“Breaking rank, Shishou official Liu Guolin discloses information regarding the Shishou riots, offering an insightful and critical analysis of the past week’s events.” From the China Election and Governance blog:
A blog entry posted by an official in Shishou has shed more light on the recent events in Shishou city, Hubei province. The blog is maintained by an official named Liu Guolin and details his perspective on the government’s containment efforts in Shishou and lessons that can be learned from the handling of the incident. The blog entry marks a surprising break from usual government silence concerning such incidents and tight control usually asserted over official reports.
Liu’s post increases the level of official recognition of the importance of the Shishou incident. In Liu’s commentary, he notes the importance of a critical understanding of the incident: “The Shishou incident is not a good thing, but in noting lessons that can be learned from the incident, some future good may come out of it. I can definitely say that the Shishou incident’s edifying influence will be no less than that of Weng’an and that in the future, any discussion of means to address riots in China will have to include discussions of Shishou”.
Interestingly, one of the criticisms Liu levels at the government’s handling of the event is the attempt to downplay social unrest as a main cause of the riots and describe the disturbance as an isolated incident. Liu is blunt in his estimation of the cause of the riots, and the state of government and police corruption in Shishou.
For more background on this incident, read CDT’s coverage of the Shishou riots.
