The mysterious death of a young hotel chef in China mobilizes thousands

June 21, 2009 11:36 AM

"At 1am on June 19, police and funeral cars arrived at the hotel, wanting to take the body away. 2,000 Shishou residents blocked the hotel entrance to protect Xu's corpse."
posted by sswiller (36 comments total)

Who knew twitter would be so fucking destabilizing.
posted by empath at 11:46 AM on June 21, 2009

It's not Twitter. It's ridiculously easy group forming and the fact that the means of production have changed hands, and the communication webs now allow audiences to talk to each other. But we've all seen the Shirky links. So I'll shut up now.
posted by edbles at 11:54 AM on June 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

Empath: this is why the catholic church tried to burn all the printing presses, writ large.

Welcome to the future, fascists.
posted by Freen at 11:58 AM on June 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

I think he's saying that instead of the future being a boot stamping a human face, forever, it's a grainy youtube video of a boot stamping on a human face, forever, accompanied by a tweet of "omg this d00d is stamping on my face".
posted by Justinian at 12:09 PM on June 21, 2009 [50 favorites]

yeah, I thought about posting this since the second video is rather interesting, a view of an armored phalanx breaking down that is very rare to see in life.

You could combine this street clash in Iran for a two-fer.

One street-protest dynamic that I learned from the first video is that protestors can re-use their bricks if they can get the phalanx to start back-pedalling.

Similar social pressures driving these protests I think. People just get tired of the bullshit, yaknow?

I looked up Shishou on google maps and its in BFE China, halfway between Nanjing and Chongqing.
posted by @troy at 12:09 PM on June 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

Yes, there was nothing in the article that implied people were mobilising on the basis of reading Twitter. In fact, there were reports going around on 2nd June that Twitter was being blocked by censors.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 12:11 PM on June 21, 2009

There's a farcical part during a video where the officer in charge (I presume) on the loud hailer is shouting at the crowd "You are harming the interests of the people..." Trying to recall which Soviet (?) poet it was wrote something along the lines of "the people have seriously disappointed the government and the government will be choosing a new populace."
There's such a strong sense of justice among the common people of China and given a sniff of a chance they won't shirk a fight for what's right, but they've been so ill served by the political class.
posted by Abiezer at 12:23 PM on June 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

Btw, i don't know understand what the police strategy was there? Why didn't they charge instead of turtling up? No tear gas? No rubber bullets? The chinese government sucks at police brutality.
posted by empath at 12:33 PM on June 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Still unsure how fascism plays into a report from communist China, but okay...

The color of the stick doesn't matter as long as it cracks heads.
posted by @troy at 12:34 PM on June 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

This is amazing. Makes you wonder why the Chinese government is fighting so hard over one body. Wouldn't the officers there be questioning why they need several divisions of armed police to collect one corpse?

Also, it's interesting to see how the riot police leave their rear completely unguarded. Since they're that badly outnumbered, wow, terrible organization on the part of whoever is in charge.
posted by Talanvor at 12:40 PM on June 21, 2009

hippybear and justinian: My point, in brief, is that the printing press enabled much of political revolutions of the 18th century, the internet is enabling the political revolutions of the 21st century, from the Orange revolution in the Ukraine to the Green revolution in Iran, to enabling popular dissent in China. Yes, Justinian, that is the future but you've forgotten the second act, where millions of people can witness the injustice, and join the fight for a better world, even if it's as little as participating in a wee little bit of samizdat online a hundred and forty characters at a time. (Off topic: bits are cheap, can we please drop the 140 character limit on sms!)

Talanvor: It's not about the body anymore, really, though I suspect in the beginning it was. The coverup is often worse than the crime, or so the saying goes.
posted by Freen at 12:56 PM on June 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is amazing. Makes you wonder why the Chinese government is fighting so hard over one body. Wouldn't the officers there be questioning why they need several divisions of armed police to collect one corpse?
Not knowing much more about the incident than what's at the main link, the implication is the young chef's death is in some way linked to the corrupt way the police-owned hotel is run (beaten to death by his bosses in some dispute). Small town China has seen a "mafia-isation" of government where the police will control businesses, especially vice etc, like something out of a Dashiel Hammet story.
So instead of dealing with the family's grievances, no doubt afraid of what dirt would be brought to light, the local plod will have tried to have the body cremated before an independent autopsy. Word will have got round and local people will have supported efforts to stop that. Once the local law failed to get the body and as a crowd gathered they've called for back-up, and will have brought in the PAP riot squad.
That requires provincial-level (perhaps only prefectural-level) approval IIRC, which if true illustrates what side officialdom tends to drop despite all the noises about tackling local malfeasance. Surely plod central could have said, tough shit, negotiate your way out of it or maybe shock us all and try a bit of due process.
posted by Abiezer at 12:56 PM on June 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

In most of the world, the communication infrastructure is controlled by those in power, which places a limit on protesters ability to use cellphones, twitter, or the internet as an organizing tool. According to huffpo, iran protesters are back to printing large volumes of flyers to communicate.

This bottleneck could be avoid if the wireless communication infrastructure was decentralized.
posted by Merik at 1:07 PM on June 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Abiezer, you're thinking of Bertolt Brecht.
posted by PlusDistance at 1:22 PM on June 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

Thanks PlusDistance - good spot considering I completely mangled the quote and threw the wrong country in there too.
posted by Abiezer at 1:27 PM on June 21, 2009

Seeing that police line break and run was extremely satisfying. I am not a violent man, but I was wanting to see stragglers getting mobbed and beaten. Fuck off police state.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:43 PM on June 21, 2009

Still unsure how fascism plays into a report from communist China, but okay...

I'd say China is, in reality, about as close to communism as we are to capitalism.
posted by notreally at 1:50 PM on June 21, 2009

Small town China has seen a "mafia-isation" of government where the police will control businesses, especially vice etc, [...] Once the local law failed to get the body and as a crowd gathered they've called for back-up, and will have brought in the PAP riot squad. That requires provincial-level (perhaps only prefectural-level) approval IIRC, which if true illustrates what side officialdom tends to drop despite all the noises about tackling local malfeasance.

Eh, the provincial-level police response might be motivated less by extensive corruption and more by reports of a crowd of 2,000 people breaking police lines with thrown bottles and stones.
posted by Mike1024 at 2:15 PM on June 21, 2009

Still unsure how fascism plays into a report from communist China, but okay...

i think china's a lot closer now to the classic fascist system than it is communism
posted by pyramid termite at 2:16 PM on June 21, 2009

Damn...I wonder who it was that Xu pissed off. I hope they get what's coming to them, but, sadly, I'm fairly certain they will not.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 2:17 PM on June 21, 2009

I don't understand this: "Please help to spread the news of the riot in Shishou. Their lives are in danger, Chinese people need your help! #ShishouRiot #Shishou"

When the average Twitter user posts this, what could possible be done that Sally Jo in Mud Lick, Kentucky could do to help out? It seems like a lot of "Oh lookie what I support, so I change the colour of my avatar!" but not a lot is being done.

Everyone says help! help! but no one says how...
posted by czechmate at 2:29 PM on June 21, 2009

Eh, the provincial-level police response might be motivated less by extensive corruption and more by reports of a crowd of 2,000 people breaking police lines with thrown bottles and stones.
What are you on about? From the report we have, every escalation of this incident was due to police intransigence at one juncture after another. The initial stand-off where the local law couldn't get into the hotel to remove the body against the wishes of the family and the 2,000-odd crowd could have been handled through negotiation.
posted by Abiezer at 2:41 PM on June 21, 2009

Still unsure how fascism plays into a report from communist China, but okay...

Because, trappings aside, modern China resembles Mussolini's Italy a great more than the Soviet Union.
posted by rodgerd at 3:04 PM on June 21, 2009

You might have seen this rogerd, which was making that case a good 15 years ago. Bar the experiment with village elections which hardly invalidate the comparison, there's been little in the way of meaningful political reform since (horrible font - PDF version here): China, Corporatism, and the East Asian Model
posted by Abiezer at 3:26 PM on June 21, 2009

ESWN has a more detailed account of the Shishou incident.
posted by Abiezer at 4:24 PM on June 21, 2009

Thanks PlusDistance - good spot considering I completely mangled the quote and threw the wrong country in there too.

Well, it's passed into Russian as a classic anekdot (joke):

«Что делает правительство, если оно недовольно народом? Распускает и выбирает новый!»
"What does the government do if it's dissatisfied with the people? Dissolve it and elect a new one!"
posted by languagehat at 5:22 PM on June 21, 2009

That's some poorly trained riot cops right there.
posted by awfurby at 6:55 PM on June 21, 2009

Mafiaisation of local level government in China is an excellent description of it BTW. THe mayor of Shenzhen got busted recently for massive corruption - turned out he was a mechanic how bribed his way from position to position, eventually running Shenzhen. Presumably the guy that replaces him will have done the same thing.
posted by awfurby at 6:58 PM on June 21, 2009

Seeing that phalanx break and run is exhilirating.
posted by stargell at 7:43 PM on June 21, 2009

I don't understand this: "Please help to spread the news of the riot in Shishou. Their lives are in danger, Chinese people need your help! #ShishouRiot #Shishou"

When the average Twitter user posts this, what could possible be done that Sally Jo in Mud Lick, Kentucky could do to help out? It seems like a lot of "Oh lookie what I support, so I change the colour of my avatar!" but not a lot is being done.

"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."
(L. Brandeis)

Spreading the word is doing something.
posted by zennie at 7:44 PM on June 21, 2009

Police produce somewhat dodgy suicide note; family offered compensation and we learn hotel was linked with supply of drugs.
posted by Abiezer at 7:05 AM on June 23, 2009

In other news: China carries on with censorship plan, as Google capitulates
posted by homunculus at 9:10 PM on June 24, 2009

The Shishou riots and the uncertain future of Control 2.0
posted by Abiezer at 11:56 PM on June 29, 2009

China's censorship blowback
posted by homunculus at 5:46 PM on June 30, 2009

Shishou official speaks out about riot "Breaking rank, Shishou official Liu Guolin discloses information regarding the Shishou riots, offering an insightful and critical analysis of the past week’s events."

First, I would like to point out that the cause of the events in Shishou was not simply public distrust of the officially reported cause of death, but that the unrest was precipitated by long established tensions in Shishou society. The tensions, in fact, are between local cadre and the police, and the general public, as well as broad social tension caused by economic inequality. Such tensions are what the media calls "hatred toward the rich, the officials and the police" that spread widely among the society.
...
While participating in the management of the incident I heard much criticism of the Shishou police. From the very start of their investigation into Tu Yuangao's death, the Shishou police have already lost public trust. This is why the majority of Shishou citizens did not accept the preliminary conclusion by the police, and there was general opposition to the removal of the body of the victim.

Such an emotionally confrontational atmosphere cannot entirely be chalked up to having a population "uninformed" about the events. In fact many individuals exercised their own independent judgment and were well informed about the death of Tu Yuangao. In simply blaming an uninformed public as the cause of the disturbances, the government has disadvantaged critical analysis of the events which could provide beneficial lessons for avoiding future conflict.
...
We the local government did what the higher level government asked us to do while assessing the effectiveness of these instructions. However, what was most detestable about this situation is that we did not have the decision-making power and often felt powerless to make the changes that we thought were necessary.
...
[S]uppressing the problem makes it more complex. The Shishou incident drew the attention of the central leadership, which expressed clear demands for control over the situation. Provincial Public Security Bureau and the People's Armed Police Headquarters therefore dispatched approximately ten thousand military police and employed high pressure water cannons. This degree of repression was not easily tolerated by an emotional population, and during the conflict which ensued, dozens of armed police were injured, a dozen military vehicles were smashed, already damaged civil-military relations were further exacerbated by the confrontation between the government and the people, and ultimately this increased the difficulty in controlling the situation and restoring order.
...

posted by Abiezer at 6:28 PM on July 1, 2009

Toll Rises to 156 in Ethnic Clashes in Western China: After days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, rioters took to the streets, stoning the police and setting vehicles on fire.
posted by homunculus at 4:32 PM on July 6, 2009