Villages, towns and cities in areas surrounding Beijing recently experienced frequent power outages. Before the 1980’s, the government used to shut off the electricity of nearby cities when major events took place in the capital. But the practice was all but abandoned in recent years, until now.
Rural areas were hit first and for the longest amount of time, followed by low income urban areas, high income districts were next, and government offices were the last to face the outage.
One city in Shandong Province experienced a power outage every other day, each lasting 10 hours.
Source: Boxun, July 31, 2008
http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2008/07/200807310509.shtml