Thousands of farmers in southwest China rioted at a government office after authorities imposed heavy fines on families that had more children than allowed under the country's family planning policy, a newspaper and a villager said Monday.
Sometimes I don't know whether yet another peasant uprising is significant or mere noise in an ongoing part of a reasonably stable China used to such disorder. But the incident is more than just the one-child policy:
Ming Pao said all public servants had been ordered to collect $65 from people who violated the family planning policy. If violators failed to pay within three days, their homes would be demolished and their belongings seized.
The protest is the latest in a growing number of violent incidents across China in recent years as ordinary Chinese vent anger over official corruption, a growing rich-poor gap and land confiscations.
Over $65 the state will destroy your home and seize your belongings?
Cruel and corrupt, as I noted. That's today's China amidst their so-called miracle.
There may be two Americas according to some (and not North and South America) where there are coatless waifs shivering in the streets, but there could be a lot more than two Chinas some day.
For want of a child, the kingdom might fall.
