A rant about the cost of maintaining social stability, the problems
of small-town leadership and relations between the media and government
by the party chief of Shanwei, the east Guangdong city that oversees
Lufeng and its restive village of Wukan, has sparked heated online
discussion. Zheng Yanxiong made the inflammatory remarks in a speech
delivered on Sunday in response to the Wukan protests, accusing
villagers of "colluding with foreign media to cause trouble".
"Sows
will be able to climb trees if the foreign media is trustworthy,"
Zheng told the villagers. "You count on a few awful foreign media,
newspapers and websites rather than turning to such a responsible
government. You use them to fight with your own fellows! They would be
so happy to see our communist country troubled with turbulence."
Some internet users mocked him by posting a photo of a pig climbing a tree, with a piglet on her back.
Others
said such blunt comments offered an insight into the mindset of local
officials. "No one has ever been so honest," one internet user said on
Sina weibo, a microblog site.
Zheng was reacting to the
stand-off between villagers and police over the weekend following the
death of a village representative in custody a week earlier. He was
among villagers held over protests against a government land grab that
first sparked clashes with police in September.
"If you wouldn't
cause trouble, we wouldn't have to arrest people. Don't you think it
costs money to hire armed police?" Zheng said.
He said the cost of mobilising hundreds of police had eaten into the funds available to Lufeng mayor Qiu Jinxiong.
Villagers
said they were only demanding fair compensation for the seizure of
more than 400 hectares of farmland by government since 1998.
Zheng
said running a local administration was not easy. "A bunch of people
must work harder year by year," he said. "Who? It's party cadres,
including me."
He said that his predecessors did not have to oversee everything.
"Our power is less day by day," he said. "But our responsibility is heavier.
"It's more difficult to control the ordinary people because they are getting smarter, with more demands."
Internet users said they could see a true picture of mainland officialdom through Zheng's remarks.
"The
truth he sticks to is much more revealing than talk about 'harmony',"
said one internet user. "He is a lot more interesting than other
officials. We should thank him for revealing the dilemma: maintaining
stability like this has pushed local finances and ... officials beyond
their limits."
priscilla.jiao@scmp.com
