As the Chinese Communist party wrapped up an annual conclave and its leaders vowed to strengthen “the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics”, the size of the challenge it faces could be seen thousands of miles away in a village in the southwest of the country.
In Fuyou last week, peasant farmers and construction workers – two groups who supposedly form the bedrock of the Communist party – fought each other in pitched battles after the farmers kidnapped and killed six of the workers by setting them on fire. Two farmers died after riot police and gangs of hired thugs joined in the fight.
The villagers were incensed by the seizure of their land and their lack of recourse through China’s courts and judicial processes. When workers arrived with bulldozers, the farmers took the law into their own hands.