The 2011 Haimen protest of December 2011 occurred in the Chinese town of

Haimen Haimen (, Qihai dialect: , Shanghai: ) is a district of Nantong, Jiangsu province, with a population of approximately 1 million. It is located at the opposite side of the Yangtze River to Shanghai and is directly north of Chongming Island except f ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

. The protests, which drew thousands of participants, were met with detentions and tear gassing by authorities.Michael Wines
Police Fire Tear Gas at Protesters in Chinese City
''The New York Times'', 23 December 2011. Protests were ignited over plans to expand a coal-fired power plant in the town—a plan that residents opposed, arguing that existing coal-fired plants had caused environmental and health damage. Demonstrations began on Tuesday, 20 December when thousands of residents barricaded a freeway and surrounded government offices in an attempt to block the project. According to AFP, the riot police fired tear gas into the crowd and beat protesters with riot sticks. Late on 20 December, the state-run

Xinhua News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...

said that five residents had been detained on vandalism charged, and published a declaration from the Shantou city council announcing that the "Shantou deputy and municipality already decided to stop the project. Unconfirmed reports of two deaths circulated online following the first day of protests, though authorities denied these reports.Reuters
Chinese official denies reports of deaths at Haimen protest
21 December 2011. Tensions cooled by 23 December, after

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

officials declared that the plant expansion plans would be temporarily suspended, and authorities agreed to release detained protesters.Agence France Presse
South China town unrest cools after dialogue
23 December 2011. Although the protests in Haimen were unrelated to demonstrations in nearby

Wukan Wukan () is a coastal fishing village in (), in the county-level city of Lufeng, Guangdong. It has a population of approximately 13,000 residents, and is located approximately east of Hong Kong near the South China Sea coast.Ewing, Kent"Guangdo ...

, Haimen residents told Reuters that they had followed developments in Wukan closely, regarding it as a good model of how citizens might negotiate with authorities.

References

{{Portal bar, China, Society 2011 in China Society of China Riots and civil disorder in China

Shantou December 2011 events in China

See also

References