Environmental protesters in the city of Ningbo, scene of violent weekend demonstrations, went back to work yesterday after the local government made a carefully calculated concession designed to defuse unrest over plans to expand a petrochemical complex.
The Ningbo government took a leaf from the same book as other Chinese cities when faced with protesters whose demands are environmental rather than broadly political: it announced a halt to plans to build a paraxylene facility at a petrochemical plant owned by a subsidiary of Sinopec, China’s biggest oil refiner, in the Zhenhai seaside area near Ningbo.
That concession largely emptied the streets of demonstrators in the eastern city, leaving only small groups of curious onlookers outside the Ningbo government offices, where a large police presence prevented crowds from forming.