Dalian City authorities recently retracted their promise to relocate an unsafe chemical plant that has been the cause of a huge protest several months ago. Dalian residents are upset about the decision and plan to stage another protest.
According to a Dec. 28 report in the Economic Observer, the Dalian City government revoked their previous decision of moving the Fujia Group’s Dahua Petrochemical plant, and instead approved production of p-xylene to resume.
The report quotes an insider who said Dalian officials have not found a new location for the plant and would have to pay enormous compensation for this private company to relocate.
Several Dalian residents told The Epoch Times that so far there has not been any official statements regarding the decision, but if authorities indeed decided to retract their promise, Dalian citizens would take to the streets again.
A citizen who attended the protest last August told The Epoch Times: “The common trick used by the government to handle mass protests is to throw them some kind of promise during the heat of the moment to appease them. After that, it will drag things out for however long it takes to leave the problem unsettled, or retract its promise. This incident exposes the Chinese Communist regime’s hoodlum nature. They simply have no sense of shame.”
On Aug. 8, 2011, over ten thousand people fled from Dalian, fearing a deadly toxic p-xylene leak in the wake of Typhoon Muifa breaching the plant’s breakwater.
More than ten thousand Dalian residents protested in the streets on Aug. 14, demanding that the seashore plant be moved out of the area. It was the largest protest in northern China since the June 4, 1989 student protests. Dalian authorities ordered Dahua Petrochemical to halt p-xylene production the same day and said the plant would be relocated.
Read the original Chinese article.
