China shuts down parents protesting quake

'I fear nothing'
Zhou said the government paid him $3,495 in insurance and consolation payments, and officials promised to pay $2,912 more later. As China's economy continues to boom, the government has more money in its coffers to defuse protests with cash.

But Zhou said what he wanted most was justice, and he pledged to keep protesting if he had to. "Now that I've lost my child, I fear nothing," he said.

China's leadership is particularly sensitive about the school collapses because they touch a nerve with people across the country and the government fears sympathy for the parents could inspire protests in other parts of China ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

Last month, police began blocking the parents from going to the collapsed middle school. Zhou also said the most active parents had become silent. "All we know is that officials went to talk to them, and after that, they stopped being active. We don't hear from them anymore," he said.

It's common in China for officials to break up a protest group by threatening the leaders or buying them off. This renders the movement directionless or riven with suspicion or resentment.

But often, China just favors a big show of police force. In the city of Dujiangyan, police shut down a block-long section of road in front of the Xinjian Elementary School, where hundreds of students died. Six police were posted on each end of the block, discouraging protesters from coming near. A cluster of police guarded the school's main gate.

One parent, who asked not to be named because he feared reprisals, said officials were tapping phones and monitoring the parents' movements.

"Parents who work for state-owned companies are being kept really busy at work," he said, counting himself among the targeted. "They're being given a little extra salary and no time to do anything else. Some are being talked to individually. They're being threatened."

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