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Protest in east China subsides as gov't suspends taxes


HUZHOU, CHINA — Days of protests in an east China town over a tax dispute appeared to have subsided on Friday and media reported that officials had suspended tax collection that sent hundreds of rural migrants into the streets. On Friday morning, traffic in Zhili, a factory town in Zhejiang province about a two-hour drive from Shanghai, flowed smoothly and damaged cars and debris had been cleared. The streets appeared calm, although riot police patrolled the town and guided people away from the central square. Protests in China have become relatively common over corruption, pollution, wages, and illegal land grabs that local officials attempt to justify in the name of development. But the ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any threat to its hold on power following the unrest that has swept the Arab world and ahead of a leadership transition next year, when President Hu Jintao is expected to step down as party head. In recent months, protesting workers in southern China have highlighted the government's long held fears about the challenge of absorbing tides of rural migrants. In February, Hu singled out migrant workers as one of the challenges to the stability the party prizes as a key to one-party control and economic growth. Tax payments The unrest in Zhili erupted on Wednesday when a children's clothing store owner from rural Anhui province refused to make tax payments to local officials and then mustered other shop keepers to rally in support and attack the officials, state media reported. That dispute spilled on to the streets and drew more than a thousand people over two days of periodic protests. Some demonstrators hurled rocks, smashed traffic lights, billboards and overturned cars, local media reported, prompting public security to deploy armed police. On Thursday night, more than 1,000 demonstrators, many workers from neighboring Anhui province, crowded the town centre, shouting: "People of Anhui, unite!". Protesters complained about mistreatment of people from Anhui, a poorer region that sends out millions of migrant workers to richer parts of the country. "Currently, the Zhili township government has already suspended tax collection on clothing assembly workers and dismissed tax officials connected to the incident," the Qianjiang Evening News, a Zhejiang newspaper, reported online on Friday. During the protests, one public security officer and three city management personnel sustained light injuries, the report said, adding that five criminal suspects had been arrested and another 23 detained. A state think-tank has warned that China's tens of millions of workers pouring into cities from the countryside will become a serious threat to stability unless they are treated more fairly. China has about 153 million migrant workers living outside their hometowns, and more than 100 million rural Chinese people will settle in towns and cities in the next decade. Though many migrant workers have seen their wages rise in recent years, they are often still treated merely as cheap labor and lack social benefits and medical insurance in the urban centres where they hope to settle. — Reuters

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