本帖最后由 aokai 于 2011-9-23 23:57 编辑
【中文标题】大连 － 中国不同政见者的新聚集地
【原文标题】The New Epicenter of China's Discontent Dispatch from a city that wasn't supposed to be on the brink.
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】CHRISTINA LARSON
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/art ... _china_s_discontent
大连，中国东北部的港口城市。有金光闪闪的摩天大楼、海边豪华的游艇俱乐部、人民路上的卡蒂尔和阿玛尼精品店鳞次栉比，它似乎与中国近年来最大的示威爆发地扯不上关系。大连是世界经济论坛的主办城市，出席达沃斯的显赫人物纷纷露面；它是一个电子生产基地、一个度假圣地。从90年代中期开始，它就被认为是这个国家最干净、最宜居、最平和的城市。无数的游客到圣亚海洋世界来观看海豚表演，富裕的老年人在海边养老。总而言之，这不是一个处在危险边缘的城市。
但是在8月14日星期日，大连爆发了。大约12000人汇集到大连市政府对面人民广场的草地上，还有很多人聚集在周围几个街区。他们要求立即关闭并转移一个沿海的化工厂。当地官员和外国记者严阵以待——前者承诺马上转移工厂，后者出人意料地给予了一些称赞。在大连，这叫做“814事件”。
这件事为什么会发生？为什么在这个时间发生？为什么在大连发生？
对污染的愤怒在中国已经不是新闻。据中国南开大学的研究显示，去年中国有9万起“群体性事件”与环境问题有关。大部分是农民因种植的作物枯死和家人患病，而迁怒于当地的工厂。大连福佳化工厂事件与此不同，这家工厂在2009年开始运作，以前并未造成严重的公共健康危害。民众是在为未来担心。
8月初，一场台风掠过大连海岸，破坏了这家工厂的一个防护堤。人们心中浮现出一个不详的念头：如果今后一场台风对化学品存储罐造成破坏——它距海边不到100码——整个城市会不会被有毒水质淹没？工厂的主要产品是对位二甲苯（PX），它是生产聚酯纤维的原料，该物质有剧毒，能造成皮肤和眼睛刺激，大剂量接触还有可能造成神经系统损伤。大连的6百万人口生活在黄海之滨，一个三面环海的半岛上。用一位示威者的话来说，化工品灾难的梦魇是“生死攸关的问题”。
这家工厂的两大股东是市政府和私人企业福佳，投资15亿美元的兴建计划在2007年获得批准。尽管它是大连10大企业之一，媒体却从未给予更多的关注，或许是因为近期在厦门也发生了针对另外一个PX工厂的抗议事件。大连这家工厂每年贡献3.3亿美元的税收。
事件的过程具有典型的中国方式，公众的恐怖情绪逐渐高涨，由于政府未能及时披露工厂的相关信息，并且阻止中国媒体报道实质性危害，才发生了抗议事件。与此同时，日本福岛的核工厂泄露灾难更为公众心理蒙上了一层阴影。
8月初，当后来形成梅花台风的强劲风力还在太平洋上积聚力量时，中央电视台的一队摄制组前往大连，调查如果台风对工厂的化学品储存罐造成破坏的后果如何。但记者们被拒之门外，而且遭到殴打，据说是工厂老板命令工人施暴。这个事件的消息在网络上传播开。8月9日，一个有关采访过程的视频剪辑准备在CCTV收视率较高的新闻节目中播出。但就在开播前，CCTV的人员接到了一个指示，撤下该节目，他们照办了。
记者被殴打，加上CCTV节目被撤引发了大连人各种极端的猜想。博客和推特传播的速度让监察人员的动作远远跟不上：居民们被隐瞒了哪些事情？究竟是哪位高官在保护工厂？危险程度超过了人们的想象吗？
前党委书记夏德仁的任职期恰好与该项目的批准日期一致，由于腐败和对公众意愿的忽视，他普遍被大连人所鄙视。这与他的前任——富有魅力、受人爱戴的薄熙来——形成了鲜明对比，薄成功地把自己塑造成人民捍卫者的形象。是不是一些涉及到夏的丑闻让这家工厂能够落户大连？由于无法通过媒体和其它官方渠道了解到一些可信度较高的信息，互联网上充满了恐怖的设想：与受污染的海水接触后，8分钟就会死亡；大连下一代出生的婴儿都会严重畸形。
事后回顾来看，对于危险的担忧是有一些夸大的成分。一位并未参与阻止示威活动的东亚绿色组织成员说，实质上的潜在影响主要是对皮肤和眼睛的刺激，在某种程度上没有达到人们恐惧的地步。但毕竟是存在危险的，生活在这个安全、舒适的城市中的人们没有从正规、可信赖的渠道获得这些信息，于是他们走上街头。
在这种慌乱的背景下，一条消息在一个星期前通过社会媒体传播开来，最终让12000人走上街头。值得关注的是，响应这个号召的人都不知道是谁最初发布的消息。他们在不知道领导人是谁、他/她是否值得信任的情况下聚集在一起——一些人情绪激愤，一些人仅仅是怀着好奇心。他们在短短的时间里，在一个阳光灿烂的星期天早晨，走到一起来。
辛是一个20多岁的会计，既勇敢又时尚，她在上午10点过几分的时候来到人民广场。她的家距大连市中心有1个小时的车程。和她一起来的还有一个朋友，他们都从未参加过行走示威活动。她回忆道：“我一直在想，到底有多少人会出现？这些人真的会来吗？”
辛是在一个星期之前从同事那里听到有关抗议活动的事。所有人都知道即将发生的事情，公司里的财务总监甚至开玩笑地说，参加抗议活动的人可以享受三天假期。她说：“这表示有很多人支持这件事。”
辛到互联网上了解更多的消息，首先在中国最大的搜索引擎百度上输入“大连”和“8月14日”。截止到8月12日，很多搜索结果已经被屏蔽，还有一些指向无内容的链接。但她还是找到了一些非常有用的信息：计划是在8月14日上午10点，在人民广场集合。接下来她登录人人网——中国版本的Facebook——看到她的很多朋友发出了有关示威的信息，大家都在问：“你去吗？”她当时不知道（现在也不知道）究竟是谁组织的示威活动，但是所有人都知道活动的内容。这有点太神秘了。
当辛和她的朋友到达集合地的时候，人民广场上已经有成千上万的人——她从未见过这么多人聚集在一起——还有一些人陆续从周边街区赶来。一队防爆警察包围了广场，仅在一边观察，并未采取任何行动。辛和她的朋友挤过人群，进入广场中央，面对低矮、混凝土结构的市政府建筑物。一面红旗在楼顶飘扬，远处是新矗立起的摩天大楼。她一边等待，一边观察周围的人。有人举着标语：“PX滚出去！把大连还给我们！”有些人戴着防毒面具；还有一些人举着国旗在唱国歌，大部分都是年轻人。人群显得有组织、有秩序，甚至一些人在主动清理垃圾。她从这些人的口音识别出，几乎全都是大连居民。一些公司为员工制作了示威T恤衫，这些人在合影留念。
上午10点30分刚过，一个男人爬到警察的面包车顶。他穿着一件灰色宽松的针织衫和黑色长裤，这个人是大连市党委书记唐军。他手持一个扩音器，说PX工厂将会从大连搬出，他向公众承诺。然后，他挥了挥手，让大家离开广场回家。
但是没有人离开。人群中有人喊：“工厂什么时候搬走？”
唐瞪着人群，没有回答。
人群开始高呼：“10天！10天！”
然后又高喊：“停产！停产！”
唐没有继续讲话，他从车上爬下来，离开了广场。
辛在广场上多待了一会，很多人在用相机纪录现场的情况。她开始察觉到很多身穿制服的人进入了广场——不是普通警察，而是防爆警察，这些人身穿绿色制服，戴着头盔，手持盾牌。早些时候，她曾经和当地警察聊过几句，警察给她的感觉很友好。她想：“他们不过是在执行自己的任务。他们也是普通大连居民，我觉得他们会同情抗议者的。”但这些身着制服、手持盾牌、口音陌生的人不一样。这些人来自其它地方，像她所说：“武警都有一张扑克脸。”她听到人群在说，有很多军用卡车驻扎在城市郊外。她在11点30分左右离开了广场，但很多人都没有走。
下午，市长李万才面对公众，承诺会让工厂立即停产，并搬出大连。人们一片欢呼。他毕竟是市长，很多人感到比较满意——或者至少愿意等等看他的承诺是否会兑现——人群逐渐散去了。
到了晚上，天逐渐黑下来的时候，还有一小群人留在人民广场上。他们想要一些政府采取行动的证据，之后开始沿黄河路行进。武装保安的人数现在已经不处于劣势，因此一些人被追捕，据说还有一些人被殴打（幸运的是，没有人死亡）。很多人后来在网上贴出了他们遭遇的经历。当辛听到这件事的时候，起初并不相信，因为上午的时候人群和警察都表现得很平和。但她的一个好朋友告诉她自己就在当场目睹了这一切，她相信了。
第二天，当地报纸在头版报道，市长面对广大群众承诺PX工厂将会搬出大连。但是报道中既没有照片，也没有更多细节。辛叹道：“我对当地媒体感到无语。”
接下来的一个星期，另一份报纸的文章说正在制定工厂搬迁的计划。但是工厂迁址是一个相当复杂的问题，一个正在讨论中的方案是把工厂转移到附近黄海中的一个小岛上。这个岛属于大连市辖区，因此政府还可以享受其纳税。但是尽管这个计划可以让工厂远离人们的视线，人们依然不了解是否可以摆脱工厂所造成的危害。
辛说：“如果大连人民认为这是关乎生死的问题，我们无论如何会再次走上街头（抗议）。我生在这里，长在这里，我不想因此而死去。”
中国其它地方会发生类似的事情吗？大连事件的起因都具有本地化的因素，也比较单纯：台风、沿海的工厂、一个受喜爱的领导人变成一个令人厌恶的领导人所引发的愤怒情绪。一些人高举国旗高唱国歌，他们并不是对国家，而是对这座城市的发展方向不满。事件中没有发现任何与国家集团有关的组织者。
但是，其它一些因素在中国则极为普遍，最重要的是对环境问题的关注和网络组织工具。一本有关中国环境历史的作品《黑河》作者Elizabeth Economy说：“中国人越来越深刻地意识到污染对他们自身福祉的影响，他们试图在地方官员的发展和环境决策中，保护自己的利益免受潜在危险的侵害。”Economy期望中国在未来的5到10年中，有组织的环境保护运动逐渐兴起，当然还有大规模的抗议行动。她认为，这是最后的一招。
但是，更多的抗议行动，是会导致中国政府更加开放，更加响应民众的意志呢？还是会引来对人民和信息更加严厉的打击呢？北京和其它市政府在814事件中吸取了哪些教训？
示威行动的当天下午，大连市长和党委秘书向公众承诺搬迁工厂——然而据包括路透社在内的一些媒体报道，工厂的生产并未立即停止。与此同时，监察人员从中国的网站和社会媒体平台上，删除了有关的照片和其它信息。
国际评论人士迫不及待地庆祝人民权力的伸张，例如，英国每日电讯的大标题就是《中国新兴中产阶级的前进》。然而，关注中国混乱环境政策的本地观察人士和专家们，则普遍采取观望的姿态。
加利福尼亚大学博克利法律学院的中国环境问题专家亚历克斯王说：“只有经过一段时间才能判断大连事件是否是一场胜利。如果今后环境问题变得更加透明，有更好的机制来保护民众免受环境威胁，那么这就是一场胜利。”他又说：“如果当权者学到的经验是应当更加严格地控制信息，那么针对大连PX工厂的抗议动机就会继续高涨。”
阴天的时候，大连海滩上的景色似乎有些不详的征兆：蓝灰色的海岸线延伸到海中央，与天际交汇。交汇之处有几个黑色的阴影，那是一些遥远的岛屿，其中一个或许会是臭名昭著的PX工厂的所在地。谁将最终做出这个决定？如果有一些哪怕渺茫的希望，公众可以最终决定下一步的方案，上周的示威活动或许就更加值得庆祝了。但是目前在中国，事情似乎是在向相反的方向发展。
原文：
DALIAN, China — This northeastern port city, with its gleaming skyscrapers, seaside yacht club, and Cartier and Armani boutiques on People's Road, might seem about the least likely site for one of China's largest protests in years. Dalian is, after all, the host of regional World Economic Forum meetings, where Davos Man comes to China; a center of electronics manufacturing; and a popular holiday destination. Since the mid-1990s, it has been widely considered among the country's cleanest and most livable cities, a peaceful place where tourists come to watch dolphin shows at "Sun Asia Ocean World" and where wealthy older couples come to retire by the sea. This is, in other words, not obviously a city on the brink.
But on Sunday, Aug. 14, Dalian erupted. An estimated 12,000 people packed the manicured grass of People's Square opposite Dalian's city hall and lined many surrounding streets. They had come to demand that a chemical plant perched on the coast be shuttered and relocated, immediately. The local government and international media sat bolt upright -- the former issuing promises to move the factory; the latter, surprised praise. In Dalian, it's called the "8-14 event."
Why did this happen? Why now, and why Dalian?
Anger over pollution is not new in China. As many as 90,000 "mass incidents" in China were sparked by environmental concerns last year, according to researchers at China's Nankai University. Yet unlike many factories targeted by farmers who've watched crops fail or seen relatives fall ill, the Fujia-Dalian chemical plant, which began operations in 2009, was not linked to egregious past health hazards. Rather, the fear was for the future.
In early August, a typhoon had grazed the coast and breached one of the factory's protective dykes, raising an ominous question: If a future storm ruptured its chemical storage tanks -- situated less than 100 yards from the sea -- would the entire city be wiped out in a toxic flood? The plant's main product, paraxylene (PX), is used in the manufacture of polyester; it is a toxin that causes skin and eye irritation and in large doses can cause nerve damage. To residents of Dalian, a city of 6 million perched on a peninsula in the Yellow Sea and surrounded on three sides by ocean, the specter of chemical apocalypse seemed, as one protester told me, "a matter of life and death."
Plans for the $1.5 billion factory, jointly owned by the city and the private company Fujia, were approved in 2007. Although the factory is one of Dalian's 10 largest, little was said about it in the media at the time, perhaps because of recent protests against another planned PX plant in the southeastern city of Xiamen. The Dalian plant now generates an estimated $330 million annually in tax revenue.
In a familiar pattern in China, public fears had caught fire in the weeks preceding the protest as the government failed to disclose information about the factory and blocked subsequent efforts by Chinese media to report on the real risks. Meanwhile, recent news reports on Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster provided nightmare grist for the imagination.
In early August, when the heavy winds that would become Typhoon Muifa were just gathering force in the Pacific, a CCTV film crew flew to Dalian to investigate what would happen if the storm triggered a leak in the factory's chemical storage tanks. But the reporters were stopped at the gate and then beaten, reportedly by workers ordered to do so by factory bosses. News of the incident spread online. Then on Aug. 9, a trailer for a segment about the factory aired on a popular CCTV news program. But shortly before it was to be broadcast, someone at CCTV received a request to yank the segment, and did so.
Both the beating of the reporters and the missing CCTV program generated furious speculation in Dalian, with blogs and tweets going up faster than censors could contain them: What were residents not being told? What higher hand was protecting the factory from scrutiny? Was the danger so much worse than anyone imagined?
The former party boss whose tenure coincided with the project's approval, Xia Deren, was widely despised in Dalian as corrupt and inattentive to popular will -- in marked contrast with his predecessor, the charismatic and beloved Bo Xilai, who had effectively positioned himself as the people's champion. Did some scandal involving Xia explain why the factory had landed in Dalian? In the absence of credible facts coming through the media or other official channels, dire scenarios circulated online: Contact with contaminated seawater would kill you within eight minutes; a generation of Dalian children would be born with severe deformities.
In retrospect, the sense of existential peril was a bit exaggerated. A campaigner from Greenpeace East Asia, who was not involved in organizing the protest, noted the actual potential impacts, most likely skin or eye irritation, were somewhat less than those feared. Yet there was a real risk, and the people of this otherwise safe and comfortable city had no regular, trusted channel to press the issue. And so they marched.
In this feverish context a message that spread online through social media the preceding week drew 12,000 people onto the streets. Remarkably, the people who responded to the call didn't know who sent it. Without knowing the leader or whether he or she could be personally trusted, they came -- some stridently, some partly out of curiosity. They came on short notice. They came on a drizzly Sunday morning.
Cindy Xin, a plucky, fashionable accountant in her 20s, arrived at People's Square a few minutes after 10 a.m. She had taken the bus from her home, about an hour's ride from downtown Dalian, and came with her roommate. Neither had ever participated in a demonstration. "On my way, I kept thinking: I don't know how many people will actually come out," she recalls. "Will they come? Will they really come?"
Xin had first heard about the protest from colleagues at work the previous week. Everyone knew that something was about to happen; the firm's financial director had even joked that three days' more vacation leave would be given to those who went out to protest. "I think it shows how many people were supportive," she says.
To find out more, Xin had gone online, first entering "Dalian" and "August 14" into the popular Internet search engine Baidu. By Aug. 12, many of the search results had been blocked or pointed to dead links, yet she was still able to find the essential information: The plan was to meet at 10 a.m. in People's Square on Aug. 14. Next she logged onto Renren, China's version of Facebook, and saw that many of her friends had sent messages about the protest, asking: "Will you go?" She didn't know then (and still doesn't) who actually organized the protest, but everyone knew about it. It was no secret.
When Xin and her roommate arrived, People's Square was already full of people, thousands of people -- more than she had ever seen together in one place -- with even more packing the nearby streets. A line of riot police circled the square, watching. Xin and her roommate pushed through the crowd to the main square and turned to face the low, concrete government building with a red flag fluttering atop and lines of new skyscrapers visible behind. As they waited, she began to scan the others in the crowd. Some carried signs that read: "Get out PX! Give us back Dalian!" A few had gas masks. Others carried Chinese flags and sung the national anthem. Many, but not all, were young. The crowd was organized, orderly. Some even picked up litter. From the accents, she knew that almost everyone was a Dalian resident. Some companies had made T-shirts for their employees to wear to the protest, and they were posing for group photos.
Shortly after 10:30 a.m., a man climbed atop a police van. He wore a loose gray polo shirt and dark slacks. It was Tang Jun, the city's party boss. Speaking with a microphone in one hand, he said the PX factory would be moved out of Dalian. He made a promise. And then, with a wave of his hand, he told everyone to leave the square and go home.
But no one moved. Then someone shouted from the crowd: "When will it move?"
Tang stared into the crowd and did not answer.
"10 days! 10 days!" people in the crowd began to shout.
And then they shouted, "Stop the production! Stop the production!"
Tang said nothing. He climbed down from the van and left the square.
Xin stayed a while longer. Many people in the crowd were taking photos or videos with their cameras, recording the scene. She began to notice more men in uniform coming into the square -- not ordinary police, but riot police, with green uniforms, helmets, and shields. Earlier, she had chatted with some of the local police officers, who she says were mostly friendly to her. "They are just doing their jobs," she thought. "They are regular Dalian citizens, too, and I think they are sympathetic with the protesters." But not the officers with shields and unfamiliar accents. They had come from other parts of China -- as she put it, "The military policemen have the poker face." She heard people in the crowd talking about the lines of army-green trucks now snaking outside the city. At about 11:30, she left, but many stayed.
In the afternoon, Mayor Li Wancai also faced the crowd and made a promise that the factory would stop production immediately and move out of Dalian. People cheered. He was, after all, the mayor, and most felt satisfied -- or at least willing to wait and see whether it was true -- and went home.
That evening, after the light had faded from the sky, a smaller crowd was left in People's Square; they wanted some proof of action being taken and began to march down Yellow River Road. Now outnumbered by security forces, some were chased and reportedly beaten (fortunately, no one died). Many later posted their stories online. When Xin heard this, at first she didn't believe it; in the morning, after all, the crowd and even the police had been so peaceful. But when a good friend told her he had been there and seen it, she believed him.
The next morning, the local newspaper ran a headline that said the mayor had addressed a large crowd and that the PX factory would move. But there was no photo, and no more details. "We feel hopeless about our local media," Xin sighed.
Later that week, another newspaper article announced that plans to move the factory were under way, but that relocation was a complicated matter. One plan under discussion is to move the factory to one of the nearby small islands in the Yellow Sea. Because the city owns the island, the local government would still be able to collect taxes. But though such a move would put the plant out of sight, it's not clear it would also put people out of harm's way.
"If Dalian people think it's a matter of whether we live, no matter what we will go out" to protest, says Xin. "And I live in this city; I'm from here. I don't want to die."
Could it happen elsewhere in China? In Dalian, the trigger points were all distinctly local and in many ways quite singular: the typhoon, the factory by the sea, and upset at a political transition from a popular city leader to a deeply unpopular one. Some marchers carried flags and sang patriotic songs; they were not fuming about the direction of the country, but of the city. No organizers with ties to national groups have been identified.
But other factors are becoming more common elsewhere in China, most importantly awareness of environmental problems and online tools to organize. "With the growing transparency provided by the Internet," says Elizabeth Economy, author of an environmental history of China, The River Runs Black, "Chinese people are increasingly aware of the consequences of pollution on their well-being and are seeking to protect themselves and their interests from the potentially harmful impacts of the poor development and environmental choices of local officials." Economy expects organized environmental activism in China to grow over the next five to 10 years -- as well as mass protests, which, she points out, are a tactic of last resort.
But would more protests inevitably lead toward greater openness and more responsive government in China, or would they lead to harsher crackdowns, on people and information? What lesson will Beijing and other city governments take from Aug. 14?
On the afternoon of the protests, Dalian's mayor and party secretary made public promises to move the plant -- yet some media reports, including by Reuters, indicate the factory's operations did not immediately cease. Meanwhile, censors have scrubbed photos and other information about the protest from Chinese websites and social media platforms.
International commentators have been quick to celebrate the display of people power; take for instance, this headline from Britain's Telegraph newspaper: "The march of China's new middle class." Yet local observers and experts on China's tumultuous environmental politics are inclined to take a wait-and-see approach.
"Only time will tell if Dalian constitutes a victory," says Alex Wang, an expert on Chinese environmental issues at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Law. "If this incident leads to more and better environmental transparency and better systems for ensuring that the public is protected from environmental risks, then it will have been a victory." But he adds: "If the takeaway for the powers that be is that information needs to be more tightly controlled, then the pressures that led to the Dalian PX protests in the first place will only continue to grow."
On overcast days, the view from Dalian's rocky beaches is foreboding: The slate-colored shore fades into the gray of the sea, and then of the sky. But a few dark shadows interrupt the horizon, distant islands. One such island might be the future home of the infamous PX plant. Who will ultimately get to decide? It would be more satisfying to celebrate last week's protest if there were some glimmer of hope that the public will have a real say in what happens next. But currently in China, trends seem to be moving in the exact opposite direction. |
狗仔卡
楼主
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2011-8-25 13:44
