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China-Japan-Koreas
China sets up riot police units
2005-08-18
China is setting up special police units in 36 cities to put down riots and counter what the authorities call the threat of terrorism. Chinese state media said one of the first such forces, comprising 500 officers, had just been set up in Zhengzhou in central Henan province. Correspondents say unrest has become more frequent in China, often due to land disputes or economic inequality. There has also been increased coverage of such events in the Chinese press.

The Zhengzhou detachment will mainly deal with terrorism, violent crimes, riots and threats to public security, and will also be responsible for safety during major public occasions, the state news agency Xinhua said.
Can't have any unruly protests during the Olympics now, can we?
There have been two major disturbances near Zhengzhou in the last year. A violent clash over a land dispute injured about 30 people last August, and there were several fatalities during clashes between Han Chinese and Muslims three months later. Some 74,000 protests and riots broke out across China last year, involving more than 3.7 million people, Reuters quoted Chinese Security Minister Zhou Yongkang as saying.

The government, fearful as ever of any instability getting out of control, is now putting in place a range of measures to deal with the surge in demonstrations, says BBC East Asia editor Clare Harkey. They include new rules on complaining to the authorities - citizens are now banned from petitioning central government directly.
Posted by:Steve

#2  They include new rules on complaining to the authorities - citizens are now banned from petitioning central government directly.

That is almost the entire problem right there. The people generally *like* the central government, but they *hate* their local authorities. Many of the protests are complaining *to* the central government that the local authorities are *ignoring* the central government decrees.

So this is essentially people on the bottom of the chain-of-command complaining to the big boss that the chain-of-command is disobeying him, and the big boss's response is to tell them to take it up with the chain-of-command.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-08-18 14:10  

#1  The government, fearful as ever of any instability getting out of control...

That is the problem, the peasents are restless and tired of getting f00ked while the city dwellers get rich. Good old fashioned class struggle, kinda like what China had back in the 40s, huh?
Posted by: mmurray821   2005-08-18 10:10  

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