NEWSLETTER

Protest photos by “Tina” (she didn’t use her real name for fear of government reprisal).

n May, most of the residents of Xiamen, myself included, started hearing about an illegal demonstration that was planned to take place on June 1. The PX project was government-approved so, in their eyes, if you oppose PX, then you oppose the government too. People started avidly discussing the situation using blogs, emails, instant messenger, BBS, and text messages while the government’s internet police did its best to block, ban, and monitor anything containing the two letters PX. Seriously. For a couple of days, a Chinese acquaintance of mine named Zhezi, a college student and clothing designer, went around spraying graffiti that read, “I Love Xiamen. Everyone is an island. Everyone is Xiamen. Anti-PX.” Around the same time, he posted photos of an Anti-PX t-shirt that he had designed and was planning to sell on his blog. “The next day six men came to my dorm room,” Zhezi told me. “Some of them were from China’s Ministry of State Security, some were from the Department of Urban Construction, and some were part of the university’s security department. They confiscated my t-shirts and warned me not to attend the protest if I still wanted to graduate this year.”



As June 1 approached, the government’s fear of a mass demonstration grew. Word on the street spread that the police, armed guards, and the military would be deployed and that the government would fire any of their officials and employees as well as any university and school teachers who joined in the march. Furthermore, any students who were caught attending were threatened with expulsion. The government defended itself by saying that it was not being entirely unreasonable because they were allotting a special area in the municipal government’s parking lot where a legal demonstration could be held. There was just one little catch: Demonstrators were going to be expected to line up, get their photos taken, and have their personal information recorded by officials before they could start demonstrating. Then on May 30, a day before the rally, the government announced that construction on the billion-dollar petrochemical plant would be temporarily put on hold. Some believed it was just a ploy to pacify the people but, according to state media, nearly 1 million text messages were sent to the government urging them to abort the project. But even after the government announcement, the demonstration was not canceled.


TO BE CONTINUED:
THE GREAT FIREWALL | 1 | 2 | 3 |

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