In September 2011, residents of the village of Wukan in Guangdong province began protesting the illegal seizure and sale of their land by local Party cadres. The protestors demanded fair compensation for the land that had been taken, but officials refused to grant it. Tensions escalated in mid-December, when a leader of the protest movement, Xue Jinbo, died under mysterious
A fishing village in southern Guangdong province, once a standard-bearer for small-time democracy in China, has now become a political disaster and the most-censored term on Chinese social media.In September 2011, amid protests over land sales in the village of Wukan, residents closed off roads leading in to the village and expelled local governing officials. Police laid siege
Protesters in southern China are up in arms. They feel that Beijing’s promises that they’d be able to vote for their own local leaders have been honored in the breach. They’re outraged at the show of force in the face of peaceful protest, and confronted with superior government might, they are using the power of numbers and the reach of social media to make their voices
On March 26, the roughly 1,200-person Hong Kong Election Committee chose Carrie Lam as chief executive Hong Kong’s fourth leader since the United Kingdom returned the territory to Chinese rule in 1997. Unpopular with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers and citizens, Lam’s election has exacerbated concerns about the mainlandization of Hong Kong. What does Lam’s election mean
It began, in the early stages, as a secret mobilization. Then came the protests, marches of ever-larger numbers, direct confrontation, occupations, blockades, anarchy, media exposure, a case of accidental death, the involvement of higher levels of authority, negotiation … until, finally, after two years and eleven months, on the 2nd of February 2012, in Guangdong province, in