The important question that is never answered in these articles about Chinese protests is "what is the protest about?" If these guys only want the government to reduce the price of rice, then these protests are not all that significant.
If the account below, from the article, is correct . . . I hope they beat the hell out of the occupants of the car.
"At 2 pm, Liu Liang, a middle school pupil was a riding a bicycle, and it happened to graze a car which the owner of Ren-he Clinic, a private hospital, is riding, resulting in a scratch. The argument from both sides ensued. Then, men riding with the clinic's owner, came out of the car and started to slash him (with their knives.)
A passerby on a motor cycle saw this, got off, and tried to stop the fight, but was also swept into the melee. The owner was shouting from the side, "If you kill one of them, I will pay 300,000 yuan."
A large political unrest usually starts with a mundane problem. Apparently, this incident is about more than the price of rice, it is about power abuse, albeit on a local level. It is a microcosm of how the entire system works in China.