Oliver Steeds writes about the situation in China, in the context of China's Lost Sons.
While reporting in Sichuan province, it became clear the Chinese government are in the midst of their most repressive clampdown in recent memory.
In December last year, a local journalist broke the story that 137 mentally impaired people had been abducted from a government run welfare centre. Reports were horrific: a dozen people were found barely alive in one brick factory. Survivors spoke of being tortured with electric cattle prods.
Within days, the story went nationwide. People were horrified and wanted answers. Chinese journalists were quick to jump on the States failure to protect the mentally impaired. Suspects were arrested and charged, including one Communist Party Official. All are pending trial.
The victims and their families would not to talk to journalists. We were told more than once by local sources that they had been warned by the local authorities not speak out. We found one person willing to talk – he was an activist and was being watched. He arranged to meet us but arrived with three unmarked police cars tailing him.
The interview never happened. Plain-clothes state secret police officers took him away for questioning. Hours later he was eventually released unharmed. Subsequently we were followed back to our hotel room where a dozen officers interrogated us (their words not mine). We refused to give them any information and they finally backed off, on the condition we left their province. The message was clear – 'Get off our patch'.
Our brief incident with the authorities was a glimpse into the fear gripping the Communist Party – that is the fear of instability. Whilst we were there, a group, inspired by events in the Middle East, launched their own Jasmine Revolution. They were calling on people to meet in designated public spaces in a united silent protest against single-party rule in China.
Popular protests worry the state and for the last few months there's been a crackdown. Hundreds of dissidents, activists, journalists and human rights lawyers have been detained. All have reportedly been questioned and threatened and some detained. Most recently Ai Wei Wei, China's most famous modern artist, was arrested. He is the man behind the current installation in the Tate Moderns Turbine Hall and one of the most outspoken critics of the Communist Party.
This is far from fermenting another Tiananmen, but the repressive crackdown is the worst Ive known in 15 years working in China. Last year there were over 100,000 protests across the country. Cracks are opening up as China is feeling the growing pains of massive social upheaval and economic development. These protests remain isolated, often sparked by individuals or communities rising against local or provincial cases of corruption. What the Communist Party fear more than anything, is that a generalised, national protest could provide the focus and glue to the millions of increasingly marginalised and disaffected.
The Communist Party hold a repressive grip society but this is still the People's Republic of China. If 5000 years of continual history is anything to go by, it will be the people that will ultimately decide the country's future.
