As China gears up for a leadership transition, a small fishing village that stood up to official corruption and rural land grabs has become a touchstone for other communities striving to fight back against grassroots abuses.
Since the uprising late last year in Wukan, a coastal village of 15,000 in southern China’s Guangdong province that challenged and won key concessions from provincial officials, other rural communities have taken note, and in some isolated cases, sprung to action.
About 1,000 residents of Wanggang, a gritty suburb of leather factories and shabby tenement blocks, recently massed outside the gates of the Guangdong provincial capital Guangzhou, holding a rare large-scale protest against a major Chinese city government.
For some of them, Wukan has become a new rallying cry for their own battle against public graft.
“If China doesn’t change and help … vulnerable residents in villages, every village might develop into a Wukan,” said a stocky 33-year-old surnamed Li, who took part in the rally against Wanggang’s Communist Party village chief, Li Zhihang, whom they accuse of plundering land and widespread fraud.
While few expect Wukan to be a catalyst for any broader tumult across China, it is emerging as a new benchmark of rural activism in some communities, a symbol of hope for residents suffering longstanding abuses of power from corrupt local officials often in collusion with businessmen.
Chicago Tribune