Petitioning the Emperor.(growing numbers of activists protesting in China)

Not long ago Hua Huiqi lived quietly with his family in a Beijing courtyard house, minding his own business. That changed when authorities forcibly evicted him and his elderly parents in September 2002 to make way for a new development. Almost overnight, Hua became an activist. Now he makes the rounds of government offices and other gathering places every day, meeting with irate groups of Chinese protesters from all over the country who've converged on Beijing--as one puts it--to "petition the emperor." (Hua tells the out-of-towners to phone him if they need help, then hands over a card that reads YOUR BUSINESS IS OUR BUSINESS.) "We're trying to coordinate with people from all of China's provinces," says Hua, as a friend fields mobile-phone calls from various demonstrations around the city. "Already protests are developing the way they did in the spring of 1989."

That may be an exaggeration: it's hard to imagine the motley assemblage of provincial protesters in Beijing--between 500 and 600 on any given day-- mushrooming into something like the nationwide student-led democracy movement that briefly galvanized Chinese society. But what Hua and others like him have begun to do--linking the aggrieved with one another, publicizing their causes, unifying urban unemployed and rural landless and middle-class Chinese fed up with corruption-- certainly has officials worried. For the first time since 1989, protesters from different cities are starting to liaise with and assist each other. Joint demonstrations are rare, but their anger gives them common cause. And they're angrier than ever. Just last week up to 200 jobless Liaoning province steelworkers had to be forcibly removed from Tiananmen Square, says Hua, even as about 100 Shanghainese chanted, "Down with corrupt officials!" outside a nearby government office. If authorities don't handle these petitioners carefully, "we could see a similar--or even worse--incident than the crackdown of 1989," says one Chinese scholar who has been following events.

Tensions are beginning to come to a head. An upcoming Communist Party plenum, scheduled for mid-October, is drawing increasing numbers of protesters eager to air their grievances in front of the nation's top leadership. As usual, authorities are scrambling to persuade, threaten, even bribe them to go back home. But that only underscores how dangerous the problem has become: many of the new breed of activists have no homes to go back to, having been forcibly evicted by greedy real-estate developers and crooked local officials as part of China's ongoing development boom. The fact that bread-and-butter issues are at stake makes their demonstrations particularly volatile. "People are willing to sacrifice their lives because they're homeless already," says one Chinese editor.

Just last week 45-year-old Anhui province farmer Zhu Zhengliang tried to commit suicide in Tiananmen Square. Distraught after the illegal January 2002 demolition of his recently constructed $12,000 house, Zhu traveled to Beijing with his wife to launch a protest. Zhu went to the square Sept. 15, doused himself with gasoline and lit a match. He was hospitalized in Beijing. "Ever since the demolition my father said several times that he didn't want to live anymore," says the couple's 20-year-old son, Zhu Renjie. "After our home was destroyed, he was so angry that he knocked his head against a wall. Then we stayed up all night, crying."

Zhou Zhanshun knows they are not the only family shedding bitter tears. Zhou, head of the Letters and Visits Bureau, the subcabinet-level office responsible for handling complaints, petitions and demonstrations, admits that civic protests are on the rise. Last year for the first time, urban protesters accounted for about two thirds of the total, whereas rural residents used to be the majority. Zhou says that angry citizens are increasingly organized across regions and industries, and that 39 percent of the protests nationwide last year were repeat demonstrations. "They don't go to the Letters and Visits offices, but instead organize around Zhongnanhai [China's leadership compound] and Tiananmen Square," says a frustrated Zhou. "They conduct sit-ins, pester officials, kneel in supplication and block the cars of central-government leaders."

So far their numbers have not reached those of the massive sit-down protest in April 1999 that ...