City Of Phoenix Police

Claims of injustice spur wave of unrest in China

There, on the street next to the Sun City Hotel and a karaoke bar, it looked like all hell was breaking loose on a sweltering Sunday night. Underneath the streetlights, a mob of hundreds wandered among the smoke and broken glass.

The chaos last weekend that shook this city in Guangdong province, one of China's key industrial bases, was another in a string of especially volatile demonstrations that have swept the country in recent weeks.

The details vary, but the outbreak points to serious challenges for the Chinese Communist Party on the eve of the 90th anniversary July 1 of the party's founding. At its root is the fact that after 30 years of rapid economic development the average Chinese has almost no legal or political means to pursue grievances against the government and those it protects.

That's led to simmering resentment in a nation where there are profound gaps in income and privilege amid a political system whose rigid ways often fuel the very instability the system is designed to avoid.

Public discussion about the causes of the violence in Zengcheng has followed a familiar line: low wages and bad working conditions for migrant laborers — who make up more than half of Zengcheng's 818,000 residents — possibly whipped up by criminal gangs.

But interviews here show that the chaos was stoked by anger that had been building for years at the bullying tactics of both the "chengguan," meter maid-like guards who're charged with enforcing municipal ordinances, and the "public security teams," ad hoc officers cobbled together by neighborhood or village committees.

The trigger for last weekend's rioting was the news that a pregnant migrant had been pushed to the ground — initial rumors said killed — during an altercation with security. It was a report with which migrants could easily identify.

"It's very common for them to beat people. They'll do it for very petty reasons," said Zhu, 28, who came here from Anhui province and works in a shop selling mahjongg gaming tables.

Claims of injustice were a factor in other recent outbursts of rage. Among them: The biggest protests in 20 years to hit Inner Mongolia, in the north of China. The unrest erupted after a Han Chinese coal truck driver ran over and killed a Mongolian herder who reportedly was trying with others to block the vehicle from crossing their land on May 10. It quickly became a lightning rod for Mongolian complaints that the mining industry and local government have violated their rights and culture.

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