We came across a fascinating news item last evening. It was one of those “crawlers” at the bottom of the screen as a news program was running, so we cannot cite the source, but even so it’s worth passing on.
Remember Wukan? Of course you do. We wrote about it. Click here. Wukan is the village in China that rebelled in reaction to the local government officials selling off its land to raise money. It was a confrontation that resulted in at least one death and the imprisonment of protesters. But in the end they prevailed. The government backed down. Now we learn that as a result of it all the people of Wukan will be allowed to hold elections to choose their local government.
There are two morals to this story. First, as Justice Potter Stewart put it, liberty and property are interrelated and neither could have meaning without the other, and second, that it was the concern about their property rights that inspired the Wukan residents to assert themselves and obtain a small measure of liberty and democracy, not the other way around.
We wish them luck.
Follow up. To get the news dispatch describing these events, see Wukan Villagers in China Elect Protest Leaders to Replace Ousted Officials, Bloomberg.com, March 3, 2012 — click here. For a more detailed analysis of this event see Michael Wines, Protest’s Success May Not Change China, N.Y. Times, March 3, 2012 – click here.
In addition to reporting the news in greater detail, the N.Y. Times article also suggests that these events in Wukan may only be a one-off event staged by China’s communist regime as a public relations ploy.