China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 272

have permitted a second child, but this did not have the official sanction of
Beijing. Couples having a second baby have to pay a fine, but some places
the cost is not high, so they are willing to pay. Because parents have tested
the sex of their fetuses in the uterus with ultrasound or chromosome tests
in order to ensure a boy, that practice has been made illegal. Ethnic minor-
ities, who comprise 8% of the population, are not supposed to be subject
to the limits on the numbers of children. But in fact, the government often
demands that they use IUDs and abortions. In answer to foreign criticism,
the government has soft-pedaled its programs, denying that quotas are
rigid or that women are forced to abort or be sterilized. Few critics accept
these protestations. The Tenth Five-Year Plan, which was forced to revise
the population projection upward to 1.33 billion as of 2005, reiterated the
one-child policy. Popular discontent surfaced. In 2007, 3000 people rioted
in Guangxi Province. Then in 2010, Shanghai announced it would tolerate
a second child in some cases. Everyone waited for the Beijing government
to crack down, but this did not happen. Observers speculated that the top
leaders were becoming worried about the graying of the population. There
would not be enough young workers to support the old retired people.
Recent Trends: Popular demonstrations against environmental acci-
dents have occurred rarely. In Chengdu in 2008, 200 people marched to
protest a petrochemical plant. The police did not intervene. In Haining in
2011, a 4-day protest of 500 against a solar panel factory was not so peace-
ful, when riot police fired tear gas and clubbed the people. Protesters had
invaded the factory and overturned vehicles. The toxic effluents poisoned
fish, and the factory had been ordered to clean up months before, but
had not done so. A few months later in Haimen in Guangdong prov-
ince people demonstrated against construction of a coal-fired electric
generating plant that was one more case of polluting the air and water
and seizing land illegally. Echoing scenes from the Cultural Revolution
two arrested protesters were put on television to confess. One prisoner
said, “It was wrong to surround the government and block the highway.”
The other said, “I did not know the law.” 15 Other times the environmental
demonstrations have succeeded. In 2011 in Dalian tens of thousands of
citizens rallied against a paraxylene plant, and the city government prom-
ised to halt operation. Four years earlier demonstrations against a similar
paraxylene plant in Fujian province had also halted operation. 16
Analysts use the term “mass incident” as a neutral description for the
phenomenon. Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has