In recent years, grassroots organizations have been proliferating throughout the Guangdong region in southern China, causing nervousness among Party authorities, according to local media.
Almost one year after the uprising in Wukan that brought international attention, another controversy is brewing over the failure to return land to the farmers as promised.
Contradictory statements by officials at China’s annual two meetings regarding the eagerly anticipated village elections in Wukan, Guangdong Province, do not bode well for the future of such elections across China or for Wukan village.
The citizens of Wukan got their election on March 3, bringing to office several of the local leaders that steered protests against authorities last year and brought international attention to the small fishing village in China’s south.
Just as protests were winding down in Wukan, energetic young people with a newfound sense of their own rights played an important role in protests in Guangdong Province’s Haimen Township.
In an effort to stand up to local Communist Party officials, a group of young activists have harnessed the Internet and initiated innovative, peaceful protests in the small village of Wukan in southern China.
The bold gambit of the protesting residents of Wukan village in southern China appears to have paid off, with a Dec. 20 acknowledgment by the prefecture-level Party branch that their demands are fair, and the withdrawal of paramilitary forces blockading the village.