Damn the man, save the empire!

A company wanted to build a toxic chemical factory in Xiamen, Fujian, which was expected to bring in about 80 million RMB for the city. Because that's some serious cash, the local government approved the construction, but environmentalists were less than thrilled that it would be built only a few km from the center of the city. By last Thursday, the government placed a temporary halt on the project, but locals wanted the construction canceled completely, so a protest was held on Friday. The actual number of people who showed up varies depending on who you ask, but noone was arrested, noone was injured.
Well that's nice, but really, big deal.

Actually, it is a big deal.
The right to protest is something I've taken for granted. Not surprisingly, "approved" protests are rare in China, and the CCP is quite infamous in its attempts to stifle any and all opposition and criticism. If you're speaking up against the government or anything having to do with the government (um, so pretty much everything), chances are you won't get their approval and your protest will quickly be halted. The environment is one of few areas they admit needing improvement. Even so, they minimalize the realities of cancer villages and often block reporting any of these "situations" in the news. With a media blackout on news of the demonstration, the time, location and target turnout of one million people were spread almost exclusively by SMS, bbs postings and on blogs (source, also where the picture's from).

The internet here appears to have been on fire last week over the issue. Good summary of links here, danwei.org. Despite China's media failing to report on the event, and despite attempts by the powers-that-be to remove all relevant info from the web, protesters continued to remain vocal, many of them posting SMS online throughout the entire day. Even the picture above, I think, hints at progress. The police could be attempting to arrest everyone. They could be throwing tear gas or worse, but they're not. It would be unfortunate if the factory is eventually built in Xiamen, but today, the local people won.

Along the same lines, today marks the 18th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square "incident." That's what it's called here. Noone mentioned the anniversary to me. There were no newspaper reports, nothing about it on tv. But in Hong Kong, the only place in China that permits June 4th remembrance ceremonies, 50,000 people showed up to remember the incident. I can access most websites despite the China firewall, but there are a few exceptions. I can (with a little trouble) view Wikipedia, but if I try to read the wiki page about Tiananmen Square, the firewall suddenly realizes that I'm trying to view a blocked page, and I get the infamous Problem Loading Page screen. All this trouble to avoid discussing an incident.