China struggles to fix a ‘disharmonious society’

Protests over toxic plant
In Xiamen, a tropical port city once known in the West as Amoy and once a haven for pirates and the opium trade, the demonstrations centered around construction of a Tenglong Aromatic PX Co. plant in the coveted Haicang district, a breezy suburb west of the city of 1.6 million.

The plant would have made the petrochemical paraxylene, which is used in the production of plastics, polyester and film> It can cause eye, nose or throat irritation and chronic exposure may result in death.

Residents say they were kept in the dark about the project until details started trickling out in March. Soon, text messages, blogs, Internet bulletin boards and computer messenger services were abuzz. One phone message likened the plant to an atomic bomb being dropped on Xiamen. Talk of protest gathered steam.

“I felt that if everyone went, we could make a change,” said Wu, a 32-year-old resident who did not want his full name used for fear of reprisals and who carried his 3-year-old son to the protest. “If my son asks me in the future ’Where were you when the project was being built, Dad?’ I would feel ashamed if I had not dared to join the march.”

After the protest, the State Environmental Protection Administration said it was conducting a new environmental assessment for the entire city, including the paraxylene plant.

Less than two miles from the construction site, many apartments now sit empty because no one wants to live there, and real estate prices have plunged. Residents are not sure if their victory was final or temporary.

Telephones at state and city government offices were not answered. Company officials refused to release any information and hung up the telephone repeatedly.

Expert: No real democratic change
In calling for social harmony, Hu seems to be trying to juggle rising expectations by meeting demands for better living standards while forestalling any chance for meaningful political change, experts said.

“It does not in any way imply a real democratic change,” said Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at Oxford University. “If anything, it pre-empts the need for political reform.”

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