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Chinese Bomb Blast Adds to Unrest

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Apr 27, 2011
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A man seeking "revenge on society" set off at least one bomb outside a local government headquarters in northeastern China, state media reported, the latest in a spate of violent incidents that highlight growing public anger at official corruption and abuse of power.

The blast, in the port city of Tianjin, slightly injured two people, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. It was the third explosion at government facilities over the past three weeks. Police have also faced violent unrest among migrant street vendors in one southern Chinese city and among residents of another city in central China in the last few days.

The unrest comes as China's government, unnerved by Mideast unrest, is in the midst of a sustained crackdown on dissent ahead of the party's 90th anniversary on July 1, and for a once-a-decade leadership change next year, when President Hu Jintao and others are due to retire from their party posts.

Incidents of unrest used to be concentrated in rural areas, experts say, but are increasingly happening in cities, too. The series of blasts at government facilities are especially worrying for China's Communist Party leaders as explosives—chemicals for which are widely available across the country—are not frequently used in such protests and could trigger copycat attacks, analysts say.

Chinese leaders have repeatedly denied the need for democratic reforms, while calling instead for limited reforms within the party and better "social management." But tThe recent events illustrate the scale and the complexity of the problems China's leaders face amid public anger over issues including land and labor rights, corruption, inflation, property prices, and scandals over food and the environment.

In one of the latest such scandals, Xinhua reported Sunday that more than 600 people, including 103 children, had been found to suffer from lead poisoning in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Such reports of mass lead poisonings have become increasingly common in China in recent years, reflecting both the pervasiveness of industrial pollution and the government's efforts to be more open about them.Workers and their children in 25 family-run tinfoil workshops in Zhejiang's Yangxunqiao township had dangerously high levels of lead in their blood, according to a preliminary medical test, it said. Twelve victims were being treated in the hospital, and all of the 25 workshops had suspended operations, Xinhua said.

State media reports blamed the Tianjin blast, which took place Friday, on a man who they said had problems with gambling and family members and was seeking "revenge against society." Some state media reports said the man, identified only by his surname, Lin, was carrying 20 handmade bombs—each roughly the size and shape of a soda can—and had thrown four of them at the government building in the Hexi district of Tianjin, a port city about 60 miles east of Beijing. The reports didn't make clear how many of the bombs had exploded, or give further details about the blast or the suspect. Local officials contacted declined to comment.

The attack occurred just over two weeks after a 52-year-old man identified as Qian Mingqi was blamed for three blasts in the city of Fuzhou in the southern province of Jiangxi. Mr. Qian, who was killed in one of the blasts, had expressed frustration in an Internet posting over his inability to win redress for an "illegally removed" building in 2002 and threatened: "I could take action I don't want to take."

Another explosion on Thursday destroyed most of a multistory police station and killed a police driver in Huangshi township in southern Hunan province, according to the local government and to the English-language China Daily newspaper.

Local officials said that blast was caused by the accidental detonation of confiscated explosive that were stored in the police station, but some Chinese Internet postings speculated that it might have been another revenge attack on corrupt police.

The blasts come amid a clampdown on dissent in which security agencies have already detained dozens of dissidents, including the contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, since anonymous calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China began circulating online in mid-February.

Authorities are also struggling with continuing ethnic tensions, illustrated last month when hundreds of Mongolian students protested in the northern region of Inner Mongolia after a truck driver from the ethnic Han Chinese majority run over and killed a Mongolian herder trying to stop coal convoys crossing pastureland.

Meanwhile, the plight of migrant workers—among the most vulnerable to official abuses—were highlighted Sunday, when police said that 25 people were arrested after a clash between migrant street vendors and security forces in Xintang town near the city of Guangzhou on Saturday night.

A statement posted on the Guangzhou police website said "troublemakers" blocked traffic and damaged vehicles, forcing police to "adopt measures" to prevent the incident from escalating further.

Police brutality, corruption, and land rights were also the focus of riots in the central province of Hubei last week over the mysterious death in police custody of a low-level Chinese bureaucrat who challenged a land deal backed by higher-level officials.

Paramilitary police had to be called in to end the unrest in the small city of Lichuan which erupted after Ran Jianxin died in official custody on June 4 while being interrogated over allegations that he took bribes, authorities said. Photographs published on the Internet appeared to show police patrolling the city in armored vehicles.

Chinese Bomb Blast Adds to Unrest - WSJ.com
 
:lol: the west keeps trying to connect these protests about economic and social issues to Ai Weiwei and other 5 cent CIA muppets.

Rest assured, like the protests in India about land grabs, starvation, farmer suicides, gender discrimination, caste discrimination and slum clearance, these are just natural occurances of an industrializing nation and should be reported more on, but not in the manner of trying to use them to destabilize China. If US forces attack China every one of these protesters will drop their signs and pick up a gun to kill the white man.
 
Unrest Continues to Rock China Town

BEIJING—Armed police were still struggling to restore order in a town in southern China a day after hundreds of migrant workers overturned police cars and torched government buildings there in the latest of a wave of violent protests over the last few weeks.

Schools and government buildings in Zengcheng were still shut Monday and armed police were still patrolling the streets, warning residents to stay indoors after sunset, local people contacted by telephone told The Wall Street Journal. Local authorities said no deaths have been reported but didn't provide further details.

Paramilitary police fired tear gas and deployed armored vehicles to disperse the protesters in Zengcheng, near the city of Guangzhou, on Sunday night, according to video footage that was circulating online and broadcast on Hong Kong television Monday.

The unrest in Zengcheng follows two bomb attacks on government facilities and other violent incidents that have highlighted growing public anger at issues including land and labor rights, corruption, health and environmental issues, and police brutality.

Although such incidents aren't uncommon in China, it is unusual for them to happen so frequently, especially in urban areas. It also comes at a politically sensitive time for the Communist Party as it tries to ensure social stability ahead of its 90th anniversary on July 1, and a once-a-decade leadership change next year.

Wang Yang, the Party chief of Guangdong province, of which Zengcheng is a part, is a frontrunner for promotion to the Party's Politburo Standing Committee—its top decision-making body—next year.

The violence took place in Zengcheng, a town of about 800,000 people, with much of it in local Xintang township. It began on Friday night when security personnel pushed to the ground Wang Lianmei, a 20-year-old pregnant street vendor from the western province of Sichuan, as they tried to clear her stall from the road, according to state media.

A crowd of fellow migrant workers gathered and began attacking security guards and police with stones and bricks, as rumors spread that Ms. Wang had been injured and her husband, 28-year-old Tang Xuecai, killed, the state media reports said.

Local authorities tried to quell the unrest over the weekend by setting up a special task force to investigate the case, arresting 25 people and organizing a news conference at which Mr. Tang said that both his wife and their unborn child were unhurt, the reports said.

"The case was just an ordinary clash between street vendors and local public security people, but was used by a handful of people who wanted to cause trouble," Zengcheng's Mayor, Ye Niuping, was quoted as saying by the state-run China Daily newspaper.

Xu Zhibiao, Zengcheng's Party chief, went to visit Ms. Wang in hospital and took her a basket of fruit, the China Daily said.

But the violence flared again on Sunday night, witnesses said.

Video footage circulating on Chinese websites and shown on Hong Kong television appeared to show protesters in Zengcheng running through the streets, smashing windows, overturning police vehicles and setting fire to government buildings that night.

"This riot turned out to be really big last night," Dong Xingguo, a migrant from Sichuan who is working as an IT engineer in Zengcheng, told the Journal.

"Today I can see lots of police and soldiers standing in front of the buildings in the city, not only the government buildings. Many schools, government buildings and banks are shut down…Right now, it seems to be quiet. But I do hear thing will be happening during the night time. We were all told not to go out on the street."

Local police didn't answer repeated telephone calls, but a spokesman for the Zengcheng government said: "Currently the situation in Zengcheng is stable. No death toll."

He confirmed that there were still many police and riot police on the streets to keep the peace but declined to provide further details.

Meanwhile, some local residents were using Twitter-like microblogs to call for able-bodied young men to arm themselves to defend their community against the rioting migrant workers.

Unrest Continues to Rock China Town - WSJ.com
 
:lol: the west keeps trying to connect these protests about economic and social issues to Ai Weiwei and other 5 cent CIA muppets.

Rest assured, like the protests in India about land grabs, starvation, farmer suicides, gender discrimination, caste discrimination and slum clearance, these are just natural occurances of an industrializing nation and should be reported more on, but not in the manner of trying to use them to destabilize China. If US forces attack China every one of these protesters will drop their signs and pick up a gun to kill the white man.

Always bring India to discussions.. always.... never forget that..
 
What goes around comes around.

Pretty sure if a Chinese member post up threads in this nature about India, the response would have been the similar about China.

Then can we use the names u call us since you guys are doing the same?:what:
 
Kinda remind me of the IRS building thing we had in Austin a year ago. Chinese government really should cut down on some of the bureaucratic none sense and address the lower class people's needs. Cut down on corruption at lower levels.
 
I live in Tianjin as well Hexi district where the blast happened.I only know every where in Tianjin really beautiful these days.
 
I live in Tianjin as well Hexi district where the blast happened.I only know every where in Tianjin really beautiful these days.

Part of development. Some people race ahead and some are left behind. China has dona a much better job than most developing economies in making enriching the common work despite hiccups.

There was a good article recent about the rush of migrant workers buying cars.
 

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