Social Stability - 133. page

On Monday June 25, and Tuesday June 26, 2012, police and migrant workers clashed in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province. On June 26, nearly ten thousand migrant workers from other provinces surrounded the town government, confronting about one thousand police. The two sides clashed again. Several police cars were smashed and overturned. Many people were injured and sent to the hospital. Armed police blocked all roads.                          

(According to a government spokeswoman from Shaxi township, a fight broke out between a 15-year-old migrant and a student. Security personnel intervened and severely beat the young migrant, infuriating a group of relatives and other migrants who rioted.)

Sources: Southcn.com and Epoch Times, June 27, 2012
http://news.southcn.com/c/2012-06/27/content_49306195.htm
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/12/6/27/n3621780.htm

Wang Xia, head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, stated that the male-to-female ratio in China started to narrow in 2009 and declined to 117.78 in 2011 (117.78 males to every 100 females). He said that the decline is limited. As the ratio is over a dozen points above normal, the task to stabilize the ratio remains daunting.

A natural gender ratio at birth could be somewhere between 103 and 107 males to every 100 females. As a result of the one child government policies, China’s male-to-female birth ratio has hovered at a high level, reaching a record high of 120.56 in 2008. Xinhua reported that, according to official statistics, males under the age of 30 exceed females by more than 20 million. 

Source: Xinhua, June 21, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/photo/2012-06/21/c_123313000.htm

On June 19, Epoch Times reported that 15,000 people defied Chinese authorities and signed a petition in support of a family that practices Falun Gong. Twenty-three year old Qin Rongqian wrote a petition asking for help. Qin wrote on her petition, “Every signature and thumbprint of yours, your kindness, and your attention to this matter will help my family obtain justice for my father and freedom for my sister and mother. In two weeks, she collected over 15,000 signatures and thumbprints. In February 2011, her father died in prison, where he was serving a 10 year sentence because he refused to give up the practice of Falun Gong, a meditation practice that has been banned in China since 1999. Although the father had injuries that were obviously from severe beatings, the authorities notified the Qin family that he died of natural causes. Qin’s mother and sister had recently been arrested due to their efforts to appeal the case to the authorities.

Source: Epoch Times, June 19, 2012.
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/12/6/19/n3616011.htm

On June 16, 2012, the China Economy Experiment Research Institute, which Capital University of Economics and Business and the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences co-founded in November of 2011, published “The 2012 Report on the Satisfaction with Life Index for 35 Cities.” The report indicated that the satisfaction index broke the 50 mark, showing “satisfaction.” It reached 50.88, an improvement from 49.71 in 2011.

The results also suggested that higher living expenses, where the key components are commodity and housing prices, became an important factor that lowered the quality of life for urban residents. According to the results, the satisfaction with life, as expressed by the survey participants, are listed in the following order: human capital, social security, living experiences, living standards, and living expenses.

Among the cities that scored the lowest index numbers, Beijing ranked 7th from the bottom of the list.

Source: Xinhua, June 16, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2012-06/16/c_112230565.htm

The Central Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLAC) is the organization under the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee that oversees all judicial affairs in the country. It stands above the prosecution, the courts, and the secret police, controlling the People’s Armed Police and the regular police force. Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CCP and a close confidant of former president Jiang Zemin, heads the PLAC. Members of the Central PLAC include the Minister of Public Security, the president of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, the Minister for State Security, the Justice Minister, and the commander of the Armed Police.

From March to mid-June this year, the Central PLAC organized six training sessions for 3,300 chiefs of its different branches at the provincial, city, and county level. The training emphasized “unswervingly adhering to the Party’s leadership.” The lecturers at the trainings were reportedly minister-level Party or government officials from the Central PLAC, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of State Security, and the Ministry of Justice. Courses focused on exercising societal control and handling social conflicts.

Source: Xinhua, June 13, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2012-06/13/c_123275309.htm

While officials and the media in mainland China made no mention of the death of pro-democracy activist Li Wangyang, all walks of life in Hong Kong placed a continued focus on the truth of Li Wangyang’s “suicide,” urging the Chinese authorities to investigate the (real) cause of his death. Chow York, Hong Kong’s Food and Health Secretary, was the first official who questioned the death of Li Wangyang.

Over the past weekend, thousands of people participated in a demonstration, demanding a thorough investigation into Li Wangyang’s death. More than a dozen political parties and civil societies initiated a signature campaign on the streets and online.

(Ed: Li Wangyang allegedly hung himself. Li was an activist who spent 22 years in jail for taking part in the 1989 Tiananmen protest. As he was deaf, bind, and disabled, many doubted it was even possible for Li to hang himself.)
 
Source: BBC Chinese Edition, June 12, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chinese_news/2012/06/120612_liwangyang_investigate.shtml

In April 2012, the Chinese armed police crushed a sudden protest in Wansheng District of Chongqing City that occurred in response to a merger of their district with a nearby poor county (Qijiang). Residents of the Wansheng District continued to have daily peaceful walking protests. Around June 4, 2012, thousands of residents in the former Shuangqiao District in Chongqing started blocking streets to protest the government’s delayed and sharply decreased compensation and the lack of welfare benefits that the authorities had promised before the government confiscated their farmland.

The police have violently beaten the protesters. Seven or eight hundred people have been injured and at least five people (including a pregnant woman) have died. As the repression against the demonstrators continues, the nature of the demonstrations may change from general economic aspirations into dissatisfaction with the Chinese Communist regime and system, similar to the outbreak of the "Jasmine Revolution" in Tunisia, North Africa.

Source: BBC Chinese Edition, June 12, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/comments_on_china/2012/06/120612_coc_china_chongqing_demo.shtml

The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) announced on June 6, 2012, that Gansu Province in northwestern China had reported an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in poultry. It occurred at a chicken farm in Jingtai County, Baiyin City, Gansu Province. On June 1, about 6,200 chickens showed symptoms of H5N1 at a farm in a village in Luyang, a town in Jingtai County. So far 260 of them have died. On June 5, the MOA reported that the China National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed that the epidemic was H5N1 bird flu. A total of 18,460 chickens have since been culled.

Source: The Central People’s Government of China, June 6, 2012
http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2012-06/06/content_2154921.htm