A good start- Riots in southwest China over girl's death: report

[The Overlord]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080629/wl_afp/chinarightsunrest_080629091017

BEIJING (AFP) - Rioters in southwestern China torched government buildings and cars after anger over a probe into a schoolgirl's death exploded into violent protests, locals and state press said Sunday.

The riots occurred Saturday in Guizhou province when protesters ransacked three government and police buildings after the girl's uncle died from an alleged beating by police trying to stop him from protesting against the handling of the case, locals and Internet postings said.

The official Xinhua news agency said the riots had erupted due to "dissatisfaction" over the investigation into the girl's death, but added no further details.

Pictures posted on Internet blogs showed several thousand people gathered in front of the Wengan county police station, its windows shattered and the building smouldering.

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said that over 10,000 people took to the streets in the protests, with up to 150 people injured in clashes with police.

Police have arrested nearly 200 rioters and Sunday were seeking to round up others caught on videotape ransacking the government buildings, the centre said.

Over 1,500 paramilitary and riot police have been dispatch to the county, it added.

Locals contacted by AFP by phone said protesters took to the streets after the deceased girl's uncle was pronounced dead in a local hospital on Saturday afternoon.

The uncle had protested against the conclusion of the police investigation that had determined the 15-year-old girl committed suicide.

He had been badly beaten as he sought justice after the death of his niece, locals said.

Internet postings said the girl had been raped and then killed nine days ago and that the police were trying to cover up the alleged murder and protect the suspect, who was identified as the son of the vice head of Wengan county.

Officials at the county government and police station did not answer telephone calls Sunday.

The uncle was a teacher at a high school and his students descended onto the police station after they heard he had died, locals said.

"Her uncle, who was beaten by police or gangsters hired by the police died Saturday," said one local who refused to name herself out of fear of police retribution.

"As he was a teacher at the local high school, students from local schools went to the police to ask for justice, dozens of them I think, then some students were beaten by the police, after they were beaten, they started fires at the police building and torched police cars."

The woman said she had donated money to the grandfather of the dead girl, who was in possession of the body and was refusing to allow police to take it away.

Photos on the Internet posted overnight showed a steady stream of police and military personnel and vehicles rolling into the city.

Internet search engines listed scores of postings on the riots, but access to most of the pages were blocked Sunday, indicating a possible government black-out.

"A group of unidentified people incited the crowd to attack the police bureau, the county government and the county (Communist Party) committee building," Xinhua news agency said.

"After this, a small number of criminals ransacked offices and even torched many public offices and several cars."

China's government and police are seeking to quell any unrest and ensure order across the country is maintained ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

China's crackdown on unrest in Tibet against Beijing's rule in March drew international condemnation and spurred protests in several countries that disrupted the Olympic torch on its round-the-world journey.

Xinhua said the Guizhou government has taken measures to "appropriately" handle the situation.

Early Sunday, the crowd had dispersed and "the incident did not further escalate," the report said, adding "order has been basically restored at present in Wengan county."

Let me say that I don't actually wish a vicious civil war on any country, but I doubt few can argue that China has been ripe for one for years, and ripening all the time. All I can say, no matter how tightly you control the system, no matter how well you arm the military and police, god help you once you've tipped 1.3 billion people past the boiling point.


First the Tibet uprisings and now this; there's signs it's coming to a head at last. If I could deliver a message to the Chinese people I would say, I look forward to the day when you can truly call your nation the people's republic of China. When you reach the steps of high government, I hope you get your chance to kill them to the last man, and display the corpses in public. It's less than they actually deserve, but even tyrants can die only once.



Edit- Maybe this should go in rant instead of poli, but the world increasingly pisses me off these days and makes me want to vent.

If I could have one wish, I want to be a James Bond super villain, where I would have to force to attack world nations that behaved like this.

[Sherona]

*smiles* I think it can work in both places, rants or news...if you really want it moved to rants I can do that, otherwise I think it fits here as well. It's whatever you want.

[Sabby]

Sadly, I'm not surprised :/ not saying any of the claims are correct, but if even half of that is true (rich kid rapes and kills girl, higher up father abuses political pull to cover it up, family member beaten to death to quell any kind of outcry over it) then I would have been with the rioters as well. Like Overlord, I don't wish a civil war on anyone, but to quote Deus Ex here...

Rebellion is not just necesary, its a human right

If things do come to where we all suspect its going, I too hope they torch the entire place and drag these men and women out of their Government buildings and let the people decide what to do with them. Showing even half the mercy that they showed them would be generous.

[OldSchoolGamer]

China is ripe for a fall...but not in the immediate future.  I'd say around 2012 to 2015 or so.  China is well on its way to getting even more hooked on fossil fuels than we in America are, only worse.  You see, China heavily subsidizes gasoline and fuel oil for its population.  China's financial system is also getting a lot looser, and more and more wild bets are being placed that blithely assume 10% annual growth in GDP will go on forever.

Once crude hits $200 a barrel or so, the Chinese system will fly apart at the seams.  The government is going to be facing hefty bills for subsidizing all the gasoline and oil that its 10% more affluent per year population burns.  At the same time, the world economy will be in recession, and shipping costs will be soaring.  Guess what's going to happen to that export-driven economy they have?  Their banking system will implode, government tax receipts will plunge, and the Chinese government will have to sharply reduce its petroleum subsidies or face a soaring public-sector debt.  Imagine gasoline going from $1.50 a gallon to $5 a gallon in three years and you've got it about right.

[Atlus]

We could use a few riots here in the good ol' USA too. Unfortunately we seem to have forgotten how.

[Chris Brady]

What does the comic character known as V say?

"The people shouldn't fear the government.  The government should fear the people."

Or so I remember it.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I think nation-states have lifespans just like any other living thing.  They are born, they grow, they mature...and they die.  I believe this to be true regardless of the system involved--democracies, republics, dictatorships, theocracies...

We live on a planet that is billions of years old, a species that has existed for a few hundred thousand years, each member of which generally gets about five to nine decades between birth and being a worm buffet.  Hard to get that worked up over the destiny of a mere country...

[Kathadon]

I agree that nations have a finite duration no matter the goverment. One has only to look to Rome and the British Empire to see how quickly a major world power can slip into a B or C grade nation on the world stage.

Now China imploding would be a knock out blow for the U.S. too. We are Waaayyy to dependent on them for our current quality of life. They own our debt and if they go kaput as a goverment, then we are in for a rough decade or three at the least.

All thanks to the global ecomonics we have been force fed over the last twenty five years.

[OldSchoolGamer]

The oil shortage is pretty much going to undo much of what globalization has done since the Seventies or so.  China is a juggernaut, but I read in an article (wish I still had the link) that China requires three times as much energy to produce a dollar of GDP than America does.  In the cheap-energy world that existed up until this year, that didn't matter much since China has the foreign exchange reserves to just buy more oil.  But in the world we're headed into, energy inefficiency will be the kiss of death...magnified still further by the fact the U.S. economy is going into recession.

[Kathadon]

I disagree about the recession. I think the media is making a bigger deal out of our current economic problems than the reality is.

Yes gas is much higher and it effects everything else.

Yes food is higher because of gas prices, the stupid corn ethanol subsidies, and soon the floods in the midwest will start effecting price too.

Yes the credit crunch is real and it makes getting loans for anything difficult.

But our economy has seen 7 years of growth this is the first year that we have had a down turn.

Now cutting on the middle class, mind you, taxes and turning away from the energy policy of the Bush administration will correct alot of this in the long term.

We will have a rough two or three years. Yes.

But other than those idustries that relied on cheap energy will suffer and be forced to adapt.

Mainly auto manufacturers, lending institutions,  and housing construction.*shrugs*

They really should have been more forward thinking anyway.

[ShrowdedPoet]

I disagree about the recession. I think the media is making a bigger deal out of our current economic problems than the reality is.

Yes gas is much higher and it effects everything else.

Yes food is higher because of gas prices, the stupid corn ethanol subsidies, and soon the floods in the midwest will start effecting price too.

Yes the credit crunch is real and it makes getting loans for anything difficult.

But our economy has seen 7 years of growth this is the first year that we have had a down turn.

Now cutting on the middle class, mind you, taxes and turning away from the energy policy of the Bush administration will correct alot of this in the long term.

We will have a rough two or three years. Yes.

But other than those idustries that relied on cheap energy will suffer and be forced to adapt.

Mainly auto manufacturers, lending institutions,  and housing construction.*shrugs*

They really should have been more forward thinking anyway.

Actually I disagree, I've been feeling the pinch for two or better years. . .  Maybe because I'm not middle class. . .maybe it took longer to reach middle class.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I disagree about the recession. I think the media is making a bigger deal out of our current economic problems than the reality is.

Yes gas is much higher and it effects everything else.

Yes food is higher because of gas prices, the stupid corn ethanol subsidies, and soon the floods in the midwest will start effecting price too.

Yes the credit crunch is real and it makes getting loans for anything difficult.

But our economy has seen 7 years of growth this is the first year that we have had a down turn.

Now cutting on the middle class, mind you, taxes and turning away from the energy policy of the Bush administration will correct alot of this in the long term.

We will have a rough two or three years. Yes.

But other than those idustries that relied on cheap energy will suffer and be forced to adapt.

Mainly auto manufacturers, lending institutions,  and housing construction.*shrugs*

They really should have been more forward thinking anyway.

Unfortunately, I think the economy has deeper structural problems than that.  The downturn here is structural, not just an ebbing of the business cycle.  We have WAY too much debt, and energy costs are soaring.  The way America does business is unbalanced and unsustainable.  We can't go on consuming more than we produce, year after year after year.

As to how severe the situation becomes, I think that depends a lot on what oil prices do in the next two years.  If the price tops out below $150-160 a barrel, I think the economy can (painfully) adjust, and our country can continue to operate.  If oil goes past $200 a barrel, all bets are off, and we could see anything from a depression to a collapse of the U.S.

[The Overlord]

If oil goes past $200 a barrel, all bets are off, and we could see anything from a depression to a collapse of the U.S.

I'd tend to imagine if it goes that high, a fair number of countries will be candidate for a collapse.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I'd tend to imagine if it goes that high, a fair number of countries will be candidate for a collapse.

No doubts there.  There are big changes coming our way, a lot of peoples' way, and there'll be blood in the streets before all is said and done.

The bottom line is that, unless we as a country--indeed, as a civilization--change course and wise up, and quick, 2050 is going to look a lot like 1850.

And China?  They're history.  The "Chinese Century" the American war-planners are all worried about ain't gonna happen.  Next decade, China is going to face the triple whammy of soaring energy costs (it takes almost 3 times as much energy to produce a dollar of GDP in China as it does in America), soaring food costs coupled with a loss of farmland due to colossal environmental mismanagement, and a crash in its export markets.

[kongming]

We could use a few riots here in the good ol' USA too. Unfortunately we seem to have forgotten how.

I think it's because in China, you just get shot/beaten to death by the police for starting a riot, whereas in America, you mysteriously vanish, never seen again, and the CIA knows nothing about what happened to you.