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.
hey craig -
this is a general comment-
not specific for the china cnn article
grt blog
havent read it all yet
wil get more of a chance in chgo i think
havent read all of my emails yet
i hope 2 read those on the plane and then b able 2 respond to u
great sermon on ecology
thanks
thx 4 all the thought that u put ointo everyhting
sorrya bout typos
im eating one of ellens deelish choco blondie browines
so i didnt wanna get choco on keyboard
anyway, gotta scoot
abi.,
Comment by craig — December 13, 2005 @ 4:07 pm
I wonder how Chinese farmers will fare as China becomes more open economically. I’m not familiar enough with communism to understand how large gaps develop between the rich and poor, but it seems that farmers are bearing the brunt of economic growth elsewhere. Does Chinese communism subsidize or protect farmers as in other nations that open up to the world?
Comment by Matt — January 2, 2006 @ 1:52 pm