Tens of thousands of farmers in the southern Chinese province of Jiangxi staged protests in August against rising tax burdens and declining farm incomes. Facts about these events were confirmed by local Chinese officials August 30.

In what the Washington Post describes as a "small rebellion," farmers armed with sticks and tools attacked government buildings and did battle with the police. Farmers from several townships in the province demonstrated over the course of five days. The protests began in Yuandu where 2,000 farmers ransacked offices of the Stalinist-led government and some attacked homes of local officials who have enriched themselves. The revolt rapidly spread to nearby townships, with about 20,000 farmers joining the actions. Jiangxi provincial police responded arresting dozens of protesters.  
 
Farm incomes plummet
Rural incomes in China--after years of increases--have fallen for four years in a row. This combined with a rising burden of taxes and government fees fueled the protests. Some farmers quoted in the media have said that they made $50 a year from each parcel of land and paid out more than half of that in taxes. Fertilizer fees and other planting costs also have to be paid.

Meanwhile, workers at the Meite Packaging plant in Tianjin seized six foreign managers and held them for 40 hours after they entered the factory to post a closure notice. The plant, which in the early 1990s was a state-owned company making pipes for a beverage packaging firm, was turned into a joint enterprise between the Chinese government and a U.S. corporation, and then placed under sole ownership of the Ball Corporation, based in Broomfield, Colorado.

"Every day since the beginning of August they [the workers] were there at the gate, protesting and trying to block deliveries and people from going in," stated Liu Qiuling, a retiree who lives next to the factory. "But the managers didn't meet with them."

Ball Corporation bought into four packaging plants in Tianjin as part of joint-venture partnerships. It announced plans to close three of these factories and consolidate the four into one located in a special "economic development zone," where the Chinese authorities offer foreign capitalist investors special tax breaks.

The company urged younger workers, mostly people in their 20s, to move with the plant to hold onto their jobs. The rest of the workforce is to lose not only their jobs but housing, health care, and pension benefits, which have been part the social wage won by workers in state-owned factories since the triumph of the Chinese revolution and consolidation of a workers state some 50 years ago.

Instead, the company offered a one-time severance payment of about $1,200. After the 40-hour factory occupation and standoff, management agreed to increase this payment amount slightly.

Earlier in August, also in Tianjin, workers at a state-owned liquor company organized protests against plans by a German firm with investments in the plant to sell factory parts for scrap metal. The workers blocked a truck, insisting that the money from sales of this metal belonged to them.

Over the past year tens of thousands of workers at other plants in China have been carrying out similar protests over nonpayment of pensions and wages, to factory and mine closures. The U.S. big-business media reports on them only intermittently. "Taking foreign businessmen hostage is rare in China," the New York Times commented August 31. But, it added with a tone of concern, "the workers' frustrations that touched off the [Meite plant] incident are commonplace, leading to hundreds if not thousands of protests in recent years." The Washington Post informed its readers the same day, "Uprisings and riots have become common in China's cities and countryside as workers and farmers come face to face with a slowing economy and a government that is trying to extract more taxes and fees from a shrinking economic pie."  
 
 
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