Protestors in Hong Kong clashed with police in the early morning hours today, reportedly over the removal of illegal street food vendors in Mong Kok. The AP says the violence was the worst in the city since the pro-democracy protests of 2014.

In the nearly 10-minute video above, protesters are seen hurling bricks, glass bottles, and other objects at police. Something gets lit on fire around the 5:30 mark.

SCMP reports that running street battles lasted about six hours, and that police fired two warning shots into the air.

Even as late as 8am, an angry mob could be spotted at the intersection of Sai Yee Street and Shantung Street, continuing to hurl bricks and glass bottles into the police lines as curious residents watched from the bleachers and commuters walked to work.

And here’s AP again on the early fallout:

Acting District Commander Yau Siu-kei said 23 men and one woman were arrested on suspicion of assaulting and obstructing officers, resisting arrest and public disorder. The arrested were as young as 17 and as old as 70. Police said 48 officers were hurt by glass and flying objects and confirmed that two warnings shots were fired.

Monday was the first full day of the lunar new year. The street vendors of Hong Kong, even those operating without licenses, have traditionally been ignored during the holidays, and it’s unclear the reasons for the crackdown this year.

Hong Kong’s annual Chinese New Year Victoria Harbor fireworks show is scheduled for tonight. It’ll continue as planned, with extra security.

CNN has some photos of the Mong Kok riots:

True objectivity in journalism may be an unachieveable ideal — the craft is as much about storytelling as reporting, with the requisite narrative structures that confirm or deny bias — but that doesn’t mean a journalist should actively neglect his or her duty to truthful storytelling.

Unless you work in Chinese media.

Residents of Yuyao in Ningbo, Zhejiang province reportedly clashed with riot police and mobbed a local television station on Friday night after a journalist allegedly understated the devastation wrought by Typhoon Fitow.

It led to one netizen, as found by Offbeat China, to comment, “The biggest problem is that Chinese media work for the government. The people have no voice.”

According to SCMP, “Online accounts say residents were infuriated after a journalist said to the camera that, ‘The flood in Yuyao is gone, and the people have gone back to their normal lives.’” The TV station in question “denied having said these words in the program.”

The TV station reportedly also denied that residents clashed with police, but photos clearly show hundreds of angry civilians overturning vans and police cars and confronting authorities:

Take a look at the above video for more visual evidence.

Offbeat China also has this picture, supposedly the journalist from Ningbo Television who issued the misleading report:

They thought the report was an untruthful representation of what’s happening in Yuyao and demanded the journalist to “explain” and apologize. Details are still unknown, but it seems that the negotiation between Ningbo TV journalists and local Yuyao people didn’t went very well.

Netizens have wondered aloud why there appears to be more police protecting a TV station than helping typhoon victims. Offbeat China again:

One netizen 狸咬灰夫斯基 commented: “The police care more than maintaining stability than helping the people with flood relief.”

Sad, isn’t it? How could this story possibly get worse…

Seagull Reference, take it away:

A recent crackdown of online rumor spreading might have caused the initial delay in rescue efforts. The government recently announced through the Supreme Court that any misinformation would be prosecuted with criminal code. The ‘misinformation’ was explained by a number of cases in the past weeks. For example, when 5 cars were involved in an accident, if someone posted online 4 cars were involved, then it would have broke the law.

Fewer people are daring to challenge the media’s government lapdog’s grossly misleading stories because they’re afraid of going to jail. The sun is shining, says Ningbo TV, while rain patters against the station’s windows. Meanwhile, floodwater continues to soak Yuyao, with shortages in food, drinking water, and electricity. Even Polyanna would be embarrassed.

(H/T Jonathan Alpart)

We see traffic accidents every day, but in Fuan, Fujian province, one such incident on Saturday reportedly sparked a protest/riot involving “thousands” of residents. The Associated Press reports, “Police said it was instigated by ‘a handful of lawless people.’ One resident said people became angry because police and paramedics took nearly an hour to arrive to help the injured, while a Hong Kong-based human rights group said it was to do with corruption.” Meanwhile, “The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said about 10,000 people clashed with police, and that 10 police vehicles had been smashed, three overturned and 20 people injured.”

Accounts differ. AP again:

Residents said police were stopping cars and checking people for driving after drinking on Saturday evening when the accident happened on a main road in Fuan.

Wanting to avoid being tested, a driver in a sedan accelerated away and police started chasing the car, said a resident, who would give only his surname, Lin. About three motorcycles were hit during the chase, said Lin, adding he wasn’t sure who hit them.

“About 10,000 to 20,000 onlookers became angry because police officers and paramedics took nearly one hour to arrive,” said Lin.

He estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 people clashed with police and overturned three police vans.

And the official version of events:

The official Fuan city police microblog said Sunday that a sedan had collided with a car and three motorcycles just before 8 p.m. Saturday, leaving five people injured.

“The accident made a small number of local people dissatisfied, so they smashed police vehicles and overturned three police vans,” said the statement.

An initial investigation found that a person with no driving license surnamed Jiang had caused the accident and was in police detention, it said. It said the driver wasn’t drunk but had accelerated to avoid a patrol vehicle and aroused attention.

…

“As the rescue work was going on, some relatives of the injured people and onlookers got out of control,” said the statement. “They started to push and shove the doctors and knock the ambulance and so the ambulance left the scene under police escort.”

It said “a handful of lawless people misled some people who didn’t know the truth” and they began targeting police vehicles.

The truth is somewhere in between, but good luck finding it. Youku has scrubbed most videos of the incident, but I was able to find one. It’s unclear how long it’ll stay on Chinese Internet.

Photos via China Digital Times:

Advisory: highway signs are being covered up in Ningbo because of some reason. That reason does not concern you. The highway signs are covered up in a city somewhere for no reason. There is no reason. The signs in a place are on the highway. No highway, actually. Not a city.

@jaytao says the highway is in Ningbo’s Beilun District near Guoran Road. But what the fuck does he know? Soon the tarp will arrive, covering everything. No one will suspect a thing.

(H/T Reddit)

Another widespread protest against a factory in China has yielded, at least on paper, another victory, following the one in Shifang, Sichuan province in July. Does it matter that no one believes the city government’s statement saying it’ll halt its construction plans?

First the background: In Ningbo, Zhejiang province, thousands of locals have clashed with police this week over plans to build a refinery that produces the hazardous ethylene and paraxylene, a.k.a. PX. The company pushing this is Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Company, a subsidiary of Sinopec. The protests began Monday and climaxed Saturday, though we wouldn’t call them over just yet, as protesters remained in the city center yesterday, according to NY Times.

But a glimmer of good news? AFP reports this statement, which appears (again, on paper) to be a concession from the powers that be:

“Following research with investors, Ningbo city has decided: (1) not to go ahead with the PX (chemical factory) project and (2) to halt advance work on the chemical refining project,” the government of Ningbo’s Zhenhai said on its website.

The statement has understandably been met with skepticism. Reports AP:

Liu Li, 24, a Ningbo resident, said the crowd did not believe the government’s statement.

“There is very little public confidence in the government,” she said. “Who knows if they are saying this just to make us leave and then keep on doing the project.”

Sina Weibo has been buzzing about this incident, but you wouldn’t know it by doing a search for “Ningbo.” Most posts related to the protests are only allowed to stay up for a few minutes, if not seconds, before they’re pulled down. China Digital Times has an ongoing list of “sensitive words,” including “tear gas,” which police allegedly used on protesters. Also:

We want to survive, we want to get by (我们要生存 我们要活命): Slogan seen on a banner carried by protesters.

Obviously, just because images are officially blocked here doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You can find many pictures via Ministry of Tofu, some of which we’ve sampled on this post, China Digital Times and Tea Leaf Nation. (All via Sina Weibo.)

Reuters reports that more than a thousand people gathered in Ningbo, Zhejiang province yesterday to protest plans for a petrochemical plant that is a subsidiary of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. And according to the BBC, witnesses said authorities used tear gas and have arrested some people.

Searches on Youku for “Ningbo” turn up nothing. Sina Weibo hasn’t completely censored the incident, but it’s clear they’re not allowing everything, either. We’ll see how fast some of these posts get taken down.

Here’s one message, 12 minutes ago, by @来-xc的微薄:

Sorrowful Ningbo… sorrowful China… our thirst for a beautiful and harmonious homeland… I love Ningbo.

And here are reactions from others who are CCed on that thread, featuring a photo of what appears to be a foreign cameraman atop someone’s shoulders:

@L1_L1_L1_请将我的2马赛克: Truly sad.

@J依依_MUSE吧: China’s common people, up to this moment, can’t rely on China, can only rely on foreign media. Bitterly disappointed

@Darling–大玲: Go Ningbo residents!

And then there is the picture from the top of this post, from @激辣Gekikara about 30 minutes ago, which show special police in front of Baoshan station clutching bullet-proof shields and anti-riot gear. “Please return to us Ningbo’s students,” the post reads. “Return us those residents who have been seized. Ningbo, don’t be afraid. We are very formidable!”

Some more pictures, via @Amy8912:

And one more:

UPDATE, 6 pm: The posts from all the Weibo accounts below except Amy’s have been censored. Also see this post.

(H/T Katie)

People rioted in Luzhou, Sichuan province on Wednesday evening after they heard that police had beaten a truck driver to death in broad daylight. Tea Leaf Nation relayed several messages from incensed netizens who never doubted it, notably from a Sina Weibo user, @Aluo阿罗, who declared, “Luzhou police have beaten someone to death, causing tens of thousands of onlookers to gather ’round. ….”

Global Times, however, offered an alternative narrative; we honed in on this humorous quote from an official at the scene: “The driver died of an acute disease during the law enforcement process when he was told by the traffic police to remove his truck from the middle of a road.”

Strange as that wording is, South China Morning Post, a sane voice muzzled by its own paywall, published a corroborating account early yesterday:

“At around 5.30pm, I rushed to the scene, which is around 100 metres from my office, and saw that the victim, who was then surrounded by three traffic policemen, was suffering from some kind of heart attack, before asking someone to help him to get his drugs from his vehicle,” she said.

She said the man, in his 40s, was a fish vendor in the street where she worked.

“I left the scene when the man was still conscious after having swallowed two drug tablets,” she said. “When someone told me the man had died, I went back to the scene at about 6.30pm and found out that was true.”

She said she had not noticed any injuries on the man’s body.

SCMP has since followed up with an article about authorities being uncannily proactive in punishing those who spread false rumors:

At least 20 people were detained following a riot in Sichuan on Wednesday sparked by rumours that a man had been beaten to death by traffic policemen, state media reported yesterday.

Gan Junyuan , 58, died from a pre-existing medical condition in central Luzhou on Wednesday afternoon, and not because of a scuffle with police, Xinhua reported.

Local officials told a press conference yesterday morning that Gan had refused to move his illegally parked truck at around 5.30pm when asked to do so by two auxiliary traffic policemen and had shouted abuse at them.

The policemen and Gan jostled each other before Gan became ill and yelled that he needed medicine that he kept in his truck, the report said.

Gan’s condition worsened after he took the medicine and he was pronounced dead after an ambulance arrived at the scene.

The official version of events was essentially in line with a report in this newspaper yesterday quoting a young woman who witnessed the incident.

The exact details remain unknown, and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever find out. At this point, hearsay piled upon hearsay is all we’ll get, and it’ll elucidate nothing. But indications are that some very vocal and very convincing rabblerousers were among the first to descend upon Wednesday’s unfortunate tragedy and turn it into something much more. Perhaps we could say something here about pent-up  anger at incompetent governance needing outlets. But perhaps it’d be equally worthwhile to say that some assholes decided to endanger public safety because they’re assholes. How you react to this incident, like so many in China in the absence of solid facts, probably ends up saying more about you than the situation itself.

They’re rioting again in Sichuan province. Tea Leaf Nation reports that yesterday evening, an anti-police protest turned violent after three police officers beat a driver to death in broad daylight in front of several witnesses. (Someone at the scene began filming after the driver was killed; the video is embedded here — no matter who you are, it has to be disconcerting to see yourself surrounded by dozens, then hundreds, then possibly thousands of people who are looking for any reason to vent.) Via TLN:

The amassed crowd then turned violent, overturning police cars and setting them on fire. Police responded with tear gas and the arrest of an unspecified number of people.

Earlier this summer, large-scale protests over a copper factory broke out in Sichuan’s Shifang, lasting several days. We’ll see how long these new protests, which has sent Weibo twittering, will last.

TLN again (where you’ll find more pictures like the following):

Other users claiming to be on the scene have chimed in as well. One wrote that angry protesters did not permit the police to remove the corpse from the scene. Another confirmed the violence, writing that Luzhou would “soon be famous.” Another user had this vivid account:

“I just got home … There’s still rioting outside. My mom said it’s gotten very aggressive, she said she saw with her own eyes police being chased from the scene, with their riot helmets falling off. Some girls picked up the riot helmets and used them to smash cars. I heard what sounded like gunshots, perhaps they were warning shots from the police.” One can only hope they were merely warnings.

UPDATE, 11:52 pm: Via Global Times, here’s an alternate account of events:

“Please do not believe the rumors. The driver died of an acute disease during the law enforcement process when he was told by the traffic police to remove his truck from the middle of a road. We promise to investigate the case and provide people the truth,” the district head was quoted by a witness as saying to the crowd with a loudspeaker.

At least four cop cars were turned over. Apparently the riots lasted only until 11 pm.

Riot cops called in:

When is a riot just a fight with a lot of people? When is a fight with a lot of people a riot? In Chinese factories, where thousands of workers live in close proximity, it can be difficult to tell sometimes — and there is ample risk, from a journalistic standpoint, in using the “R” word when the facts just don’t support the narrative.

Nonetheless, the news out of a Foxconn plant in Taiyuan, Shanxi province is that something happened in the early hours last night, as first reported by Richard Lai of Engadget. The latest update has Foxconn telling Reuters that, “The fight is over now … we’re still investigating the cause of the fight and the number of workers involved… a couple thousand workers is possible.” The plant is temporarily closed, with a statement expected to be forthcoming. Xinhua reports that about 10 people were hurt. UPDATE, 9/26, 7:31 pm: Marketplace: “40 people injured in the clash, and one person was stabbed.” No deaths.

A video has surfaced, along with some photos that really don’t show much. We’ll update if there are any significant developments, but early indications are this incident was nothing more than a big fight, the kind liable to happen at any factory in China. But of course, it didn’t happen at “any” factory. It happened at Foxconn. And that makes it relevant to the media at large.

No two protests are ever the same, as the above video will show. In Changsha, people flip cars. In Dali, they sing the national anthem. In Qingdao, they chant. (Actually, they sing and chant everywhere, but you know what I mean.) There are a lot of banners that read “Japanese Devils,” a term that originates from Japan’s invasion of China last century. Other slogans are less kind.

What’s striking, however, is how orderly most people are. Sure, you see a lot of open anger, and some violence, and of course you’ve read about the destruction and chaos, but let the above suggest that anguish over the Japanese government’s purchasing of the Diaoyu Islands has forced the Chinese government to allow a measure of organized protest. Could a further loosening of controls result in the enabling of free speech? The sun rises in a brave new world. Progress!

(H/T Shanghaiist)

We’ve gone way beyond civil disobedience. Who are the Chinese attacking? Chinese-owned Japanese restaurants, and Japanese people who may call China home, and now journalists. It is, as the proverb goes, shitting on your carpet to spite the neighbor. We’ve seen this line of indiscriminate violence in this country before — it was called the Cultural Revolution. It was bloody terrible.

I realize that the government is in the midst of a “once every 10 years” transition that’s “peaceful” and all that, so they’re busy, but if the leaders of this country want to keep leading the country for 10 more years, they need to get their priorities straight. Surely the Celestial Kingdom isn’t condoning these protests? Yet as surely, they can’t crack down, because would they then be labeled Japanese sympathizers? “We think that the government has been too soft and we want to show it what we think,” Zhang Xin, a 25-year-old protester, told Reuters. “I feel disappointed in the government and it doesn’t heed our voice.”

We’ve always known that the CCP’s grasp on power is somewhere between tenuous and fraught, but could they possibly be toppled by, of all things, this battle over rocks? One suspects they’d plunge the country into war — “heed[ing the] voice” of the people — much before ceding power.

Here’s a roundup of stories about anti-Japan demonstrations — riots, in several instances — raging across China, and in all of these you’ll note a hint of the crazy. We apologize in advance for being unable to give you a definitive account of Japan’s reaction to all this — it’s our impression, however, that the Japanese people are spending their protest energy on domestic matters, and that their government very much rivals the CCP in ham-handedness.

From the above-linked Reuters article:

“If Japan does not back down we must go to war. The Chinese people are not afraid,” said 19-year-old-student Shao Jingru.

Dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who walked by Sunday’s protest in Beijing, told Reuters he believed the demonstrations were sanctioned by the government and the police.

“Chinese citizens need to thank the Japanese government because for the first time, they can mount a large protest on their own land,” Ai said. “In China, there are no protests organized by the people.”

Police used loud speakers to tell protesters – many of whom were shouting “declare war” – they should respect the law.

To an extent, it is sanctioned. Washington Post:

While it urged protesters not to resort to violence, China’s government has also encouraged the use of economic pressure in the dispute over Japan’s control over the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. China’s National Tourism Administration ordered travel companies last week to cancel tours to Japan over the weeklong National Day holiday in early October and promised to compensate any businesses for costs they could not recover, said a lawyer who saw the written order and asked not to be identified because the document is not for public use.

The scale and violence are the worst in recurring waves of anti-Japanese protests since 2005, when lingering grievances over Japan’s occupation of parts of China in the 1930s through World War II brought Chinese into the streets. Since then, China’s economy has supplanted Japan’s as the world’s second largest and its diplomatic clout and military firepower have soared. State broadcaster China Central Television on Sunday showed Chinese naval forces conducting firing drills in the East China Sea, though it did not give a date for the exercises.

South China Morning Post reporter attacked. SCMP:

South China Morning Post photographer Felix Wong Chi-keung was pushed to the ground and beaten by Shenzhen police yesterday, while covering anti-Japanese protests in the city.

Four to five officers hit Wong’s face, arms, and legs with batons. Wong’s face was swollen and a cloth he used to wipe the blood from his face turned red, as seen in television footage from a Hong Kong news crew.

The Post condemned the use of excessive force and said it would lodge a complaint.

“I was taking pictures of policemen chasing some protesters and suddenly one riot officer approached me,” Wong said. “I put down my camera and put both hands up. I repeated in Putonghua that I am a reporter, but he didn’t heed my words.

“I was pushed down on the ground and then some four to five officers came over and hit me with batons. I kept shouting reporter, reporter, but they didn’t stop. They left when they saw my nose was bleeding.”

Accounts of harassment of Japanese citizens. WSJ:

On Thursday, the consulate in Shanghai released another advisory, but this time including six accounts of Japanese residents harassed by locals.

The consulate indicates the incidents may have been in reaction to the ongoing territorial dispute, as well as to reports that three intoxicated Japanese residents stabbed a Chinese woman that is garnering heated comments on the Internet.

The cases of harassment vary in degree, and none appear to have caused major injury. Some were more aggressive than others.

In one, a Chinese person reportedly approached a group of Japanese walking down the street and poured ramen noodles on one and broke the eyeglasses of another.

In another, a person driving an electric car pulled up to a Japanese pedestrian and threw a carbonated drink in his face.

Other Japanese were called “stupid” and had a recyclable plastic bottle hurled at them. In another case, a person was kicked repeatedly after being asked if he was Japanese.

The protests have also spread to Hong Kong. Voice of America:

As tensions between China and Japan escalate, anti-Japanese protests have spread to Hong Kong.  Pro-democracy activists in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory are taking a surprising lead in the pan-Chinese nationalism movement.

An estimated 5,000 demonstrators marched on the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong Sunday.  The demonstration occurred in the build-up to the anniversary this week of the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

Panasonic and Toyota factories damaged. What did they do except provide quality products? Business Week:

A Panasonic Corp. (6752) factory and a Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) dealership in China were damaged by fire as anti-Japanese demonstrations spread across the country, prompting Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to urge the Chinese government to ensure the safety of its citizens.

More pictures:

(Hat tip to Reddit China, whose users have really circled the wagon on these protests.) (Update, 6:16 pm: Also see: Ministry of Tofu) (Update, 9/18, 4:48 am: And China Digital Times for more pictures.)

A foreigner nearly incited a riot in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province on Friday evening after he got into a physical confrontation with a Chinese woman on the road. The foreigner, riding a BYD, apparently thought the female had hit his car with her electric bike, so he got out and slapped her twice across the face, according to an eyewitness interviewed in the video (subtitles are mine, along with any errors), and then spat in her face. A very angry mob surrounded the vehicle for hours, puncturing its tires. Finally, with crowd emotions still high, stoked by nationalism, a squadron of cops smuggled the foreigner into a police vehicle and drove away.

Before we go any further, let us warn against slinging accusations that only serve to reveal your personal prejudices. Whenever these foreigner-Chinese confrontations arise — and they do more often than we’d like — there’s a tendency to rush to conclusions, leading to gross generalizations, misguided anger, and paranoia. It’s obvious and goes without saying that slapping and spitting on someone is an act worthy of condemnation across cultures, but so too is mob violence. Regarding the Friday incident in Zhengzhou, we can only agree that hardly anyone comes out looking very good.

The story continues. With the alleged assailant trapped inside his car, someone outside shouts, “When you’re hitting a person you play hero, afterwards you play the coward.” Another man, on his bike, says into the camera, “He sits inside strangely nice and cool, comes to China to hit Chinese people. Too crazy.” The most angry comment that’s subtitled: “Come out, fuck him, handcuff him to a tree.”

One man sees a Walmart card poking out of the foreigner’s breast pocket, and wonders, “Walmart is American, right?” (It appears that there’s another passenger next to the foreigner, but we’re never told who he is.) For whatever reason, people want to know his nationality. “I just want to ask what country he’s from,” one man angrily demands. “So fierce!”

Relatively high-level officials — or at least those with the authority to make important decisions — get called in to settle the stalemate. One of them decides that the foreigner needs to be hauled away (arrested), which would “be like a victory for us,” by which he means the laobaixing, commoners who were demanding street justice. After the foreigner is hauled away, the mob turns its attention to the BYD, with someone imploring, “Smash his car!”

If there is anyone who comes away from this incident looking all right, it’s the official who, in the center of a still-incensed pack, tells the people, “Listen to me. This situation, I’m taking back, I’ll handle it properly. If I don’t handle it properly, I’ll resign. I’ll make my position known to everyone. Don’t worry!”

The people actually cheer him and appear to disperse soon after.

As always, we’ll keep you updated with details as they become available.

(H/T Alicia)

Wow. So protests in China work? At 5:58 pm today, the official Weibo page of the Shifang, Sichuan municipal government posted a message stating that plans for a proposed molybdenum copper plant, which caused protests that began Saturday and escalated yesterday, have been permanently shelved. Perhaps local leaders read the writing on the wall when the term “Shifang” remained unblocked on Sina Weibo and Baidu: they have no support from Beijing, therefore no chance of winning. (Let this be a lesson in the significance of censorship.)

The Wall Street Journal is also on this story: “The Shifang protests, which have drawn heavy attention on the Chinese-language Internet, illustrate how concern over the environmental and health effects of industry has spread from wealthy coastal areas to smaller and less-developed cities.”

Some netizens replying to the announcement — there are currently 7,456 comments and 17,595 forwards on Shifang’s post (that’s in less than three hours) — have expressed skepticism, while others are declaring victory. Writes 跳墨尔本曳步舞: “Everyone should come to this website to see: 7.2, Shifang, Sichuan opposes molybdenum project with candid community pictures, restores the truth! With pictures, there’s truth. Forward to more people who don’t know the truth…”

A victory for Weibo, then? (Another victory?) Perhaps, and that’s all well and good, but I kind of suspect we’re only in act three of a classic five-act drama. It’ll be interesting to see, in the hours and days to come, whether censors stir from their stoops and draw a line somewhere. Because there’s a funny thing about truth: it can’t be bottled, exactly, and it spreads in all directions at once, including toward mistruth. It’s a stark contrast to blame, which, as I’ve mentioned before, only trickles one direction in a one-party system: up. We’ll see how far it gets in this case.

From where we sit and judging by the videos we’ve seen, the situation in Shifang, Sichuan yesterday looked a lot like a riot that was trying to happen but never materialized. In the above, people stand around while tear gas goes off around them. In the second video, which appears after the jump (along with the Youku version of the above), the title tells us that it was the appearance of riot police that set off the previously docile (though admittedly large) crowd, setting them running (along with traffic cops, funny enough) toward the armored men. We imagine the tear gas canisters, when they began to go off, didn’t help matters.

China Digital Times has provided a compendium of information from English-language sources covering this incident, which began when locals gathered to publicly complain about plans to build a molybdenum copper plant. Via Wall Street Journal:

“Save our homes and environment for the next generation,” read one protest banner, according to a picture posted on Weibo.

The exact size of the protest wasn’t clear, and city officials couldn’t be reached to comment. An employee at the emergency room of Shifang People’s Hospital said not many had sought treatment as a result of the protest, but declined to provide details.

A statement posted to the city government’s website said the type of people who supported the Shifang protests were the same as those supporting overseas groups opposed by the Chinese government. The statement specifically mentioned the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong and the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader.

“Don’t have a superstitious belief in the paper tiger,” the statement read. “They are vicious and merciless and can only convey unrest.”

The Shifang protests appeared to be part of China’s emerging “not-in-my-backyard” movement, where young urban-dwellers in particular have become increasingly vocal in opposing industrial projects viewed as damaging to the environment and their health.

Tea Leaf Nation, as always, is on the scene with translated netizen responses. “The protesters held homemade signs and placards. ‘Save Shifang, Give Us Back Our Environment,’ read one sign, and ‘Molybdenum Copper Plant, Get Out of Shifang,’ read another T-shirt.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that the project has been postponed “while authorities dispatch teams to educate citizens about it.” [Insert snarky and cynical thought here.]

Weibo continues to buzz about this protest, which looked like it continued into the night. Here are more pictures (also see: this one from yesterday):

Tear gas:

Protesters react to riot police’s appearance:

UPDATE, 7/4, 5:30 pm: Here’s the best video yet; the smoke and stun grenades start going off around the 2-minute mark:

The only info I have about this picture is the watermark and the caption, from Weibo user zhouwenneng, which reads, “In how many years will this picture win a big prize?”

We’ll update you again tomorrow in the a.m. For now, see our earlier post: Riot Police And Protestors Clash In Shifang, Sichuan Province (residents protesting a construction that would potentially damage their immediate environment).