Mass Protests in China (II): Types of Protests

Abstract

This is the second of a triple issue of mass protests in China. The previous issue consisted of public security reports from the coastal metropoles of Shanghai and Guangzhou, the old industrial base of Shenyang in northeast China, and two interior cities in Sichuan province in the southwest, selected for the social characteristics of their protests and the public security response. This reports in this issue focus on the different types of mass protests, including laid-off coal miners from Liaoning province in northeast China, fleeced investors of financial defaults in Guangxi, distressed taxicab and motorized pedicab drivers in Yunnan, inter-religious conflict in Guizhou, all three in southwest China, followed by those of laid-off workers in Hubei province in central China, Donggao villagers who laid illegal claims on natural resource develpment in Shandong province in north China, and Zhangye peasants who protested about irrigation problems in Gansu province in the northwest. These reports are also selected for the information they provide on the political profile of their protest history and those of the local government responses. It is to these reports we now turn.