AP News, March 22nd, 2007
Disgruntled residents blocked railway tracks in southern China for almost six hours to protest a government redistricting plan that they fear could reduce social welfare benefits, state media said Thursday.
A crowd descended on a railway station in Guixi in the Jiangxi province shortly before noon Wednesday, voicing anger over a proposal to place part of the city under the jurisdiction of a neighboring district, according to the Xinhua News Agency and the Chinese government Web site.
They blocked two rail connections, including the heavily traveled line that runs from Shanghai in the east, cutting through Jiangxi to the southwestern city of Kunming, the reports said.
An estimated 200 people participated in the protest while several hundred more looked on.
"They worried that the re-division would affect their salaries and welfare," the report said. It gave no details. Benefits and public sector salaries vary widely in China depending on the local economy and tax base.
Jiangxi governor Wu Xinxiong and the provincial police chief were among officials called to the scene to help contain the protest, which broke up six hours later, the report said. It made no mention of arrests or injuries.
People who answered calls to local government, police and railway offices in the area said they did not know about the protest or refused to comment.
Blocking railway tracks is a traditional form of protest in China, but can result in lengthy prison sentences for disrupting traffic and communications.
Protests, many of them violent, erupt frequently around China, sometimes sparked by land seizures or environmental problems, but often by simple accidents or arguments that attract large crowds and quickly spin out of control.
A protest in Hunan province last week against rising bus fares reportedly drew 20,000 area residents and prompted a harsh police crackdown in which one person may have been killed.
