In an effort to stand up to local Communist Party officials, a group of young activists have harnessed the Internet and initiated innovative, peaceful protests in the small village of Wukan in southern China. These activists are gambling they can succeed, where so many village protests have failed, by waging a media savvy campaign that attempts to play the central Communist Party off against the local officials.
According to a recent account of the movement’s growth, based on interviews with participants by the Hong Kong weekly magazine iSun Affairs, a group of young residents created an Internet group on the QQ interactive chatting service, named The Wukan Young Enthusiasts, and began talking online about the expropriation of land in their village that has been going on since 1993. They planned to settle land disputes, remove officials who had been in charge of the village Party committee for 40 years, and elect their own representatives.
