The Tara Foundation

In Beijing, which is busily engaged in demolishing itself for the 2008 Olympics, after first pulling down the ancient city walls in matters are taking an increasingly serious turn for the residents, who have to move out of their ancestral homes, thanks to the Chinese version of the compulsory purchase order. According to residents in the Shilipu area of Beijing, the demolition of residential homes that started in March 2003 has caused two deaths. Despite the deaths, Shilipu’s district government recently posted another notice of demolition, and announced that another round of demolition of four houses was starting on July 19.

There were three different demolition companies contracted to demolish in the Shilipu area. A common characteristic of these companies is that they do not have any public phone numbers, all their staff never disclose their names and they do not offer standard compensation to residents whose homes were demolished. The demolition office compensates residents based on their connections and social status. Some residents not only received financial compensation, but also replacement homes. For residents who do not have good connections or social status, especially unemployed residents, the compensation is unilateral, 60,000 yuan (US$7,244) per man, 30,000 yuan (US$3,622) per child and no compensation for women. The compensation they are offering cannot even buy a bathroom in the city.

The compensation agreements were handwritten in paper and pencil. They repeatedly told unsatisfied residents; "We represent the government when we demolish, you can appeal to whoever you want to."

Residents appealed to the Chaoyang District Court, and the court decided that all residents must relocate. Residents who lost homes were offered leftover houses in the remote Tong County as "transition homes" where they could live in for up to three months, but they had to pay 400 yuan (US$48.30) a month for each room. Residents have to move out of the "transition homes" and find homes on their own by the end the third month.

When the demolition company was demolishing the home of a man surnamed Fan, local residents angrily questioned them as to why they were not leaving any way for residents live. Demolition worker surnamed Zhang said in public; "We would rather give the money to government officials, not you people."

Since March 2003, the Chaoyang District government started the demolition of the Shilipu area, where 1,080 households were relocated, with 30 homes left with no relocation plans. During the demolition process, there were two death cases, and currently, seven households have become homeless and are living on the floor of the demolition company’s office.

Residents told The Epoch Times in December 2003 that while under the guard of law enforcement officers, the demolition company ordered a demolition. The loud noise they made when crashing through the door, windows and furniture scared a woman in her sixties to death at the scene. Reports are unclear as to why the woman was still in the house. Neighbors sent the woman to the hospital and later the body was cremated.

At the same time, around the 2004 Chinese New Year, unemployed resident Mr. Wang Bin went to the demolition company’s office to request compensation for his demolished home. The demolition company sent him to the National Land Resources Bureau, where Wang was unable to get his problem addressed. Wang threatened that if no one helped him to resolve the issue, he would kill himself at the National Land Resources Bureau. He then drank phosphate insecticide and started to spit foam from his mouth. He was sent to Chaoyang Hospital, but it was too late. Wang passed away.

According to the laws amended by the State Council, “The leaders and persons over the departments and areas that have seriously harmed people’s livelihood and brought them misfortune during the process of relocation, should be investigated.”

According to residents, people from the demolition company even threatened those residents who have not moved; “You should move immediately, otherwise, you’re going to die in a more miserable way than the [other] two.”

Resident Xu Rongzhen said, “We don’t have the right to speak up. They are too forceful. I don’t even want to live. If I had a gun, I would shoot them and then kill myself.”

With more and more forced demolition, particularly in Beijing and Shanghai, many people have had to become beggars on the street. Many of them headed to the State Council to protest. However, they encountered numerous policemen who stopped them on the way.

Xu Rongzhen, 41, said, “I have been laid off for seven years, and my husband has been out a job for five years. We’re depending on the retirement pension from our father. We’re living in poverty. If we were offered a shelter, we would support the arrangement by the government and move immediately, no matter how much money the government offered. But, now they haven’t given us a penny, nor have they given us a place to stay.”

Zeng Xiaojuan, 36, has been out of a job for two years, and her husband is also now unemployed. She said, “We have been living here for years and this is our parents’ house. The relocation office wouldn’t give us a penny, and forced us to move.”

Now there are seven more homeless families. In a police state there is little opportunity for protest. It is evident that one of the objectives in demolishing the Hutongs of Beijing is population clearance. The residents are forced to leave their own city, the result being a smaller and more disciplined populace living in Le Corbusiers’ ‘vision’ of centralised highways surrounded by high towers. As one of the world’s oldest civilisations sweeps away its own living history, in an act of monumental cultural annilihation, one which only the virtual destruction of Iraq’s national heritage, (100 Sumerian cities have been destroyed since 2003), can surpass. One of the architects involved in this project of western cultural imperialism is the son of Albert Speer, a close associate of Adolf Hitler, author of the plan to construct a new imperial capital to replace “old” Berlin, which would be demolished after the hoped-for conquest of Russia. A world-wide revival of Fascism has begun. One of the primary weapons of Fascism is to destroy histroy. The human race is now approaching the end of history, the final wave of this worldwide cultural revolution, a war against the notion of living history itself. Once that process has been completed, the project of global cultural hegemony will be achieved.

From: Zhao Zifa , The Epoch Times
Translated from the Chinese edition
Aug 14, 2004