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NEWS & LETTERS, August-September 2007Our Life and TimesBy Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth China’s exploitationRevelations of forced child labor in the brick kilns of impoverished Shanxi Province, in June, rocked China. Some teenagers had been kidnapped, others tricked into performing this dangerous work under starvation conditions in isolated villages. Once on site, dogs and beatings prevented escape. After the story hit the press, bloggers flooded chat rooms with attacks on the government. They pointed out that at the most notorious brick kiln, the local Communist Party Secretary was a member of the family that owned the kiln. They also decried how only a few minor operatives had been arrested, but not the higher party, governmental, and police officials who covered for these longstanding abuses. Some bloggers declared that the Chinese people have become “slaves” of the top party leadership in Beijing. Others mocked the new party slogan about creating a “harmonious society,” using the term “harmonize” as a synonym for censorship, as in the phrase, “That critical post was harmonized.” The brick kilns of Shanxi are only the most dramatic examples of growing economic disparities, as poorer inland areas have been shut out of the fruits of economic development. Their youth are forced to immigrate to the coastal cities, where they perform the hardest and most dangerous jobs. Also in June, 7,000 demonstrated in Xiamen, a coastal city where authorities had planned to construct a giant petrochemical plant. They warned of the danger of cancer from the exposure to the fumes. Two months earlier, thousands battled police for four days in the village of Zhushan in inland Hunan Province. It started as a street demonstration against skyrocketing bus fares, but escalated after police responded by beating and arresting students and workers. |
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