Large Protests Erupt in Wuhan Against CCP’s Battery Factory Project in Residential Neighborhood

The halt of the plan is a contingent measure of the regime to deal with public outrage, and the building of the factory may resurface later, an analyst said.

An employee in the workshop of a lithium battery manufacturing company in Huaibei, eastern China's Anhui province on Nov. 14, 2020. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Nearly a thousand residents in Wuhan, China, joined a protest to oppose the local authorities’ plan to build a large battery factory in a residential neighborhood. After a multi-day standoff between residents and authorities, the project has been temporarily suspended.

On the evening of March 15, about 1,000 residents assembled in the Jiangxia District of Wuhan in Hubei Province, following similar protests on March 8 and March 11. At the scene, the head of the Jiangxia District Complaints and Proposals Administration announced to the crowd that the previously issued public notice regarding the plan of building the battery factory had been nullified. Although officials did not explicitly state whether the project had been permanently canceled, the public notice withdrawal signifies that the procedures for advancing the project have been effectively halted.

What sparked the protests was the “Chuneng New Energy” power battery project of the Chinese communist regime’s Wuhan municipal government. With a total investment of approximately 22 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) and a planned annual production capacity of 80 GWh, the project is regarded by local authorities as a key investment initiative within the new energy sector.

The controversy stems from a planning amendment notice issued on Feb. 13 by local authorities changing the land that had originally been designated for educational, medical, and ecological residential use in Jiangxia District to Class II industrial land for building the large-scale power battery plant.

The planned battery factory is located just tens of meters from several residential complexes—including Poly Shiguang Yinxiang, Vanke Liantou Lixiang Xingguang, and Minmetals Wanjing Shuian—that include thousands of households.

The plan and the authorities’ forceful alteration of land-use from its original intent angered thousands of residents from the surrounding complexes who had started a protest campaign in early March.

Li, a resident who gave only her last name out of safety concerns, told The Epoch Times, “We are not opposed to the new energy industry; we simply feel that such a massive factory is situated too close to a residential area.”

Another resident, Wang, who also gave only his surname out of safety concerns, told The Epoch Times that many families are troubled that their future environment and residential safety could be compromised by the battery factory, particularly by pollution. He said that the authorities held no public hearings and did not engage in open dialogue before the planning adjustments—they “suddenly announced that a factory was to be built.”

Multi-Day Standoff

A video posted on the China collective protest incidents Archive website—YesterdayProtests.com—shows the scene at the protests on March 8 and March 11.

There were more than a hundred protesters on March 8. On March 11, the number increased to nearly a thousand residents who encircled a black official sedan carrying a deputy mayor, chanting “Release them! Release them!” They were demanding the release of residents who had been detained by the police during the protest.

Wuhan resident Gao Xiaohong, who used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that the Jiangxia residents began protesting in early March.

“Starting with just a few dozen people, the demonstrations grew to involve over a thousand participants by March 11,” she said. “On the evening of March 11, clashes between residents and police escalated as people demanded the release of those who had been detained. That day, residents from several residential complexes—including Poly Shiguang Yinxiang, Vanke Liantou Lixiang Xingguang, and Minmetals Wanjing Shuian—all came out to protest. I estimated there were nearly a thousand people.”

The video shows numerous police vehicles parked along both sides of the roads and a large number of police officers and SWAT personnel standing guard nearby and carrying out a clearing operation. During the clearing process, police took away several residents who were participating in the protest. These arrests swiftly heightened tensions among the protesters at the scene.

Angry residents subsequently surrounded an official vehicle at the scene. Inside sat a deputy mayor who had arrived to address the situation. The residents repeatedly banged on the car windows and chanted slogans, demanding the release of those who had been arrested and insisting that the government “serve the people.” Some demanded that the official step out of the car to explain, while others shouted, “If you can’t do the job, step down.”

Under the sustained pressure of the crowd encircling his car, the deputy mayor eventually got out to briefly engage with the protesters; however, he neither released the detained individuals nor announced cancellation of the project. Subsequently, as police reinforcements arrived, the crowd gradually dispersed, although the tension at the scene remained palpable.

Li recounted the incident: “At the time, all we wanted was for the government to step forward and clarify the situation. Since the plan had changed so abruptly, they should have provided an explanation to the residents.”

Political Achievement Over Public Well-being

Xue Yang, who was using a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, is an independent scholar at Tsinghua University. He told The Epoch Times that this conflict is the inevitable result of the Chinese Communist Party’s local governments’ pursuit of “vanity projects” while disregarding the public’s well-being.

Xue said that the authorities’ forceful advancement of such a large-scale, highly polluting project into residential areas—disregarding the environmental risks—amounts, in essence, to “sacrificing the people for the officials’ own ends.”

“Within the opaque ‘black box’ politics of the [Chinese Communist Party], the authorities’ withdrawal of the public notice is by no means a sudden awakening of conscience; rather, it is a ‘stopgap measure’—a reaction to the perceived threat that public resistance might destabilize the regime’s rule. Such decisions are merely ‘delaying tactics’ designed to buy time, aiming to quell public outrage and prevent the situation from escalating through temporary concessions.”

Xue said that as long as the authorities’ “GDP-first” mentality and unchecked authoritarian power persist, projects could resurface at any moment under a different guise, meaning the public’s concerns have not been truly resolved.

Wang Xin contributed to this report.