There’s been an all-points blackout on the following; until now that is.
The Guangxi government's brutal enforcement of family planning policies has finally resulted in an explosion of popular anger. Over the past several days, there were large-scale disturbances in about 10 towns in Bobai (博白) county. Close to ten thousand residents torched government office buildings, toppled walls, set official vehicles on fire, smashed signs and chased and beat family planning officials. The government has sent fully-armed anti-riot police officers to suppress. During the violent police-citizen clashes, it is rumored that at least five people were killed and several dozens were injured.
Courtesy, as ever, of Roland Soong. A bit of background: Guangxi is directly to the West of Guangdong, and unlike its neighbour is one of China’s poorest provinces. It’s also an “autonomous region” like Tibet, the authorized home of the Zhuang people, and so effectively ruled as a semi-colony. The locals have a reputation as being independent minded and aggressive; the local government as more extreme and repressive than the norm for China. Guangxi mountaineers provided many of the foot soldiers in the Taiping rebellion back in the 19th century. It was also the site of the infamous revenge cannibalism incidents during the cultural revolution, when local cadres encouraged the practice of killing and eating so-called counter revolutionaries. Guangxi is also thought to be the point of origin of the bodies fished out of Hong Kong harbour back in the late sixties. Ireland isn’t a bad analogy here (I mean, apart from the cannibalism).
The deep background of the disturbances is about the fines imposed for exceeding family planning quota. The Bobai county authorities had been criticized by their superiors for failing to meet the job requirements with respect to family planning. Therefore, the Bobai county authorities have issued 28 new family planning policies so far this year. They announced that they will have "steely determination, steely methods and steely discipline" against those violators. For the first extra child, the fine is 12,000 to 20,000 yuan; for the second extra child, the fine is 20,000 to 28,000 yuan; for the third extra child, the fine is 28,000 to 36,000 yuan. In 2006, the average annual income per capital is 2,000 yuan. Furthermore, anyone who had an extra child after 1980 must pay 10,000 to 70,000 yuan in "social childcare fees" no matter whether they had already been fined already previously.What happens if you don't have the money? The family planning squad will confiscate your family assets, including consumer electronics and farming implements; pigs, chickens, cows and sheep will be taken; worthless everyday utensils such as woks and tea pots will be smashed with bronze pipes; even the food (such as rice) will be removed; and your home will be smashed as well.
In regard to the “deep background”, Chinese minorities are exempted from the one child policy, and it seems likely that many locals claimed an exemption on the basis of Zhuang or Meo heritage. The one child policy has also been liberalized in recent years (you’re allowed one additional child of the opposite gender to the eldest), something that the local government apparently decided to ignore. A couple of other points: destroying cooking utensils was a common practice during the full collectivization period beginning in 1958 as a form of psychological warfare. It made the victims feel helpless, though not on this occasion. The policy triad “steely determination…etc” is reminiscent of the Japanese “Thee Alls” campaigns of the 1930s-40s and tends to underline the semi-colonial mentality of the local administration.
A classic MGI usually happens when local power elites try and sequester the gains of development. The Bobi riots, on the other hand, look like a return of the repressed, as they used to say in the sixties. One thing the disturbances have in common with the recent Gurao uprising is the fact that they were county-wide rather than restricted to one village or township.
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