Overview of the 2011 and 2016 anti-corruption protests in Wukan, Guangdong
The Wukan protests (), also known as the siege of Wukan, was an anti-corruption protest that began in September 2011, and escalated in December 2011 with the expulsion of officials by villagers, the siege of the town by police, and subsequent détente in the village of Wukan, in the east of Guangdong province. The villagers rose up again in June 2016, but were again suppressed. The most recent rounds of clashes were in September 2016, when the former village leader Lin Zulian was sentenced to jail. The clashes were suppressed.
The protests began on 21–23 September 2011 after officials sold land to real estate developers without properly compensating the villagers. Several hundred to several thousand people protested in front of and then attacked a government building, a police station and an industrial park. Protesters held signs saying "give us back our farmland" and "let us continue farming." Rumors that the police had killed a child further inflamed the protesters and provoked rioting. Residents of Wukan had previously petitioned the national government in 2009 and 2010 over the land disputes. In an apparent attempt to ease tensions, authorities allowed villagers to select 13 representatives to engage in negotiations.
Security agents abducted five of the representatives and took them into custody in early December. The protests strengthened after one of the village representatives, Xue Jinbo, died in police custody in suspicious circumstances. The villagers forced the entire local government, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership and police out of the village. On 14 December 2011, a thousand police laid siege to the village, preventing food and goods from entering the village. Government authorities set up internet censorship against information about Wukan, Lufeng and Shanwei.
Wukan is a village that had often been described as being especially harmonious. International newspapers described the December uprising as being exceptional compared to other "mass incidents" in the People's Republic of China which numbered approximately 180,000 in 2010.
The village representatives and provincial officials reached a peaceful agreement, satisfying the villagers' immediate requests. Local Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Shanwei City said that the authority of the city has been "overridden" by provincial intervention.
Background.
Wukan village (population 20,000) is located in Lufeng county-level city of Guangdong province, some 5 km south () of Lufeng's central urban area. The village is near the shore of the Wukan Harbor (), which is part of the Jieshi Bay () of the South China Sea; the location of the village near the South China Sea coast lends itself well to urban development. The village has enjoyed the reputation on the mainland for many years as a model village for its harmoniousness, civility and prosperity.
Since the abolition of agricultural taxes in 2006, local government has been increasingly raising money through land sales to the extent that this is now a primary revenue stream. Conflicts between farmers and local officials have risen throughout China, often because of land seizures (or "land grabs"). The rate of forced evictions has grown significantly since the 1990s, as city and county-level governments have increasingly come to rely on land sales as a source of revenue. In 2011, the Financial Times reported that 40 percent of local government revenue comes from land sales. Guan Qingyou, a professor at Tsinghua University, estimated that land sales accounted for 74 percent of local government income in 2010. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, by the end of 2011 there was a total of 50 million displaced farmers across China (from all preceding years), and an average of 3 million farmers are displaced across China per year. In most instances, the land is then sold to private developers at an average cost of 40 times higher per acre than the government paid to the villagers.
There are more than 90,000 civil disturbances in China each year, and an estimated 180,000 mass protests occurred in the country in 2010; grievances are often corruption or illegal land seizures. The Jamestown Foundation offers a macroscopic explanation for the rise in conflicts: that local officials, caught between local government revenue shortfalls due to measures by central government to cool the overheated property market and their personal ratings based on their contributions to GDP growth, have resorted to undercompensating villagers for land appropriations.
Farmland in Lufeng city has been progressively giving way to new developments. Projects in recent years have included a palatial new government building and a sumptuous holiday hotel resort that contained a row of 60 luxury villas. A glitzy new "Golden Sands" nightclub is a new attraction that brings rich visitors from out of town. In 2011, villagers alleged local officials had grabbed hundreds of hectares of cooperative land and were "secretly selling" it to a real estate developer. According to a news analysis in "The New York Times", China's village committees are elected by the villagers themselves, and are thus theoretically the most representative forms of governance, yet most residents are unfamiliar with how the village system functions, and are unaware of their rights. The sale of collectivised land is supposed to require approval of the villagers under Chinese law, and the proceeds are supposed to be shared. However, the approval process lacks transparency in practice, and most decisions are taken by the elected village committee with the blessing of the Donghai township – the level of government just above Wukan. The residents of Wukan made allegations of corruption: five of the nine members of Wukan's village committee had held their posts since the creation of the committee system by Deng Xiaoping, and the village's CCP committee secretary, Xue Chang, has been in the position since 1970.
Grievances.
Residents in several villages near Wukan alleged that village officials had confiscated their farm land and sold it to developers. The livelihoods of many were at stake: many were facing severe hardship with no land to till, and had difficulty buying food on their meagre urban incomes. Wukan villagers said that they were unaware of the sale until developers began construction work, and alleged that local CCP officials had profited from the sale of communal land, selling it for $1 billion RMB (US$156 million) to Country Garden. Villagers asserted that 400 hectares of farmland had been appropriated without compensation since 1998. The villagers petitioned various levels of government in vain over the years, accused local cadres of "pocketing more than 700 million yuan" (US$110 million), which should legally have gone to compensating local farmers, since 2006. Local officials blamed the villagers' concerns on "troublemakers" who were manipulating those who were "unaware of the truth".
September mobilisation.
On the morning of 21 September 2011, hundreds of villagers participated in a sit-in protest against local officials outside government offices in Lufeng. According to official statements, initially about 50 people shouting slogans and holding banners protested peacefully. Protesters hoisted banners and carried placards with slogans like "give us back our farmland" and "let us continue farming". Then as the crowd grew in numbers, protesters became restless and started damaging buildings and equipment in an industrial park in the village and blocking roads. Policemen were dispatched, and one villager said that they severely beat some teenagers who were banging on a gong to alert fellow villagers of the protest. Three villagers were arrested during the first day's violence. The next day, the police station was besieged by more than 100 villagers demanding the release of the detained villagers, and the violence escalated.
The news that several youngsters had been seriously injured after being set upon by 'thugs' caused hundreds of irate villagers armed with makeshift weapons to besiege a local police station, where 30 to 40 officials were sheltering. Hundreds of well-equipped riot police were dispatched, and they engaged in a stand-off with the farmers. Video footage shot by villagers in Wukan showed people of all ages being chased and beaten with truncheons by riot police. One Wukan villager described the police and other security staff as "like mad dogs, beating everyone they saw". The "Financial Times" reported that two children, aged nine and 13, were "badly injured", and that one may have died. Some villagers said that elderly people and children protesting peacefully were harassed and assaulted by "hired thugs", provoking an angry reaction from other villagers. The attacks on civilians by 400 police officers were described by the "Financial Times" as "indiscriminate".
One of the 'hired guns' bragged that he had been brought in by an influential businessman, who paid him RMB3,000 and promised him immunity from reprisals for any assaults. Officials blamed the escalating violence on "rumours" that police officers had beat a child to death. The official statement denied that any civilians had died. Internet news of the riots, including photos and videos, were quickly deleted by CCP censors. Press reported that searches on Sina Weibo (a microblog) for terms linked to Lufeng were blocked a short time after the protests began.
On the third day of unrest, the municipality of Shanwei, which has the responsibility for Lufeng, issued a statement saying that "hundreds of villagers attacked government buildings". It said "more than a dozen police officers had been injured and '6 police vehicles had suffered damage'". In what appeared to analysts as a change of tactics, observers noted that the authorities withdrew visible police presence for several days instead of stepping up police presence and suppressing the protesters more forcefully. Guangdong party chief Wang Yang also reassured residents by declaring that he was prepared to accept lower economic growth in Guangdong in exchange for increased harmony within the province. Jean Pierre Cabestan, a politics professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, suspected that the policing change was due to the political aspirations of Wang, who wants to "survive and protect his image until next year". Wang, a strongly-touted candidate for the politburo when the Hu / Wen generation retires, had been projecting a "Happy Guangdong" model of development to level the wealth gap and emphasise social harmony. Police only returned on the fourth day after the riots.
Land grab and resolution.
Addressing the land dispute underlying the unrest, a senior official admitted that a sale of the land was planned, and interested property developers had already surveyed the site with local officials, but officials said that no contract had yet been signed. Guangdong media published reports that suggested protesters acted as mobs that assaulted and injured dozens of riot policemen. Villagers accused the press of blatant bias.
The Shanwei city government offered to appoint an inter-agency committee to delve into the land seizure allegations in exchange for an immediate end to the protests. Officials also said they would consider a fresh village election for clean and fair representatives to take part in future land negotiations. Because the government had agreed to deal with the issue openly and fairly, the villagers temporarily suspended their protests.
December uprising.
The local government agreed to negotiate with thirteen democratically elected officials from Wukan; but, before the negotiations could settle any of the villagers' disputes, three of the representatives were arrested. One of the representatives, Xue Jinbo () died in police custody under mysterious circumstances. After news of Xue's death became widely known, the villagers forcefully evicted local CCP officials and police from the village, leading to a blockade of the village by police.
Death of Xue Jinbo.
Xue Jinbo was arrested by plainclothes police without a warrant in front of a restaurant just before noon (local time) on 9 December 2011. He was taken away in a minibus without licence plates. Four other village representatives were also detained on 9 December 2011.
At 11 pm on 11 December, a Lufeng City official, Huang, called Xue's daughter asking about Xue's full medical history, stating that Xue had been admitted to hospital in critical condition. Xue's daughter and wife went to the hospital at Shanwei in the following few hours, and were made to wait without having access to Xue. Officials told the Xue family that Xue Jinbo had arrived at a local prison at 7 am on 10 December and died at 10 am on 11 December. Other family members were contacted and arrived in Shanwei. Ten family members, including Xue's daughter and wife, were permitted to see Xue's body, but were prevented by police from using cameras and telephones.
The local police alleged that Xue had died suddenly of a heart attack after he had confessed to damaging property and disrupting public services, but