New Year protests worry Beijing
By Willly Wo-Lap Lam, CNN Senior China Analyst
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A migrant worker has a word with a policeman on duty at a Beijing train station.
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Hong Kong, China (CNN) -- Beijing authorities are pulling out the stops to prevent politically embarrassing mishaps in the run-up to Chinese New Year, usually a time to invoke celestial blessings for peace and prosperity.
Last Friday, a migrant worker who said he was owed 60,000 yuan in unpaid wages tried to burn himself to death in a building not far from the railway station.
He was rescued by police but 30 percent of his skin was incinerated.
Also last week, two elderly workers without pension staged a protest just a stone's throw from the Zhongnanhai Communist Party headquarters in the heart of the capital.
There have also been demonstrations from groups of workers who have been cheated of salaries as well as urban residents forcibly evicted from their domiciles by unscrupulous but powerful real-estate developers.
Last year, the economy grew by at least 8.5 percent, and salary levels and prices of produce have gone up by as much as 10 percent in some sectors.
However, the grievances of the so-called disadvantaged classes have continued to rise, leading to a rash of demonstrations in the capital around National Day last October and in the past fortnight.
Political sources in Beijing said the new leadership under President Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao had ordered up to ten party and government departments to maintain social stability not just in the New Year period but in the run-up to the National People's Congress due in early March.
The sources said massive outbreaks of protests by workers and peasants would undermine the Hu-Wen team's effort to consolidate power in the party, government and army.
The state media has reported progress in Beijing's bid to address the potentially explosive issue of migrant workers -- who total up to 95 million nationwide -- being owed salaries by greedy and irresponsible employers.
The Xinhua news agency reported over the weekend that in the past two months, a team under Wen's supervision had chased back owed paychecks amounting to 21.5 billion yuan.
Moreover, 89 percent of unpaid wages incurred in 2003 have been settled.
In spite of the Hu administration's apparent success in alleviating certain categories of grievances, it is taking no chances.
The presence of police and the para-military People's Armed Police has been stepped up in the capital.
And the party's Publicity Department has boosted control particularly over Internet chat rooms.
In an announcement Monday, the National Press and Publications Administration said it would apply more stringent criteria in approving and Internet publishing.
