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Globalization Economic Tension in Spotlight as Chinese
Farmers Storm Government OfficeBy John Leicester
Nando Media
January 20, 2000Beijing- Dozens of angry Chinese farmers who lost money when their eel exports to Japan plummeted besieged a government office Thursday, in a dramatic illustration of tensions caused by China's moves into the global economy. The short but hot-tempered protest in Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, was one of many in recent months that have involved often poorly managed investment funds set up without government permission in China's vast countryside. The farmers from Fuqing, 25 miles south of Fuzhou, had pooled money in a fund they set up themselves to invest mainly in eel farming, a popular business along China's eastern seaboard, said a Fujian government official who deals with public grievances.
Initially, the farmers' venture made money but their exports to Japan fell in the last two years and the fund collapsed in 1999, the official said in a telephone interview. He spoke on condition that he be identified only by his surname, Bao.
A Hong Kong human rights group said 200 farmers pushed through 50 security guards outside the gate to the provincial government in Fuzhou early Thursday and made their way to the front of a building. More than 200 police reinforcements arrived, detained the farmers, loaded them on to trucks and drove to an unknown location, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported. It cited eyewitnesses who said five farmers were injured and taken away by ambulance.
Bao, the Fujian official, denied the account. He said 30 to 40 farmers showed up to protest and 20 got passed security and sat quietly in a courtyard until police arrived. Two people who fought with police were detained, but officials later released them because they "decided that their high spirits were understandable," Bao said. He added that there were no arrests or injuries and that officials met with representatives of the protesters for an hour before loading all the farmers into two trucks and returning them to Fuqing.
The protest highlighted the pains experienced by some Chinese as China's once closed economy becomes more tightly linked to the world. China's entry to the World Trade Organization, which officials hope will take place this year, will put further pressure on Chinese farmers.
WTO membership is expected to bring a surge in agricultural imports, exposing small, inefficient family farms to greater competition and possibly forcing millions off the land and into cities in search of work. Bao said he didn't know why the Fuqing farmers' eel exports fell. Japan, however, has been struggling to pull out of its deepest economic slump since the end of World War II.
Bao suggested that the farmers should have kept themselves better informed about the market. "They have to accept the main responsibility" for the fund's collapse, he said. The government, worried about unrest in the countryside where most of China's 1.2 billion people live, also has been trying to close down unauthorized and poorly run investment funds.
Bao said a Fuqing government task force was trying to establish whether any officials were involved in the farmers' fund. He said the fund was not approved by the government and was badly managed. "It's a very difficult problem. It can't be resolved in a day or two," he said.
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