Wealth/poverty; development/pollution; righteousness/corruption; city/rural; industry/agriculture. Interesting movements are occurring on the Chinese landscape. A few links for your consideration:
Town sealed off after 20,000 farmers protest pollution from pharmaceutical plant.
Farmers given stiff sentences after protesting land seizures.
Protesters fired on with live ammunition.
An interesting excerpt from the CNN article noted above:
The number of protests in China’s vast, poverty-stricken countryside — home to about 800 million people — has risen in recent months as anger comes to a head over land seizures, corruption and a yawning wealth gap that experts say now threatens social stability.
The government says about 70,000 such confrontations between officials and rural residents occurred last year, although many more are believed to go unreported. The clashes also have become increasingly violent, with injuries sustained on both sides and huge amounts of damage done to property as protesters vent their frustration in face of indifferent or bullying authorities.
