Posted on 04/11/2012 7:23:58 AM PDT by xzins
BEIJING — Order was being restored Wednesday after thousands of people clashed with police in a district of Chongqing that is struggling economically, a local official said.
One witness from Wansheng, Liu Wei, said businesses and schools were closed Wednesday in the area. Liu said Wansheng residents were unhappy because some benefits, such as pensions and some teacher salaries, were reduced after the merger.
On Wednesday, the Chongqing government posted a statement on its website saying the city would safeguard pensions and medical benefits for Wansheng residents. It also said Wansheng would enjoy the same favorable policies as it did before the merger.
The names of Wansheng, Qijiang and Chongqing were blocked Wednesday on popular microblog sites, but some bloggers were able to upload photos reportedly taken from Wansheng that showed streets full of thousands of protesters and swarms of riot police, plus images of some people with blood-covered faces.
A banner in one photo read: “I want to eat. Return Wansheng district to me.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ya, I’m shocked, just shocked.
Chairman Mao must be turning in his grave, at the unrest in his worker’s paradise.
Home of tea having the stirrings of a tea party? Their discontent has been manifest for a while now. Just as in Iran, only brute force keeps the tyranny in place.
can you imagine ... they have difficulty planning acceptable cradle to grave for 1.3 billion people.
What’s the problem? (Let’s see, do I plan on 2 pairs of shoes per year or every other year....)
Unlike America, where we buy them off with OPM until they bankrupt us.
Obama care does not deliver but bloody faces once people find out they are getting screwed.... or are these a bunch of school and government union thugs protesting?
In any case, this is coming to our neighborhood, just like in France, chronic protests, strikes and lockdowns of the country to keep the guilt on the private sector going.
Agreed.
Um......what "merger"? It's referred to twice in this brief piece....???
Actually, it’s the exact opposite.
China hasn’t been a “cradle to grave” economy since the late 1980’s. There is no such thing as social welfare anymore.
There is a lot wrong with the Chinese economy, but it isn’t caused by socialism. Far from it. If you want laissez faire capitalism, forget the US. Go to China.
All this unrest is due in large part to government policies.
The government in order to spur exports has created inflation. Everything is more and more expensive. Wages have been kept as low as possible so people have less and less money to buy things.
That’s why you see so many strikes now in China.
The government has spent outrageous amounts of money on large scale infrastructure, such as airports and high speed rail instead of on project that can impose quality of life, such as water treatment plants.
Also there is a huge amount of anger over government corruption.
Finally, China has been in the midst of a real estate speculation boom, but the bubble is bursting.
Difference is that Americans and with record sales of guns, are armed.
Communism is essentially a scheme where the elites and the underclass enslave the productive middle class. The Chinese middle class has started to figure this out.
Apparently, the author of the article thinks China is in control of wages and benefits for workers.
And I think the “buying off of the underclass” is simply a divisive lie from the left.
They tell us that the underclass will turn violent and riot if we don’t redistribute wealth to them, and that’s simply not true. It’s just something the left says and does in order to perpetuate division between the haves and havenots.
The official said Wansheng district, where the clashes happened, is running out of mining resources and trying to modernize its economy. But its economic problems become more pronounced after it was merged into neighboring Qijiang county earlier this year, said the official, who like many Chinese officials did not want to give his name.
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