, for protests against the construction of an oil refinery plant near Chengdu. From ABC News Australia:

Police also lined the streets of Chengdu, the capital of southwest China’s Sichuan province, after locals planned to demonstrate over a nearby chemical plant, residents said.

“There were a lot of police outside government offices, public spaces and important crossroads in the city,” one resident surnamed Liu said, adding that fliers posted around the city in recent days had called for a protest.

[...]

The government responded with notices calling on people not to demonstrate, Liu said.

[...]

Local police on Saturday morning announced that they would be carrying out an earthquake protection drill, a claim dismissed by thousands of internet users.

And from AP:

After word spread about an environmental protest that was planned for Saturday in the central Chinese city of Chengdu, drugstores and printing shops were ordered to report anyone making certain purchases. Microbloggers say government fliers urged people not to demonstrate, and schools were told to stay open to keep students on campus.

And when Saturday came, thousands of police officers and security staff were on Chengdu’s streets, some of them making a tight ring around a major public square. A weekend-long earthquake drill, officials said, but many residents didn’t believe it. They said city officials pre-emptively quashed the protest over a petrochemical plant that a powerful state-owned enterprise is building about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Chengdu.

“What do they fear?” asked local resident Tina Zhong, contacted via China’s social media. “If the government can share more information, the public would be less distrusting.”

Weibo posts about the protests were censored and activists were detained ahead of the planned protest. Anti-PX protests have flared up in Dalian and Xiamen when plans were announced to build plants there in recent years.

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Post tags: Chengdu PX, dalian px, environmental protests, Kunming PX, PX, Xiamen PX
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The Chinese government will require that future industrial projects include assessments of their risk to social stability, following several large protests around the country over pollution, a top official said Monday.

The government will also increase transparency and public involvement in decisions regarding large projects with potential environmental impact, Minister for Environmental Protection Zhou Shengxian told reporters on the sidelines of a Communist Party congress at which a new generation of leaders will be installed.

Zhou acknowledged the sensitivity of the issue but said it was natural for such incidents to occur as living standards rise. ‘‘I think it is inevitable that when a society is developed to a certain level, certain phenomena will naturally arise, this is regular. For China … we are now in a sensitive period especially in terms of environmental issues,’’ he said. ‘‘At the same time we are beginning to see a phenomenon called ‘not in my backyard.’’’

Pollution has become a major cause of unrest in China as members of the rising middle class become more outspoken against environmentally risky projects near them. The demonstrations are a reminder to the incoming generation of leaders that they face a public increasingly unwilling to accept environmental and health hazards as an inevitable consequence of breakneck, unbridled economic growth.

Protests over environmental pollution have been increasing at an average rate of 29% per year, according to official statistics. Just before the opening of the Party Congress, protests in Ningbo against a chemical plant caused the government to back down on plans for development. China Daily has more on the government’s goals for the new program:

Zhou said that central authorities require all large projects to undergo stringent risk assessments and his ministry will make concerted efforts with other government agencies to ensure that the requirement is fully honored.

“I believe if all measures are thoroughly followed, the number of emergencies and mass incidents will be reduced,” he said.

Official statistics are not immediately available, but Yang Zhaofei of the China Society of Environmental Sciences, was quoted by the Beijing News as saying on Oct 26 that the number of environmental “mass protests” has been growing by 29 percent annually in recent years.

Last week, the New York Times reported on the impact of these protests on China’ business climate:

China’s economic boom over the last three decades has depended overwhelmingly on a build-at-all-costs investment strategy in which pollution concerns, the preservation of neighborhoods and other such questions have been swept aside. But that approach is starting to backfire, posing one of the biggest challenges for the new generation of Chinese policy makers who will take over at the Communist Party Congress, which starts on Thursday.

New investment projects used to be seen as the best way to keep the Chinese public happy with jobs and rising incomes, assuring social stability — a paramount goal of the Communist Party — while frequently enriching local politicians as well.

But from Shifang in the west to the port of Ningbo in the east, where a week of sometimes violent protests forced the suspension on Oct. 28 of plans to expand a chemical plant, more projects are running into public hostility. In many cases, they are running into opposition not just from farmers who do not want their houses and fields confiscated, but also from a growing middle class fearful that new factories will lead to more environmental damage.

In response to this and other worries about the economy, a number of influential officials and business leaders in China have stepped up their calls for changes aimed at increasing the efficiency of investment and simultaneously shifting the country toward a greater reliance on consumption.

The New York Times report includes a map of recent major protests around China. Read more about environmental protests and industrial pollution in China, and about several recent protest movements against paraxylene factories in local areas.

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Post tags: 18th party congress, dalian px, environmental protests, industrial pollution, ningbo px, social unrest, sustainable development, Xiamen PX
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One of the most interesting dynamics we see again in the Ningbo PX case is the face-off between social media and “stability preservation,” in recent years the Party’s most robust method of dealing with social instability.

Rapid economic development in the absence of transparent and inclusive institutions in China has generated an upswell of social unrest. Party leaders have tried to balance this equation with massive spending on “stability preservation,” the mobilizing of domestic security forces against the population. But in some sense, social media are now upsetting this equation. Thanks largely to social media, the tactics of “stability preservation” are increasingly under scrutiny.

[…] Mao Zedong famously said that “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Surely, though, he never envisioned the mobile phone glaring back, the eye connected instantly to millions of others.

In cases focused on local grievances, those wielding the phones may be assisted by the organisational structure of online censorship. From Melanie Lee at Reuters:

Part of the reason […] is rooted in the geography of power in China: edicts on what to censor are issued from the central government in Beijing. This means provincial officials have less say over what gets cut from China’s boisterous Weibo.

“If a party secretary is criticized, it is hard for them to go all the way to Beijing and say ‘please delete everything on Weibo about me’,” said Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley who founded news website China Digital Times that keeps an updated list of banned words on Weibo.

“If it is just local and does not implicate someone higher up…(the censors) often will let it go. On the other hand, they do make very swift judgments on information they see as challenging the legitimacy of the party,” Xiao said.

As potent as street protests reinforced by social media may be, however, their results often prove less than initially meets the eye. At Reuters, John Ruwitch and David Stanway described what became of the apparent successes of earlier PX protests:

“Previously, similar cases were reactivated without much scrutiny from the public. The public is much less organized, so when the crisis calms down it’s difficult for them to monitor what’s going on,” said Li Bo, Secretary General of the NGO Friends of Nature in China.

In several cases, what appeared at the outset to be government capitulation turned into quiet compromise. In Dalian last August, demonstrators protested against a PX plant after a typhoon damaged the facility. The government agreed to move it, but months later the plant was still running.

[…] While Xiamen turned out to be a triumph for the city’s NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) movement, the resolution there has become a familiar one. The government over a year later decided to move the facility into someone else’s backyard – in this case that of farmers in the neighboring municipality of Zhangzhou. Residents there protested sporadically, but to no effect.

In an op-ed at Tea Leaf Nation, Yueran Zhang argued that the contest between social media-backed protests and the machinery of stability preservation has trapped China in a “vicious cycle of uprising and appeasement”:

[…] @倚天照海 writes, “When some cheered for the ‘victory’, didn’t they find it lamentable? When the project was evaluated, where was the influence of public will? Where was our right to know? The cancellation of the project was also so arbitrary, without legal procedures. I would rather say it’s a victory for ‘stability preservation!’”

[…] The recent NIMBY movements are […] ultimately related to China’s stagnant political reforms. @白大平 gives a vivid description of the relationship. “It’s said that the Chinese government treats its citizens as a bad babysitter treats infants: Those who cry loudest receive hugs and milk to drink. For small street protests, a little accommodation from the government; for big street protests, a lot more accommodation; no street protest, no accommodation. Whether public opinion counts totally depends on how much ‘trouble’ protesters cause. This is the logic of governance for certain officials. The priority of the political reform project should be to abandon a system that encourages people to protect their rights by taking to the streets and ‘crying out loud.’ We should construct an institutionalized system to absorb public opinion, making it something more than just a rubber stamp.”

Without a firm institutional foundation, government concessions tend to be no more than populist sops, and can be revoked as soon as the protesters have dispersed and the microbloggers have moved on. Moreover, even short-lived victories are only won in the few cases which attract widespread attention. The contrast between two recent forced demolition cases illustrates this limitation. In one, featured in recent cartoons posted at China Media Project and at CDT, a popular musician won an apparent reprieve for his father-in-law’s home after appealing to his more than 710,000 weibo followers. From Yuan Xiaoyi and Liu Sha at Global Times:

The posts by Zuoxiaozuzhou had been reposted almost 37,000 times by late Monday. Many Web users responded online with angry, pointed comments aimed at local officials, while some said the singer used fame to get his way.

The district wants the land for the construction of a subway train rail yard and maintenance station. Local officials told Xinhua that if construction is slowed because an agreement with the family cannot be reached, they will build around Bian’s house.

Some netizens said Zuoxiaozuzhou is much luckier than ordinary people who do not have hundreds of thousands of followers to turn to for backup.

In most cases, indeed, popular attention arrives too late if at all. At chinaSMACK, Katy Koyich translated two versions of one such story. One account, from Xinhua, stated that a Hunan villager named Shi Ganming had been driven to self immolation by the illegal demolition of his home. According to a recent report from Amnesty International, forced demolitions led to 41 self immolation protests in China between 2009 and 2011. But online rumours suggested that the truth was even worse.

Xiangtan city report, the news about Xiangtan demolition and relocation personnel setting a homeowner to be relocated on fire is an incident of the builder acting on their own to tear down the [victim's] home causing the villager to set himself on fire. In order to get the engineering/construction project and without obtaining the permission of the relevant departments, Zhongtian Company project manager Qiang Yuqing and Xiangtan city Baota Street Yunfeng neighborhood villager Feng Changsheng (village party secretary’s brother) directly caused this villager Shi Ganming’s self-immolation.

@浣铁军: Demolishing and relocation – The blood curdling shrieks of a living person set on fire! Ripping apart the hearts of every Chinese person: The wretched sight of a living person being set of fire pierces the clear eyes of every Chinese person! Yet another elderly person burned like charcoal and close to death lies in the hospital! On October 14th, in the Yunfeng neighborhood of Xiangtang City, Hunan Province, and as a result of demolition and relocation talks that have been continuously failed, those responsible for the demolition recruited members of the criminal underworld to inhumanly beat up and then set on fire a nearly 60-year-old elderly man. The blood curdling shrieks of a living person set on fire! Ripping apart the hearts of every Chinese person!

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Post tags: Amnesty International, dalian px, David Bandurski, environmental protests, forced demolitions, Friends of Nature, NIMBY, ningbo px, PX, self-immolations, sina weibo, social media, Xiamen PX, Xiao Qiang
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Wu Danhong, 33, an assistant professor at China University of Political Science and Law, and Zhou Yan, a female reporter from Sichuan Television Station, agreed Thursday to meet at 1 pm Friday at the park to “settle” a spat on Weibo.

Wu made a controversial post on Weibo on Tuesday saying that a molybdenum copper plant project in Shifang, Sichuan Province, later cancelled after protests, was not harmful to the environment, as molybdenum and copper are necessary elements for the human body.

[…] “Both Ai Weiwei and Yao Bo, a well-known columnist and affairs commentator came,” Wu told the Global Times on Friday. “About 30 or 40 people were with Zhou Yan while I was alone.”

Wu then claimed that “Zhou Yan, Ai Weiwei and Yao Bo beat me, and I suffered many cuts and bruises.”

(Update: for background and another side to the story, see Beijing Cream’s account.)

An editorial at the newspaper roundly condemned the incident, which it said “shames all Weibo intellectuals“:

[…] There was no winner in this farce.

Physical fighting over conflicting political thoughts is the most vulgar behavior yet carried out by a few online intellectuals, also tainting democratic movements on the microblog. Neither challenger nor defender could be labeled as brave, and they have forsaken the virtues of tolerance and decency in this incident.

It is especially disappointing that some famed people were part of that scenario or applauded the result.

We call on the police to punish those who beat others, so as to prevent this practice from seeming legitimate.

An earlier editorial had pointed out students’ key role in the Shifang unrest, described at Offbeat China. This echoed the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, Global Times argued, while stressing that last week’s protests had revolved more around environmental than political concerns.

The underage group, immature but passionate, and free of family burdens and social pressure, can easily be misguided by movements initiated by adults. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), red guards, mainly consisting of high school students, showed a tendency to violence and cruelty.

Their impulses and vulnerability to manipulation were fully displayed during that decade. In every normal peaceful country, high school students should focus on school work. It is a revolutionary instinct to urge young students to join a mass protest.

The protest in Shifang highlights the urgency of adjusting the decision-making process in China. Though violence broke out, it was a conflict caused by environmental concerns, and was obviously not a revolution. Similar concerns are common in many other countries.

Global Times also reported a reshuffling of Shifang’s leadership in the wake of the protests. Its coverage was an exception to the general rule, wrote David Bandurski at China Media Project: most Chinese media reports made no mention of social unrest in Shifang, mentioning only a business setback whose cause was unspecified.

Just to give readers a taste, here is the lede for the story appearing on page 28 of Chengdu Commercial News, a Sichuan newspaper:

Recently, Sichuan Hongda (600331) has been the focus of attention over its molybdenum-copper project in Shifang. Yesterday (July 4), Sichuan Hongda, which suspended trading for one day, said that the company received a notice on July 3 demanding that . . . construction be halted for the project. This negative factor drove Sichuan Hongda shares down 9.2% on re-opening of trading . . .

Elsewhere, views on the protests’ apparent success have been mixed. CDT founder Xiao Qiang celebrated the outcome in comments to CNN’s Jaime FlorCruz:

“It is a stunning case of a local NIMBY movement coalescing with the support of nationwide public opinion through the internet,” said Xiao Qiang, a U.S.-based expert on the Chinese internet.

“The new media, particularly through (Twitter-like) Weibo and popular forums such as Kaidi.net played an absolutely critical role in the whole process.”

Xiao said netizens spread the news instantly and widely, exposed police violence against protesters and generated popular outrage.

“With such national exposure and public opinion on the protesters’ side, the local authorities had no choice but to cave in instantly,” he said.

But Madeline Earp at the Committee to Protect Journalists argued that cases like Shifang “create the appearance of official accountability, but ultimately lack substance.”

The strategy of diverting criticism is perfectly illustrated by […] environmental protests in Shifang, western China, over a metal plant that locals feared would cause pollution. Police targeted protesters documenting the unrest, and censors erased coverage from social media, yet the sometimes-violent clashes were still the most searched topic on Weibo, Sina’s microblog service, on Tuesday, according to The New York Times. When the local government cancelled building at the plant which had sparked the riots and released some detained protesters, the international press almost universally hailed it as a victory for the people.

Officials kowtowing to citizens’ demands to quell protests has become routine in China, but the follow-through has not. Officials in Dalian said a chemical plant would be closed after protesters took to the streets in August 2011, but it resumed production in January, according to CNN. Authorities in Xiamen acceded to demonstrators’ demands to move a chemical plant in 2007, but publicly pursued the protest organizers, according to law professor Benjamin Van Rooij from the Netherlands.

[… M]iddle-class locals defending their hometown in Shifang, may be articulating their rights and demanding more from China’s leaders. But they are also perpetuating a cycle of protests that authorities can diffuse without the need for reform or redress for serious injustice. That is not a victory.

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Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Committee to Protect Journalists, copper, Cultural Revolution, dalian, dalian px, David Bandurski, environmental protests, Global Times, Shifang, Sichuan, weibo, Xiamen PX, Xiao Qiang
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In a rare concession, Dalian’s top official on Sunday “tried to appease the crowd by promising to move the polluting project out of the city,” Xinhua said, adding that there was no sign of the protest dispersing soon.

Protesters, including children, marched holding banners that declared: “I love Dalian and reject poison” and “return me my home and garden, get out PX, protect Dalian,” according to photographs posted on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter ….

“A poster was put on the Internet yesterday calling people to ‘stroll’ on Sunday morning starting from 10 a.m. on the People’s Square, near which the Dalian government is located,” a resident in Dalian, who declined to be named, told Reuters by telephone ….

Public distrust of the government mounted after Chinese media reported that the petrochemical plant might have been allowed to operate illegally months before it received mandatory environmental approval. According to Southern Metropolis News, the Fujia plant started full-scale production in June 2009, but it did not get the go-ahead from the Liaoning environmental protection bureau until April last year.

On Sunday evening, authorities announced the PX plant will be closed immediately, according to Reuters:

Authorities in northeastern China on Sunday ordered a petrochemical plant to be shut down immediately after thousands of people demonstrated, demanding the relocation of the factory at the center of a toxic spill scare, state media said.

Demonstrators in the port city of Dalian, in Liaoning province, faced down a wall of police in riot gear in front of the municipal government office. Minor scuffles broke out, although there was no report of injuries among the 12,000 protesters, state news agency Xinhua said.

The authorities also pledged to relocate the Fujia Chemical Plant, Xinhua said, citing a statement from the municipal committee of the Communist Party and the government. The report did not say where the plant is likely to move to.

Global Voices Online has collected a number of photos of the protest from Weibo; see also two aerial shots of the crowds [edit: and Wen Yunchao's extensive gallery on Google+]. Reuters reported that Weibo searches for “Dalian” “PX” and other related terms were blocked, while reports on Twitter suggested that cell phone signals in the area were also being blocked [edit: voice calls could be made, but data networks were reportedly inaccessible]. Any Western criticism of these measures is likely to be met with references to David Cameron’s proposal to control riots by restricting social media access, and to the shutting-down of cellular phone signals on San Francisco’s BART transit system to disrupt protests, both on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, the South China Morning Post explored prospects for the plant’s relocation, which was already under consideration:

The PX plant would make history if it became the first large, operational petrochemical project to be relocated on the mainland.

But given the scale of the PX plant and growing environmental awareness, analysts said it could take a long time to find another site.

“It will be a real test for the Dalian authorities in the face of tough choices between economic growth and the public’s well-being,” Beijing-based environmentalist Ma Jun said.

However, he added that the relocation was unlikely to eliminate huge environmental risks posed by dozens of other large petrochemical plants in the same industrial zone in the city’s eastern suburbs.

Analysts noted that the Dalian government could face tough questions about who should pay for the relocation and who should be held responsible for building the PX project in the first place.

The sensitivity of the threatened leak was no doubt heightened by the large oil spill in Dalian which followed a pipeline explosion last summer. The disaster led to a lengthy clean-up operation in which one local firefighter drowned in oil.

In a landmark case in 2007, protests forced the relocation of a planned PX plant in Xiamen.

More photos and video on CDT Chinese here, and here.

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Post tags: chemical plant, chemical spill, dalian, Liaoning, oil spill, pollution, protests, sina weibo, xiamen, Xiamen PX
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The salt panic, plus a surge in online voices opposing plans to build dozens of power plants across the country, suggest that the government may have a harder time than it expected managing its aggressive nuclear energy plans. Currently, these foresee an approximate eightfold expansion within just nine years.

Chinese and overseas experts worry that safety cannot be guaranteed at that rate of growth, saying the country lacked experienced nuclear engineers, plant operators and a nuclear safety culture ….

“The salt-buying panic shows that in the future, the lack of trust in this area between people and the government is going to be really serious,” said Kevin Jianjun Tu, a senior associate for energy and climate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington….

There are precedents of popular resistance influencing the outcome of government-backed projects. In 2007, residents of the prosperous coastal city of Xiamen organized demonstrations via text message against a planned chemical plant, forcing its relocation. Yet such movements remain rare ….

The Xiamen demonstrations were cited by Human Rights in China (PDF) as an example of the country’s “growing civil consciousness”:

On June 1, 2007, more than 20,000 people demon- strated in the streets of Xiamen without a permit from the Public Security Bureau to protest plans to build a paraxylene (PX)1 chemical factory in their city. At nightfall, dozens of Xiamen residents continued to stage a peaceful sit-in in front of City Hall. The possible consequences of “breaking the law” no longer deterred the citizens of Xiamen from undertaking the largest demonstration in a major Chinese city since June 1989.

Before the demonstration, more than one million Xia- men citizens sent out cell-phone text messages oppos- ing the PX chemical factory project. All contained the same warning: “Taiwanese businessman Chen Yuhao’s Xianglu Group has invested in a joint venture project to build a chemical factory to manufacture paraxylene (PX) in Haicang District. Making this deadly poison [here] would be like dropping an atomic bomb on Xia- men Island. It would mean that in the future, the people of Xiamen would live with leukemia and deformed children.”

Doubts about nuclear power are shared by many in Taiwan, whose chances of effecting change may be somewhat brighter. From Global Voices Online:

Lin Tsung-yao (林宗堯), member of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant Safety Monitoring Committee, has called upon the Taiwan Power company to do a thorough reevaluation of construction of its fourth nuclear power plant:

The fourth nuclear power plant is an assembled plant… The Taiwan Power Company designed the plant itself and contracted out. When it purchased the parts in Taiwan, it usually chose the cheapest ones…Because these parts were purchased at different times and have different levels of quality, the proceedings of construction was a mess…Now test runs have begun, but we see problems like the cancelation of contracts with the original consulting company and General Electric. Therefore, we no longer have experienced consultants and supervision for this plant ….

Despite these safety concerns, Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou has said that the government has dismissed calls by opposition lawmakers to halt the project, scheduled to go into operation in 2012.

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Post tags: Japan earthquake 2011, nuclear power, Taiwan, Xiamen PX
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The following tweets are from Beifeng, translated by CDT:

At the Annual Blogger Conference, I was interviewed by a reporter of the Wall Street Journal about my expectations for President Obama’s visit. I said: There have been some very extreme individual cases of human rights violations in China, I hope President Obama will show his necessary concern. Also, please say this to Chairman Hu: Please tear down the Great Firewall, it interferes with our freedom of speech.

在中文网志年会时，接受WSJ的采访，提及对奥巴马来访的期望， 我说：去年中国发生了一些很极端的人权个案，希望奥巴马能给予必要的关注；另外请他对胡锦涛主席说，请拆除国家防火墙，它妨碍了我们的言论自由。

The following photos are from CN Reviews, Shizhao’s blog and Jean Yim’s Flickr:

Hong Kong-based Ming Pao reports on the Chinese bloggers conference.

Click here to see more photos of the Lianzhou Chinese Bloggers Conference, by Shizhao.

Even China’s official English newspaper Global Times reported the Lianzhou Chinese Bloggers Conference. Please read: Bloggers join heads in Guangdong by Zhang Lei.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chinese blogger conference, CNbloggerCon, tweets, Twitter, Wen Yunchao, Xiamen PX
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China’s environment ministry has approved a petrochemical plant that drew fierce opposition over feared pollution in one eastern city, approving its construction several miles to the west.

Plans to build the paraxylene plant in Xiamen, Fujian province, faltered in 2007 after residents there mobilized a rare mass campaign over fears of toxins from the petrochemicals, used to make polyester and fabrics.

But now the Ministry of Environmental Protection had passed an environmental impact study to build the petrochemical complex in Zhangzhou, about 50 km (30 miles) west of Xiamen, the official China News Service reported on Tuesday.

The approval means the project, costing about 14 billion yuan ($2 billion), “may move to Zhangzhou,” the report said.

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Post tags: xiamen, Xiamen PX, Zhangzhou
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So great is the Great Hall of the People that there’s always room for a sideshow, even when the national legislature is in session.

Last Friday at 8:50 a.m., a pack of frumpy middle-aged women clambered up the steps toting plastic bags. Any place else they might be pegged for petitioners. Turned out they were support staff for the Chinese modeling agency New Silk Road (新丝路), there for a rehearsal of an annual “Women’s Day” ceremony. “We’re in the show,” boasted one of the older crowd, evidently referring to their younger charges. Soon the jingle-jangle of a made-for-CCTV gala beckoned from the theater above, rebounding through the desolate foyer below. Access was restricted, however; lads in black suits were posted at every elevator and staircase, blocking passage to the second floor. Wu Yi, the models and 1,000 other women from around the world were well-guarded.

Down on the main level the Fujian province delegation was open to the press, and somewhat revealing in its own right. Those reporters who weren’t chasing the upcoming Taiwan presidential elections were checking in on the unbuilt Taiwanese-owned petrochemical project popularly dubbed ‘Xiamen PX’. The name’s fast becoming a misnomer, of course. Since at least December, when citizens balked over an environmental impact assessment of the project’s original ‘hood, Xiamen and Fujian leaders have pushed to jettison the plant from Xiamen down the shore to Gulei peninsula, in the city of Zhangzhou, a strip of fishing villages far less populous and developed. But company bosses along with central government planners administering the project have yet to commit to such a move, which would require a new round of approvals and feasibility studies, construction of new port, power and water facilities, and likely a financial package of fresh concessions and compensation. Any potential move was further complicated by protests the previous weekend one county over from the proposed site, which spiraled into bloody clashes with police.

News of the move Fujian leaders floated in December was first leaked in the Ta Kung Pao, immediately refuted in the Wen Wei Po, only to be picked up in Southern Weekend. It then permeated indirectly in progressive media paeans to Xiameners’ coup. But this was the first time key Fujian figures involved faced the press over it since that time.

Reuters coverage captures the gist of their comments. Interestingly, Xinhua and other Chinese outlets put a rather populist and placatory spin on their comments, in contrast to the shifty, patronizing tone one might have gleaned from the whole exchange, excerpts of which are roughly translated below.

Fujian officials have been caught in a bind: between, on the one hand, continued external pressures to allay public fears and, on the other, sources contend, internal criticism for bungling the blowback there and helping spur a rash of protests over other projects elsewhere. As such they hedged conservatively. They sounded shifty and abrasive. They made it seem only natural and self-evident that while the project was sound, its present location in Xiamen no longer was. They soft-pedaled on the media and popular dissent that forced them to adopt that posture and skipped entirely over the misguided planning in the area that played into the controversy to start. And most ominously, they defended the Gulei site in practically the same passive-aggressive manner they once had Xiamen.

It was right here in Beijing one year ago that the whole to-do over the petrochemical project first caught the glare of Chinese press, when the Taiwan-born Xiamen U. biochemist and CCPPC delegate Zhao Yufen filed an incendiary proposal to uproot the project. Zhao did not land a new term this year.

The PX affair did come up in conversation among the Fujian NPCers last week, according to one Fuzhou-based journalist tagging along with the delegation. But it was not an agenda item, he explained, since there was nothing conclusive to discuss. “It’s leaving Xiamen is for sure, but whether it’s going to Zhangzhou [city] has not been resolved.”

Journalists at the session had the tea to thank for the first trickle of official comment. Among those to succomb to urinary pressures was the mayor of Zhangzhou, Li Jianguo (pictured below). After he relieved himself he was cornered with ease, and quizzed about the protests in his jurisdiction:

“Because right now this PX project is rather sensitive, so we have not said it’s going to land in Zhangzhou. There’s only this intention, an intention is all.

“Now, about this project… It’s a good project. The project itself does not have any problems. That’s the first point. The second point is that for it to come to Zhangzhou, Zhangzhou should be able to accommodate it, because the conditions and environment are all okay, so that if you’re talking about a petrochemical project on Gulei peninsula, it should be acceptable. If it’s not PX, then other petrochemical projects could be accommodated as well.”

Li Jianguo

This correspondent asked him how the protests across the water on Dongshan Island would affect the recommended move.

“The main problem is, because the masses basically do not get what PX is, and are unclear about it, and we’ve had relatively little contact with this sort of thing, so correct guidance is needed on these moves. Because if you look overseas, there are a lot of PX [plants]. Like in Singapore, there is only a little over 600 metres between the plant equipment and [city areas].”

Li was soon rescued from the scrum by a publicity flak.

Later, during the official Q&A, this correspondent asked Fujian Party Secretary Lu Zhangong for an update on the state of the project. He let Xiamen mayor Liu Cigui (pictured below) have the first crack.

Lu Zhangong

Liu Cigui

Liu turned straight to this correspondent. “Have you been to Xiamen?” he asked sharply. (I told him I had.) Liu had been among the more conciliatory official voices as opposition toward the project swelled in May, which is not necessarily saying much. Clearly he had settled back into bureaucrat mode. Liu gave a long-winded sketch of Xiamen’s transformation the past three decades on the back of double-digit growth patterns.

“So Xiamen’s positioning [today] is as a modernized, scenic, tourist port city. This PX project that you just mentioned is a petrochemical project. It should be said that this is a good project – that is for sure. [But] because the period from the time efforts to win the project were initiated to the time construction began was relatively long, we’ve been required to give added consideration to speed and quality as Xiamen developed, and to Xiamen’s function and positioning.”

Space was constricted in Xiamen, noted Liu, because half the land is mountainous and another part national preserve. Tourism and ports were bustling as well. Hence Xiamen was become more of a financial, R&D, logistics and convention center, and the district of Haicang, originally zoned for petrochemicals, had to cater to the development of high-end service industry. He made but passing mention of the environmental re-assessment from an official academy in Beijing.

“Because of this, we’ve recommended this project — because after all it is just a project, right? So the media have hyped this a good deal. Because Xiamen is a sensitive area, so perhaps for a beautiful city like Xiamen the degree of attention everybody pays is relatively high. Naturally it should not have gotten to this extent. Because I’ve come across a lot of media and they all want to ask me about it. So I feel that the degree of attention on Xiamen, as a beautiful city, is relatively high. And we do thank the the media, too — so at the moment…the city government holds that this project, this good project, can go some place in Fujian province that is more suitable, more spacious. Because [in the original location] it has only a scale of 800,000 tonnes [in yearly output] and cannot possibly develop further. So there’s no room for even the project itself to extend and broaden its line. Therefore, in order to build the petrochemical industry stronger and bigger, because the petrochemical industry is still very much in need on the western coast [of the South China Sea] and across our country, we recommend this project not be built in Haicang but somewhere else in the province with more space. So right now we’re negotiating with the owners, and in accordance with procedures, reporting to higher authorities. I think we’re heading in a satisfactory direction to develop. Thank you.”

The aloof account from Liu seemed to amuse Lu, who sniggered. “Heh, heh…This matter was very simple to start with. But then they messed back and forth with it and made it very complicated.”

Who Lu meant by “they” was unclear.

Liu sniggered back. “It was just a project, naturally.”

Now it was Lu’s turn. He was careful to bring up to date what had gone wrong without delving into specifics or assigning blame. He maintained there had been geographical “confusion” (in the media, presumably) between the main island of Xiamen and the greater city area where the plant was to be located. After Xiamen became a Special Economic Zone in the early 1980’s, he noted, Haicang peninsula was formally zoned for Taiwanese investment and petrochemical development (officially in 1990-91, when the intended beneficiary was Formosa Plastics).

“But for various reasons, it never became a significant petrochemical zone.”

Over the years, Lu went on, Xiamen’s “situation changed”. It emerged a shipping and high-tech center, and the application process for the PX project dragged on during this time, Lu said. He did not point out that during this five year lag from 2001 to 2006, the local government rezoned Haicang a second city center to accommodate a commercial real estate boom and approved two dozen property projects within two miles of the proposed plant site. He only reiterated the fact that at this point there was little space to spare.

“For example, this project could be placed there. But to turn this project into a petrochemical district, a petrochemical base, would be difficult. There’s no leftover land to develop further. So Xiamen people were correct to have complaints. At the time, then, the Xiamen people had complaints. That had to do with Xiamen’s function and positioning.”

Lu ran down the tick-tock of how the local government had suspended the project and ordered an independent environmental survey, but did not specifically mention popular protests. He reiterated that there was nothing wrong with the project itself and again cited the example of Singapore. But he came back to the changes in Xiamen.

“So as it happened, based on the relevant objections of the people, and with this shift, whereby Xiamen settled upon adjusting its function, it raised this recommendation [to relocate the PX factory on Gulei peninsula] – right now it can only be said that it’s a recommendation, and nothing else has been carried out – Fujian province wishes to agree with Xiamen’s opinion, because this place Xiamen is too small.”

His point was that the most recent protests flared prematurely.

“Before the move is set, first the national government must agree to you relocating. Two, the company’s choice must be respected. If it chooses Fujian, fine, but it could choose not to be in Fujian. It might want to go somewhere else…Right now we have no idea about any these things, but there are some people [fighting the move] with all they’ve got. So now there basically aren’t any clear problems, but because of various factors, some of the masses are still reacting with accusations. The place where they’re reacting in Zhangzhou, Dongshan — hah, hah — this has even less to do with Dongshan.”

For an instant he was choked up in awkwardly jittery laughter.

“…Now it’s already being dealt with appropriately.”

Lu called on the Zhangzhou mayor, Li Jianguo. Li asserted Zhangzhou’s capability to build a port to support the petrochemical trade on Gulei peninsula:

“My meaning is, if there were a good project like this that could be situated on Gulei peninsula, we would very much welcome it, and could undertake it. Right now, we have this intention, but because this intention has not entered into something substantive, it’s only an intention. But if this intention is for real, we also would very much welcome it.”

Added Li:

“But most recently, there are certain individuals, whether over the Internet or through other means, individual people who are not very welcoming. What’s the main problem here? There’s a kind of misunderstanding. Where’s the misunderstanding? The misunderstanding is that if [the project] moves to Zhangzhou it will have such and such an impact — there’s this misunderstanding here. In addition, there’s a misunderstanding of this project. Is this project alright or not? In truth this project is very good.”

Again he returned to the example of a major petrochemical base in Singapore. “At its nearest it’s only 650 meters away from the metropolitan area. Everywhere in the world has [such sites]….”

Lu cut in. “And America.”

Li: “Right.”

Lu: “That petrochemical base in America, its scale is much bigger still.”

Li: “That petrochemical base in America, what’s that place called? How big is the scale of the refinery? 100 million tonnes [a year], and it’s also very close to the metropolitan area.”

Lu chimed back: “This is just a misunderstanding. Right now the people, their environmental awareness is getting stronger and stronger. This should be fully endorsed. This is a goal of ours, too.”

Li turned to a reporter from Hong Kong’s Singtao Daily. “Just now one of our journalists here, when I stepped out, he asked me something. I want to correct you once more. This journalist here asked me question, saying, ‘Xiamen did not want this PX project.’ I want to correct that. You can’t say Xiamen did not want it. As I just was saying, and Mayor Liu was saying too: This is a good project. Everybody was fighting to win it.”

The chamber fell silent for a few seconds before Lu prompted the next question.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Fujian, Gulei Peninsula, NPC 2008, Xiamen PX
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Anti-PX marches on Dongshan Island two weeks ago were a country cousin to the urbane “strolls” last year in downtown Xiamen. The protest burst into a rumble, as often occurs down in the sticks, only to be smothered just as fast by riot police and a media blackout. Still the resemblance to Xiamen was strong.

The demonstrations in Dongshan sprouted from national press reports – of a shadowy Fujian government proposal to relocate the forsaken Xiamen petrochemical project nearby – and grew from the volley of spitballs in local neighborhoods and chatrooms. Opposition took about as long to gestate into action (two-and-a-half months), drew a comparable number of citizens (as many as ten thousand, as few as two), and relied on ample logistical support from the local business community. And as in Xiamen, where one young protester was bagged for taking it to the streets before everyone else did, there were false starts as well.
(...)
Read the rest of Two Letters That Plant Protests (891 words)

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: environmental protests, Gulei Peninsula, industrial pollution, Xiamen PX
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Violent protests erupted in several southern Chinese fishing towns after residents heard a chemical factory rejected as environmentally dangerous by the nearby city of Xiamen would be built in their area instead, witnesses and other residents said Monday.

The protesters, who began their uprising peacefully on Thursday, clashed repeatedly with baton-wielding police Friday and Saturday in several towns on the Gulei Peninsula, about 50 miles south of Xiamen on the Taiwan Strait, the witnesses and residents said. A dozen people were injured and carried away for treatment in local hospitals, and about 15 were arrested, according to demonstrators and their family members.

Many articles in Chinese cyberspace about the Dongshan protests have been deleted by the government censors, such as here, here and here. However, overseas Chinese websites already republished some of the contents, including photos and video clips.

Photo source: United Daily News

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Gulei Peninsula, protests, Xiamen PX
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A group of Shanghai residents who had applied to the government for the right to hold an anti-maglev protest were rejected by the government. Despite this, small numbers of them intended to go on another “walk” in order to publicly air their grievances. This time, they were stopped by some other residents…

On the other hand, while we were out yesterday afternoon we did notice some “protest banners” up at 612 Nanjing Xi Lu, near all those ritzy shopping centers. The residents of the small lane complain that the unabated construction that has left them hemmed in by towering office and commercial buildings has adversely affected the physical structure of their homes.

Perhaps most interesting, both the maglev and Nanjing Lu protests have grown out of what Peijin calls a larger homeowners movement, which itself appears to take inspiration from the highly-publicized Xiamen PX protests of last year.

© Wu Nan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: land rights, protests, Shanghai, Xiamen PX
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Though the people’s coup over paraxylene (PX) in Xiamen is not official yet, echoes it are being heard in protests from Nanjing to Shanghai to Beijing. The trend, in turn, is said to have made the Xiamen case much trickier for the central government to close. “They don’t want to provide an example that would set off a chain reaction,” notes one official source in Xiamen, adding: “But it seems a chain reaction’s already underway.”(...)
Read the rest of PX Workers Protest, No One Notices (Updated) (1,687 words)

© Kate Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: environmental protests, Xiamen PX, Xianglu
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The Xiamen protest was different to the thousands of others that take place across China because of who was involved.

The customary groups of poor, uneducated farmers were joined by young, motivated environmentalists, such as Wu Xian.

When he heard about the PX project, he set up an online discussion group and urged Xiamen’s residents to protest against the plant.

A few days before the first demonstration, police arrested the 20-year-old, who is a manager at a local karaoke bar. [Full text]

[Image: Activist Wu Xian, via the BBC]

© Kate Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: environmental protests, Xiamen PX
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The suspended controversial Xiamen city PX plant probably will not become a landmark wherever it finally stands, but it may have helped lay a cornerstone that boosts ordinary Chinese people’s participation in policy making.

The authorities in Xiamen, east China’s Fujian Province put a paraxylene (PX) plant project, earmarked for Haicang District 16 kilometers from the city center, on hold on May 30 last year.

The decision came after huge pressure from citizens opposed to the project who said it was polluting and potentially dangerous. [Full Text]

Read also Letter from China: A ‘harmonious society’ hearing different notes by Howard French.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: democracy, public opinion, Xiamen PX
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