Faced With Forced Demolition, Chinese Villagers Respond With Homemade Artillery

Rather than be forced off his land by officially-backed real estate developers, a Chinese man built a mortar to fight back.
Faced With Forced Demolition, Chinese Villagers Respond With Homemade Artillery
Huang Sufang (C) reacts after attempting to protect her home as workers move in for demolition orders in Yangji village, Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong province on March 21, 2012. STR/AFP/Getty Images
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When encroaching developers came to demolish their property, villagers in the Chinese province of Shandong fought back with what online comments are calling a “mortar.”

A 70-second video posted on Sept. 11 to Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, shows  men firing dozens of projectiles at a team of construction workers and their excavators. Some workers can be seen taking cover as the burning-hot rounds whizz by.

Chinese land developers, who often enjoy connections to powerful political or business contacts, are notorious for forcibly expropriating the rural poor from their property while providing little compensation. In the rapid growth-driven Chinese economic landscape, whole communities can be razed to make way for new projects.

Details of the feud and of the makeshift firearms used in the Sept. 11 video are unclear, but it’s not the first time developers have encountered armed resistance.

Screenshot via Sina Weibo
Screenshot via Sina Weibo
Jenny Li
Jenny Li
Author
Jenny Li has contributed to The Epoch Times since 2010. She has reported on Chinese politics, economics, human rights issues, and U.S.-China relations. She has extensively interviewed Chinese scholars, economists, lawyers, and rights activists in China and overseas.
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