You say you want a revolution...

It reads a little like a Chinese version of Germinale.

Last week, dozens of Dongjiang residents took to the streets to protest a government resettlement plan. They trashed public buildings in the tiny village in Gansu--one of the country's poorest provinces--and more than 70 people were injured in the ensuing melee. Thirty protesters were arrested.

No biggie, on the surface. But it's a telling sign of how Chinese people are changing the way they interact with their government and shape public policy. Increasingly, people who have for hundreds of years been acculturated to obey authority and respect societal hierarchies--and who for the past 60 years have been taught that any opposition to the Party line would earn them a one-way ticket to prison, if they were lucky--are getting together and making trouble when they're upset.

The Ministry of Public Security reported 87,000 "mass incidents" in 2005, up 6.6 per cent from 2004 and 50 per cent from 2003. And despite their disruption of the government's desire for societal harmony, these incidents seem to be working.

Last year thousands of residents in Xiamen, a southern city in Fujian province, protested the construction of a chemical plant near their homes. After several public demonstrations organized online and through text-messages, the government agreed to relocate the plant.

In Shanghai, middle-class residents have been vocal in their opposition to the local Maglev--a high-speed commuter monorail--being expanded through their neighbourhoods. Although the city still plans to use the Maglev to connect Shanghai's Pudong Airport on the eastern edge of the city with Hongqiao Airport to the far west, it appears they'll have to try to find a compromise with the people over whose houses it's supposed to run.

Last week's protest was much more violent: According to official reports, protesters attacked police with iron rods, chains, axes and hoes; they threw stones, bricks and flower pots--everything, in other words, but the proverbial kitchen sink. Was this increased hostility and violence due to these residents' anger and desperation? Did they lack more sophisticated modes of protest, such as financial clout or Internet access? I don't know. Perhaps their fear of government repression of active opposition was overridden by their desire to vent.

Either way, it'll be interesting to see how the Chinese government responds to these increasingly vocal protests as more of them occur. One notable change is the way the government controls information surrounding these events. I read about this on Xinhua, the day the protest occurred. That's crazy: Whereas previously the strategy was to prevent as much information dissemination as possible--as late as 2005, news sources weren't even allowed to report the death toll from natural disasters--now Beijing is not only permitting (albeit often limited) reportage, it's doing its own news-breaking. The International Herald Tribune has an interesting piece on this. The main reasoning behind the increased press freedom seems to be pragmatic: It's easier to control the message when there is a clear message, as opposed to a sea of rumours surrounding a clammed-up government and state media source. This was evident following the Sichuan earthquake last spring, when the government allowed state and foreign media sources unprecedented access. Of course, that changed when people started reporting the deplorable state of schools that crumbled to the ground while neighbouring buildings survived.

So, okay: What was once a micromanaging, paranoid and close-lipped administration is now a micromanaging, paranoid and (mostly) forthcoming administration. But I would take the latter over the former, any day.

Is this a step towards a freer press and the right to protest, or even a quasi-legitimate public say in government machinations? No idea--我不知道。But the "100 Flowers Campaign" it ain't. And I bet Emile Zola would be pumped.