Turfing out Beijing residents.

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Spare a thought today for all those residents of Beijing who have been forced out of their homes (often the lanes around Tiananmen Square) so that the Olympic projects could be built. In particular, Beijing has lost many of its historic old houses, the hutongs. A hutong was an ancient city alley house, typical in Beijing. There were several thousand near the Forbidden City, many built during the Yuan (1206-1341), Ming(1368-1628) and Qing(1644-1908) dynasties. Most of these hutongs were found to the north and south of the Square.  The main buildings in a hutong were formed by four houses around a square courtyard, which varied in size and design depending on residents’ social status. This plan made for good neighbourly relations and strong solidarity similar, probably, to the community spirit of the sans-culottes in the crowded neighbourhoods of Paris before Haussman demolished them there!

Some people reckon that more than a million residents will have lost their homes. According to a report in Epoch Times on July 30, 2007, the people of Datun village, Beijing held a sit-in at the Beijing Huahui Real Estate for twelve days, urging the authorities to respect their property rights and compensations after they were forcibly evicted to make way for the Olympics. Yet in 12 days not one communist cadre came out to meet with them. On July 25 the local police held meetings with the protesters, trying to persuade them to give up and a message was posted on the appeal site: “Hanging banners is disturbing social order and whoever refuses to give up the appeal will be arrested.”  Mr. Li, who lives in the village, said, “They did not compensate (properly), and some of the compensation  (was) embezzled by the… developer; those regime officials definitely knew that, but nobody cares and without land, we don’t know what we can do.”  Mr. Li said that local residents had gone earlier to the central government to appeal, but they had all been arrested on the way. Mr Li’s words: “The communist regime stole the land from the villagers by cheating.”

According to the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (Housing By People in Asia – October 2003):  “350,000 people will be resettled to make way for stadium construction alone...  And Human Rights Watch reported on the collusion between official planners and developers who manipulate the patriotic excitement inherent to the Olympics in order to justify mass evictions and selfish landgrabs in the heart of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Beijing”  (Demolished:  Forced Evictions and Tenants Rights Movement in China - www.hrw.org/reports/2004/china).

Also, Anne-Marie Broudehoux in her 2004 book ‘The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing’ pointed out that for the 50th Anniversary Celebrations of the Chinese Revolution: “Hundreds of houses were demolished, thousands of people expelled….Beijing residents were ordered to stay home and follow the festivities on TV as they had during the Asian Games”.  Anyone who protested at the time was thrown into prison for unpatriotic behaviour.

In a report for Reuters in July 2008, a woman called Lu told the reporter: "We support the Olympics with all our hearts”.  Her house had been decked out with Chinese and Olympic flags. "But they are using the Olympics as an excuse to get rid of us," she added. "We have nowhere else to go. We'll have to sleep on the streets if our house is demolished," she said.

Human rights groups have frequently been concerned about the issue, and say Beijing is not living up to its promises that the Olympics will improve the country's rights record, nor that it will be the much-vaunted "People's Olympics".

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (in Geneva) reckons that 1.5million people have been moved to make way for the massive makeover Beijing has had for the Games. That is the same as the number of people who lost their homes to bombing in London during the Second World War! “This has come at a price”, the CHRE group says. (I say: that's putting it pretty mildly.  It's outrageous that China ignores its people and silently condones such corruption).

OK!  Worrying about the quality of community relations may seem like a western conceit!  But just expelling people in the name of the Olympics is brutal.  Of course, this is not the first time it has occurred.  By now, Chinese people are used to forced relocations, not getting their share of compensation because of corrupt local officials and being treated brutally when they protest.  So what else is new?