Thursday Video: China's "nail house" becomes a rallying point

Thursday Video: China's "nail house" becomes a rallying point

Home » blogs » Michael H. Cognato

Thu, 03/29/2007 - 1:57pm.

Every so often, a seemingly trivial individual battle dramatizes something bigger and becomes a focal point for debates about an entire society. That seems to be the case today in China, where the Chongqing "nail house," which Passport noted last week, continues to feed a media frenzy. A debate is raging in China's blogs and newspapers over every facet of the story: Is the holdout justified? Why was this homeowner able to stay, unlike the others? Property rights and economic development are usually thought to reinforce each other, but here they conflict. Where's the proper balance?

The episode also demonstrates the power of the media, even in a relatively controlled place like China. There are literally thousands of cases of property rights conflicts far worse than this everyday in China; two people were killed in different protests over land seizures in just the last week. The disputes mostly involve marginalized rural residents, though, and go completely unreported unless there's violence.