(May 3, 2009)

On August 1, 1987, 200 peasants marched to the Dahe station, led by Tailor Wang, Jiang Youheng, Wu Qixian, Yao Longshi and Liang Yongwu. The heads of the upstream groups and several representatives went to the office at the station to talk to the people in charge. They left the other villagers hanging about in the corridors or outside in the shade of trees. Tailor Wang spoke to Feng Deqing, the party secretary at the station; “Today, 200 of us have come to ask for something to eat. We will not interfere with the operation of your facility or damage public property, provoke any arguments or pick any fights. We are your neighbours, after all.”

Feng replied: “I know, I know. It could be for the best that you guys have come here. I know that you’ve lodged your appeals with officials from top to bottom, but have actually brought little trouble to the station. I want to say how much I appreciate that, from the bottom of my heart. In general, the station and the people living nearby have enjoyed a pretty good relationship. So you people can sit down here at the station, because I know what you want – to force us to ask for help from the prefecture, so they will send officials to address your problems.”

At noon, the leaders of the 200-strong group asked the station manager for 150 yuan so that lunch could be brought in for everyone, but he refused. By 1 p.m., some of the hungry peasants went to the staff canteen to eat whatever they could find, including frozen food they took from the refrigerator. Governor Wang and 10 other local cadres from the district and township arrived, and tried to persuade the villagers to leave. But Yao Longshi put forward three demands: the factory should be transferred to the five upstream groups as soon as possible; compensation should be paid for the 111 mu of farmland washed away after 1978; and 235 peasants should be given jobs at the hydro station and enjoy all the benefits of the workers there. No deal was reached, and the villagers didn’t leave the station until 11 p.m.

The next day – Sunday, August 2 – the villagers went back to the station and found food for breakfast and lunch. At noon, an argument broke out between some of the protesters and station workers, and a knife dropped to the ground in the scuffle, nearly injuring someone. In the afternoon, county officials asked prefecture leaders to help deal with the problem. This time, vice-commissioner Peng Huachun – and not Commissioner Dong – arrived on the scene. At 10 p.m,, the prefecture and county leaders called a mass assembly in the station’s meeting hall. Five representatives and officials from various levels took their seats on opposite sides of the stage, and launched into a heated debate about the leftover problems of the Dahe dam. Commissioner Peng said: “Look, the main reason we’re gathered here is to discuss the disturbance you’ve created, and not any of these other issues! This place has been a trouble spot for a very long time, and we have to come to grips with this.”

Tailor Wang was the first to speak from the opposing side:

[quote]”Commissioner Peng, we’re sorry to bother you and the other leaders with our problems here in this place you regard as a trouble spot. Let me ask you this: The authorities spent as much as four million yuan building the Dahe dam, but how much did they give us peasants? We’re not out to create a disturbance by fighting anyone here or making any other trouble – we’re just asking you to seek truth from facts, and address our problems. And here it is in a nutshell: More than 900,000 yuan in government money was disbursed to Shanyang, and 400,000 yuan of that was poured into the calcium-carbide factory. Now where is the other 500,000 yuan? Where is the money? Can you answer that question?”[/quote]

Peng, looking embarrassed, began to stammer: “This issue, well, this issue is still under investigation.” The crowd booed and jeered loudly, and a lively discussion ensured, with everyone eager to put in a word. Nothing could be heard in the hubbub, until the elite of the affected people asked for quiet, and continued to address the officials:

[quote]”We peasants have benefited little from the funds earmarked for resettlement schemes. We have reported our problems to local governments many, many times, but you have turned a deaf ear. At the very least, you should distribute the money that’s owed to the five upstream groups. We have a memo written by Commissioner Dong confirming that the factory assets are worth only 200,000 yuan, but as we all know, as much as 400,000 yuan was spent on the factory. So where’s the other 200,000? Do you have any idea?”[/quote]

The representatives raised other questions at the meeting, but no official there could provide any answers. At midnight, the head of the county public security bureau asked Wu Qixian to go to the powerhouse and take a phone call from Commissioner Dong. This request aroused Tailor Wang’s suspicions. He recalls:

[quote]”I felt uneasy about it – why didn’t they ask me to go to the phone? Why did they choose Wu Qixian, who is simple-minded and often acts impulsively. If Wu were to go to the powerhouse, others would follow him. And we’d get into big trouble if somebody were to flip a switch there – they’d accuse us of sabotage. So I realized they were trying to set us up, and I warned Wu Qixian, ‘Whatever they’re up to, we have to keep cool-headed. Why did they ask you to answer the phone at the powerhouse rather than in the office, where there is also a phone? Why would Commissioner Dong place the call to the powerhouse rather than to the office? This can’t be true! So please don’t go there. All of us will be finished if you go, and they turn a switch off while you’re there. We’ll all be thrown in jail. You go if you want, but let me make it clear that you personally have to accept the consequences if anything happens.’ Wu Qixian heeded my strong warning, and didn’t take the call.

“A little later, the county governor said to me, ‘Wang Xueping, you’d better persuade the masses to go home now. Choose five representatives to stay for a discussion in the office. Let’s have a face-to-face talk. We’d get things done after the talk. I mean what I say.’ I didn’t respond immediately. I felt really uneasy about this suggestion. It was 1 or 2 a.m., people were everywhere, it was very noisy. I saw officials arrive from both the prefecture and county public security bureaus. I felt they had not come with good intentions, and that we could all end up in jail. And so I said, ‘Okay, I’ll meet you in the office but I have to go to the toilet first.’

“It was summer, so I was barefoot and wearing only shorts and a vest, but I ran away, scaling the wall around the station. I climbed up to Shizibao [Lion Fort] behind the station, and watched everything from a distance. After a while, trucks full of armed police from the county arrived, with the officers yelling and shouting, and trying to catch people. They believed we representatives were still there – there would have been bloodshed if we had been. We left immediately to submit one more petition. The money was all ready – 2,000 yuan had been collected earlier to cover the travel expenses of five representatives.”[/quote]

After the representatives – Tailor Wang, Yao Longshi, Jiang Youheng, Wu Qixian and Liang Yongwu – had all escaped, the masses were left with no leadership. They encircled Commissioner Peng and Governor Guo, firing questions at them such as: Is a petition against the law? Why didn’t you listen to Commissioner Dong and implement Document No. 81? Why can’t we claim compensation for fields that were washed away after 1978? Some of the petitioners locked the door of the powerhouse, while others pushed a stick into the lock of the sluice gate. Fortunately, station workers found the stick and removed it.

In the absence of the group leaders, the armed police had no idea where to start and who to detain. Commissioner Peng and Governor Guo were not rescued from the encirclement until 5:30 the next morning. The peasants didn’t try to eat breakfast again at the station because the armed police were now guarding the facility. But the villagers did force workers out of the staff dormitory so they could station themselves there. Some villagers were still guarding the main entrance to the power station, preventing the prefecture and county leaders from leaving. Governor Guo called a meeting in the afternoon, at which he criticized the peasants’ action. The villagers did agree to let the leaders leave the station, and at 5 p.m. Peng went back to the prefecture. Qian Yungang, the newly appointed county party secretary, arrived on the scene in the evening. The next day, Qian and Governor Guo worked hard to get the masses to disperse and, one after another, they did withdraw. Governor Wang stayed at the station until August 7 to deal with the aftermath of the tumult.

Governments versus ‘bad elements’

Both the prefecture and county governments regarded the station occupation as serious turmoil and were intent on cracking down on individual “bad elements.” Governor Guo pointed out at a meeting of the county party standing committee on August 7 that the event had been elaborately planned and organized. The villagers’ action had changed the matter from a purely economic issue into a political one. Guo outlined the causes of the incident: the problems faced by the affected groups, the inconsistencies in government policies, and a lack of ideological education and political propaganda aimed at the peasants.

After communicating the instructions from the prefecture leaders to the conference, Party Secretary Qian proposed a three-step plan to deal with the situation: Improve propaganda work, to boost the masses’ faith in the party and government; address concrete problems through further hard work; and investigate those who planned and organized the action at the station. The secretary of the party’s political and legal committee suggested the problems could not be completely solved if no actions were taken against individual “bad elements.” Indeed, the county government called the coal mine where Jiang Youheng had worked, saying that his pension should be suspended because he had organized a riot. (Jiang, a resident of Baiyang 14, was a retired miner.)

The conference also decided to send a vigorous work team to Shanyang that would stay for at least a month. On the same day, the prefecture submitted a report to the province, summarizing the action plan for the near future:

[quote]”The incident [at the Dahe station] was organized by a small number of people and carried out according to a plan. Before the turmoil, the organizers announced that half the members of every household would be required to take part. Each participant would be given a 2 yuan subsidy, while those not participating as required would be fined 5 yuan a day. Nobody could withdraw halfway. During the turmoil, slogans such as ‘Down with corrupt officials!’ and ‘Fight for survival!’ were shouted out. The mob intended to attack officials, take food away from the station workers for three days, and interfere with the orderly functioning of the Dahe station. The turmoil is no longer confined to the issue of settling the leftover problems related to the Dahe dam; now it is having a direct impact on the station’s ability to operate, and on unity and stability in the dam region.

The main causes of the incident:

1. The transfer of the calcium-carbide factory proposed in Document No. 39 has not been completed and the method of compensating several groups affected by the Dahe dam erosion has yet to be determined;
2. In previous years, once the peasants made a disturbance, the government would immediately disburse a sum of money to deal with the problem. This became so routine that the peasants take it for granted that there is something to be gained by creating a disturbance;
3. Some individuals forced the masses to make trouble and stop the operation of the Dahe power station, by taking advantage of flaws in our work.

The measures to be taken:

1. The county government is responsible for settling the problems with the five upstream groups, based on Documents No. 39 and No. 81. No rules are to be bent any longer.
2. The calcium-carbide factory must be returned to the Dahe station. The station will be responsible for purchasing a grain allowance of 81,816 jin for the five upstream groups. The five groups may enter into a contract with the station to run the factory. Before such an agreement is reached, the government will purchase the grain for the five groups.
3. The county government will sit down with the protest organizers, educate them about the law and help them gain an understanding of where they went wrong, treating them differently depending on the problems they have.The Dahe station is a key enterprise in the prefecture, and it is imperative for us that it is able to operate without interference. If they have any problems related to compensation, local people can turn to governments at the county, district and township levels for help rather than going to authorities higher up. The main decisions should be made jointly by the county government and the Dahe station. And nobody will be allowed to stir up any more trouble at the station for any reason.”[/quote]

A county work team led by Governor Wang, considered an expert on resettlement, was stationed at the Dahe dam on August 8. Two days later, Wang called a meeting attended by all members of the team, and Feng Deqing, the party secretary at the station, was also invited. The work team suggested that in order to win over the masses, there was a need to differentiate between the majority of the affected people, who were simply asking for help with their problems, and the small number of people who had intended to manipulate the incident. The head of the county public security bureau pointed out there was a “class struggle” among the organizers of the event. Yao Longshi came from a rich peasant family, his brother was a reactionary and was expelled from the county teachers’ school. Jiang Youheng was from a landlord’s family. Wu Qixian was averse to work and trafficked in fake opium, while Xu Shaorong had been a keen activist during the Cultural Revolution. He further suggested that the representatives’ role in the factory’s failure to resume production should be investigated, and the conference agreed to consider that issue a priority.

Some villagers became nervous about the arrival of the new county work team, with its public security bureau component, and the absence of their main leaders, such as Tailor Wang. In the circumstances, Teacher Xu had to move a bit more toward centre-stage, in order to boost morale. He advised people to be patient and to wait for the arrival of officials from the provincial capital. However, he also took a cautious approach, because he didn’t want to attract too much attention from the work team.

As of August 11, the work team set up a public-announcement system at the Dahe station and began a rolling broadcast of a special notice issued by the county government:

1. In early August, a small group of people gathered the masses to create turmoil at the Dahe station. They attacked station leaders, occupied their offices, and took away food intended for the station workers. These actions violated regulations on strengthening legal education and maintaining unity and stability issued by the National People’s Congress;
2. The prefecture authorized the county government of Yunyang to deal with the leftover problems related to the Dahe station, and Document No. 39 must be enforced through the hierarchy of the county, district, township, village and group. Nobody is permitted to organize any kind of action to block implementation of this document.
3. The government will talk to the people who took part in the turnoil, educating them and pointing out their mistakes;
4. The ringleaders should acknowledge their errors and also report the offences of other people to the authorities. The broad masses who took part in the turmoil but drew a clear line between themselves and the organizers will not be subject to investigation or be expected to take responsibility for the incident. However, ringleaders who incited the turmoil and refuse to acknowledge their errors will be investigated and severely punished.
5. Nobody is allowed to sabotage the operation of the Dahe hydropower station, or harm in any way the work environment and social order there. Anyone who violates or impedes the enforcement of these rules will be treated harshly by political and law-enforcement departments according to the relevant laws and regulations.

The government showed its hand to some extent through this public broadcast. It described the incident at the station as “turmoil” that threatened unity and stability. And it was clear that the government’s approach was to try and win over the broad masses by punishing a small group of organizers. In the circumstances, the elite of the affected people could try and win the masses over through competition with the government, with themselves as the rallying point. The elite would have to persuade the masses that the battle was between them and us, and between corrupt officials and anti-corruption forces.

The elite also needed to encourage the masses in their belief that their beloved distant leaders would always feel concern for their plight. On the same day the public announcement began broadcasting, Tailor Wang’s brother, Wang Xueguo, sent him a telegram to the place he was staying in a county bordering on Yunyang: “We will not yield to the high-handed policies. Hope you can consult senior lawyers or ask the central and provincial governments to send people here.” But what the elite didn’t know was that the situation had actually just taken a turn for the better.

On August 11, the same day Wang Xueguo sent the telegram to his brother, the official newspaper of the prefecture published on its front page a major speech given at a party conference by Commissioner Dong:

[quote]”The prefecture party committee and government are calling on cadres and the broad masses to vigorously oppose bureaucratism. Dong Guoguang, deputy commissioner and member of the prefecture party committee, stressed the importance of the anti-bureaucratic campaign at a conference on August 8: ‘The party committee and cadres at various levels should regard anti-bureaucratic practices as an important task at present.’He listed a series of problems with the bureaucracy: turning a blind eye to the crucial issues associated with the masses’ lives, livelihoods and safety; taking little care in their work, resulting in a low level of efficiency; abusing their power; bending the rules for the benefit of relatives and friends; following their own inclinations and making decisions blindly, resulting in enormous economic losses and waste of money.

“Dong Guoguang pointed out that the bureaucratic style of work had damaged the image of the party in the masses’ eyes and impeded the smooth progress of the reforms. He urged party committees and officials at all levels to pay more attention to these bureaucratic problems. In order to learn from past experience, all departments should disclose problems with the bureaucracy in their own units. The leaders and other individuals in charge who have caused huge losses and damaged state property and imperilled the safety of the people by their bureaucratic errors should be held accountable. Those who have broken the law should be brought to justice.”[/quote]

Why did the prefecture convene a conference on “bureaucratism” at this time? The worst forest fire since the founding of the People’s Republic had just occurred in northeast China. The devastating blaze, which broke out in early May of 1987 and raged for almost a month, was blamed on bureaucratic errors. The forestry minister was sacked, and the central government took the opportunity to launch a nationwide campaign against bureaucratism.

When the work team visited villagers’ homes after this, they found that many people had posted up the newspaper account of Commissioner Dong’s conference speech. The people believed that he was referring specifically to the Dahe dam with these comments, and that his criticisms were aimed directly at the bureaucrats who stood in their way. The villagers felt sure that their own collective actions were in line with the anti-bureaucratism campaign that had been launched by the central government itself. Many members of the county work team became weary of the hostile reception they were receiving from villagers, and felt it was time to wrap up their investigations and return to the county seat.

On August 12, the day after Commissioner Dong’s speech was reported in the newspaper, the county government sent a fax to the prefecture, suggesting that the organizers of the “turmoil” should be detained. But both the prefecture commissioner, Xu Zerong, and his deputy, Dong Guoguang, opposed the idea, believing that such a step was likely to inflame the situation and might even allow the confrontation between the masses and the government to spin out of control. They felt that because the five main petition organizers had not actually committed any crimes, there were no grounds on which to arrest them at this time.

On August 17, the county party committee called a meeting of its standing committee to assess the progress in dealing with Dahe resettlement issues. Governor Wang told the meeting:

[quote]”I’ve been in and out of Shanyang more than 20 times now, and though some problems have been resolved, the factory remains a thorny issue. And Teacher Xu has been playing a key role in stirring up various collective actions. He has won the trust of the people, who frankly regard him as a saviour. One time, when I was answering questions about Document No. 39 at a public meeting, Tailor Wang simply ignored me and presented Teacher Xu to address the assembled crowd. I said: ‘Xu Shaorong, you should stick to your teaching.’ And I asked him to leave. And you know what? The people became angry, and yelled out that I was a corrupt official! Teacher Xu then said: ‘The Constitution gives us freedom of speech and association. We’ve done nothing wrong in demanding the resolution of our problems.’

“I think most of the masses would be willing to follow the government’s lead. The problem is that many of them still hold out hope that they will benefit from the petitions and the turmoil. And the situation is getting worse. Let me put it this way: People affected by other dams and large construction projects are watching the Dahe case closely, and taking their cues. In my view, we have to sever the link between the masses and the petition organizers, and remove the roots of the trouble. It’s impossible for us to do our job properly while the five main ringleaders remain free. And we know they have enough money to keep up their appeals and keep taking them to higher authorities.”[/quote]

Other members of the work team also expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the prefecture was focused on dealing with the issues rather than reining in the “ringleaders,” who they also argued should be arrested. They were critical of Commissioner Dong’s rashness in making the masses some promises. The conference participants reached a consensus on three issues, on which they agreed to seek further advice from the prefecture: to iron out the differences between Documents No. 39 and No. 81; to decide whether compensation should be paid for the 111 mu of farmland eroded after 1978; and to seek the arrest of three “ringleaders” – Teacher Xu, Tailor Wang and Wu Qixian. The conference also suggested that the work team should have a private talk with Teacher Xu.

Two days later, the county party committee and government sent a joint report to the prefecture, summarizing the three main problems faced by the county work team:

1. More than 20 incidents of varying degrees of severity have occurred in the course of dealing with the Dahe dam resettlement issues. As a result of these incidents, the rules have always been bent (kai kouzi), leading the masses to believe there is always something to be gained from making a disturbance. The affected groups are still hoping that officials will arrive from the central and provincial governments and repeat the practice of bending the rules.
2. The affected people have exploited flaws and loopholes in government policies, taking advantage of contradictions between official documents.
3. To remove the roots of the trouble, it will be necessary to detain several organizers of the turmoil and repatriate to their home villages the petitioners who are still roaming around seeking help beyond Yunyang.

Patching things up with a compromise

Meanwhile, Tailor Wang and the other petitioners travelled for two months trying to submit their written grievances to higher authorities. Their efforts bore no fruit in the provincial capital, because it emerged that both the prefecture and county had already reported the “turmoil” to the provincial government. The petitioners were denounced for inciting the masses to make trouble by causing damage to the sluice gate of the Dahe dam. With the funds to cover their travel expenses dwindling, the five petitioners decided to break into two groups: Tailor Wang and Jiang the Miner would carry on to Beijing, while the other three would return home.

Once they arrived in the capital, Wang and Jiang went to the Letters and Visits Office of the State Council. Then, through some contacts in Beijing who were originally from Yunyang, they tried to circulate their petition to the press and to various government bodies. They became excited when a leading newspaper expressed interest in publishing their petition. However, despite his deep sympathy for their plight, the editor hesitated at the last moment, worried that his relatives in Yunyang would face retaliation from local cadres if he published the document.

Wang and Jiang were crushed. They had nothing to show for a month of hard work in the capital. And now a campaign was under way in Beijing to clear out the “floating population” of itinerant labourers before the 13th national congress of the Communist Party. Staff at the Letters and Visits Office urged them to return home, reassuring them that they would not face punishment when they got there since they had done nothing wrong. But Wang and Jiang worried about the consequences of going back to Yunyang and the punishment they might face. They decided to go back to the prefecture and seek advice from Commissioner Dong. He told them to relax, that they had done nothing wrong.

Despite repeated requests from Yunyang county to arrest the petition organizers, prefecture officials were reluctant to see any of the men arrested. They worried about the potential political fallout, now that the elite of the affected people had such tremendous ability to mobilize the masses in large-scale actions. Moreover, at a sensitive time like this, while the party was preparing for a national congress, the prefecture did not want higher levels of government to see anything troublesome happening within its administration. For the prefecture government, therefore, the best way to deal with the whole situation was to let it be. Doing so would not only give rise to deep gratitude among the petitioners, but also serve to maintain political stability and an atmosphere of unity.

Despite Commissioner Dong’s verbal promise to ensure their safety, the petition organizers did not feel completely at ease. Increasingly, they understood how risky it was to organize mass protests, and that lower levels of government were looking for any excuse to retaliate against them for past actions. Though they did not want to abandon the struggle against corruption before achieving their goals, they did feel it might be necessary to change their tactics in future.

After a two-month standoff, a compromise of sorts had been reached. While the prefecture government did not accept any of the demands made by the affected groups through mass actions, the personal safety of their leaders was guaranteed on condition that no further such actions took place. The elite of the affected people did not agree to give up the struggle altogether, but they did undertake not to organize further mass disturbances at the Dahe station.

From the above experience, Zhang Liandao, former secretary to Commissioner Dong, summarized the fourth principle in dealing with the Dahe dam resettlement issue:

[quote]Principle 4:
Education should be regarded as a key means to dealing with the problems

Petition activities sometimes do lead to unacceptable behaviour. In early 1986, for instance, disgruntled villagers in Shanyang surrounded Commissioner Dong for seven hours. In August 1987, peasants occupied the Dahe station and attacked its leaders; when Commissioner Peng arrived to deal with the incident, the protesters encircled him and spat in his face. Many officials at various levels of government recommended harsh punishment for the ringleaders. However, the prefecture party committee and government declined to take that course of action, preferring to address the peasants’ hardships and educate the masses, rather than punish a few “troublemakers.”[/quote]

The factory vanishes

The prefecture government’s approach of putting education before punishment appeared to pay off. After the August 1 mass incident, the petition organizers adjusted their strategy to focus on demanding ownership of the factory and claiming compensation for the newly eroded fields. In an extraordinary statement issued on December 26, 1987, they announced that, “although there have been serious problems with the calcium-carbide factory in the past, we no longer plan to investigate and affix blame. The five upstream groups should take over the factory as soon as possible, and run it so that 800 people affected by the dam will be able to live and work in peace and contentment.”

Given the villagers’ long-running campaign against local official corruption, this statement had the appearance of an about-face. For a long time, the elite of the affected people had insisted that corruption related to the factory should be investigated and guilty local cadres brought to justice. Their new position could be seen as a successful result of the prefecture’s policy. After extracting a promise about their personal safety from the prefecture, the elite of the affected people felt it was time to adjust the focus of the struggle. There were two other reasons for this change. The prefecture had authorized the county to assume full responsibility for tackling the problems related to the Dahe dam, but the county had already announced its finding that “no individual cadre at the district or township level had been involved in any corrupt activities.” In addition, two top local leaders – the head of Shanyang district and the district party secretary – were transferred to other areas, helping to defuse tensions that had built up between the petitioners and local leaders.

Changing the focus of the campaign, however, by no means meant that the affected people’s representatives had abandoned the struggle. In early 1988, the Dahe station embarked on a bank-strengthening project below the dam in a bid to solve the erosion problem. The elite of the affected people, however, did not want the problem addressed in that way, and so mobilized people to turn out in force to stop the construction work. The township government then met with leaders of the five upstream groups, who put forward the following demands:

1. Disburse the 1987 grain allowance to the affected groups.
2. Pay compensation for fields eroded after March 1987.
3. Pay compensation for any fields eroded in the future.
4. Hire people from the affected groups, rather than construction teams, to do the bank-strengthening work.

Governor Wang responded:

1. Ownership of the calcium-carbide factory should be transferred to the Dahe station, which would then be responsible for providing the funds to purchase 81,816 jinof grain to go to the affected groups.
2. The prefecture would decide whether to pay compensation for the 111 mu of newly eroded fields.
3. The area eroded in the future should be measured by both the Dahe station and local governments.
4. Nobody would be permitted to interfere again with the bank-strengthening work.

The county government believed that if the affected groups were assured of receiving a steady allowance of grain, they would have no cause to complain about their difficulty surviving, and the other issues could be addressed more ambiguously. In responding to the county’s proposal, the elite of the affected people decided to concentrate on straightening out the factory issue. They stuck to their position that the enterprise should be handed over to the peasants, given that the bulk of their resettlement funds had been poured into it. They also believed that with fixed assets of about 200,000 yuan, the factory would be a reliable income stream for the peasants, far off into in the future.

But local governments still preferred to have the Dahe station manage the factory and assume responsibility for providing the peasants with a grain allowance. Local officials worried that transferring ownership of the factory to the five upstream groups could lead to disputes with the three downstream groups. They were also concerned about the peasants’ ability to manage the factory. If anything went wrong, the peasants would turn to local governments for help, and therein could lie no end of trouble.

With local cadres and the petition organizers locked in a seesaw struggle over the factory, surprising reports began to emerge: Peasants from the five upstream groups had begun to steal material from the factory. Perhaps they had lost patience with the long-running dispute, or simply took it for granted that the factory assets were theirs by right. In any case, they began carting things away from the factory in a steady stream. Given the difficulty of raising money from the peasants to cover petition activity expenses, even the elite of the affected people got into the act. For instance, in a diary entry on November 25, 1988, Yao Longshi recorded that gasoline taken from the factory was sold to raise money for the struggle.

Ironically, while the prefecture, county and township governments were busy exchanging views on a timetable for handing over the factory to the five upstream groups, the enterprise in question was slowly being asset-stripped. Two of the most serious incidents occurred on the nights of July 16 and 18, 1989, when almost everything left of any value was taken away. And thus, one of the most hotly disputed issues causing friction between the governments and local people simply went cold. The words “calcium-carbide factory” ceased appearing in the people’s petitions as well as in government documents. As much as 410,000 yuan had been invested in the factory since 1978, and it only ever produced a few thousand yuan worth of products one time in 1985. Now everything was gone, and the factory was nothing but a scrap heap. At the same time, however, one of the factors that had bedevilled the relationship between local people and the governments was finally off the agenda for good.

Notes:

¹ After extracting a guarantee that their personal safety was not at risk, the elite of the affected people began to lose their determination to bring down local cadres with charges of corruption. The prefecture’s decision to authorize the county government to take full responsibility for the Dahe issue further reduced the chance of corrupt township and district officials being brought to justice. In any case, the county appeared unable to accept that local cadres had become corrupt. More importantly, there was a danger that the elite could lose the support of many of the affected people, who had grown weary of the unending struggle and less confident about the chances of winning the legal battle against local cadres.

² It is not unusual in China for local officials to be transferred in a bid to defuse a confrontation between peasants and the authorities. In the case of Shanyang, higher authorities hesitated to take such action in the 1984-87 period when tensions between local officials and people affected by the Dahe dam were running high. Transfers at that time might have been taken as an admission of corruption among local officials, and would also have been seen as the government caving in to pressure from the peasants. And so the county did not take such action until March of 1988, when the confrontation had begun to ease.

³ Here it can be seen that the government deliberately used the tactic of bureaucratic delay in order to deal more easily with problems after allowing some time to elapse. Of course, in skirting around a contentious issue, officials also ran the risk of losing a golden opportunity to resolve a serious problem once and for all.

Chinese units of measurement:

Translation edited by Three Gorges Probe (English) editor Kelly Haggart. The on-line publication (in Chinese and English) and translation of this book have been made possible by the Open Society Institute.