From The Wall Street Journal:
One afternoon in mid-November, hundreds of farmers surrounded a government building in Dongzhou, a tiny Chinese fishing village northeast of Hong Kong. They were protesting corruption among local officials — one of thousands of such protests across China each year.
But according to the government and multiple accounts from villagers, this one took a radical turn. Some villagers entered the building and seized eight officials, according to these accounts. They marched the officials to a nearby temple and locked them inside, behind a steel gate, for about a week. The event mirrored two other recent incidents in which hostages were taken, as reported by the South China Morning Post and Radio Free Asia, a private broadcaster funded by the U.S. government.
Even as China’s booming economy lifts many out of poverty, it appears to be stoking a rising tide of rebellion among have-nots that poses a major challenge to the Communist regime that came to power championing the underclass. The number of protests has been rising since the mid-1990s, according to official data.[Full Text]
-Read more about Dongzhou on CDT
