Hundreds protest China chemical plant

BEIJING: Hundreds of people protested against a proposed chemical plant in southwest China yesterday, state media said, while local residents accused authorities of preventing a similar protest in another city.
More than 200 protesters gathered in the city of Kunming to protest plans for a factory which will produce paraxylene (PX), a toxic petrochemical used to make fabrics, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
Around 1,000 people described as “onlookers” surrounded the protesters, some of whom wore face-masks and held banners, the report said, adding that police “dissuaded” a protester from displaying a banner.
Police also lined the streets of Chengdu, the capital of southwest China’s Sichuan province, after locals planned a protest against a nearby chemical plant yesterday, residents contacted online.
“There were a lot of police outside government offices, public spaces and important crossroads in the city,” one resident surnamed Liu said, adding that fliers posted around the city in recent days had called for a protest.
“The fliers said the chemical plant has a big impact on people’s health,” he said, not wanting to give a full name for fear of official reprisals. The government responded with notices calling on people not to demonstrate, Liu said.
Photos posted online showed ranks of police lining the city’s streets. Local police on Saturday morning announced that they would be carrying out an earthquake protection drill, a claim dismissed by thousands of Internet users.
“Its about preventing the protest,” one user of the popular social networking website Sina Weibo wrote in response to the police notice. “This is the most blatant in the history of Chengdu,” added another.
Locals online said that the protest did not take place.
Chengdu was shaken last month by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake, which struck Lushan country, about 160 km away, killing around 200 people.
Schools and universities in the city were requested to hold extra classes yesterday, in an apparent attempt to keep people from protesting, several online reports said.
China has seen a number of urban demonstrations against proposed chemical plants in recent years, in what analysts have identified as a rising trend of environmentally-motivated “not in my backyard” protests in China.
Local authorities in the coastal city of Xiamen canceled plans for a PX plant after thousands took part in a protest in 2007. A huge protest in the northeastern city of Dalian in 2011 prompted authorities to announce a similar climbdown.
The eastern city of Ningbo last year announced the withdrawal of plans for a PX plant after a protest involving about 200 people, while a violent protest in the southwestern city of Shifang prompted officials to shelve proposals for a metals factory.
China sees thousands of large and small protests every year, according to official statistics. Many are ended by local police, who are nervous of social unrest, sometimes with the use of force.
Searches for “Chengdu PX” were blocked on Sina Weibo on Saturday, while posts about the Kunming protest were deleted by online censors.