Chinese Protesters Halt Hazardous Factory

One million text messages. That’s how residents of China’s port city of Xiamen (population 1.5 million) spread word to protest construction of a chemical plant on June 7, 2007, according to local news reports. The $1.4 billion facility was meant to produce the petrochemical paraxylene, exposure to which can cause eye, nose, or throat irritation, and affect the central nervous system.

Though international standards dictate that such a plant should be 100 km from the nearest city, the short text messages that mobilized Xiamen’s smart-mob warned the factory would have been only 16 kilometers away.

While the central government is clearly showing more interest in protecting the environment, local governments, eager to cut corners in the name of economics, are helping block the path to sustainable development. But the Xiamen protests, thousands of people strong, are the latest sign of people power in China, where tens of thousands of protests over tainted land and water are recorded every year, threatening the government’s dream of a “harmonious society” while pointing the way forward for environmental action.

Local officials in Xiamen reportedly began blocking text messages in an attempt to stem the protests, but the physical demonstrations continued apace. Try as it might (there are 50 known cyber-dissidents imprisoned in China), China’s authoritarian controls simply can’t keep up with the power of cell phones, blogs, bulletin boards, and the smart-mobs they might create.

Local governments are getting into the SMS act themselves, using text messages to warn citizens of floods and even stop protests.

Clearly, stopping protests just isn’t possible the way it used to be. Between increasing countryside unrest (there may be nothing scarier to the government) and deadly pollution (China’s rural cancer rate rose by 23 percent in the past two years, and more than 70 percent of the country’s waterways and 90 percent of its underground water are contaminated by pollution) something has to give.

Since the plant’s not been completely scrapped, residents are still protesting, according to Reuters. And the more word spreads, the more likely it is that protests will continue elsewhere too.

A large expansion of a chemical plant in the southeastern city of Quanzhou that produces paraxylene and other chemicals was announced in March 2007, funded by China’s No. 2 oil company, Sinopec, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi government oil company, and ExxonMobil Corp. Paraxylene is a key material in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) saturated polyester polymers — the stuff of which the world’s plastic bottles are made.

Video of Xiamen protest 2007 from China Digital Times.

Update

In March, 2008, the official organ, People’s Daily Online, reported that Liu Ciguie, Xiamen’s Mayor, decided to relocate the paraxylene plant. Residents near the new planned location, on the Gulei peninsula in Zhangzhou, are protesting as well, asking if the plant is not safe enough for Xiamen how come it is safe enough for their community. Chemical Week magazine reported that, despite these concerns, construction began in May 2009.

Editor's Note: For 37 years, Peacework was published by, but did not necessarily represent the views of, the American Friends Service Committee. Peacework's final printed issue (September 2009) focused on human rights violations and nonviolent activism in China. This issue was never posted to Peacework's previous AFSC-sponsored website. Since the print magazine was being closed down as part of budget cuts resulting from the financial meltdown, AFSC decided to spin Peacework off into a fully independent blogging platform, one not sponsored by AFSC. It was agreed that the contents of Peacework's archives, including the final issue, could be posted online by the newly independent Peacework. We are working to create that blog platform, and this article is one of those from that last issue.