Voice of the People; Protests in China are spreading like wildfire, and local officials have no idea how to put out the flames.

Byline: Sarah Schafer

Two years ago Ma Yinxia and her husband, Zhang Yuanli, withdrew their savings and borrowed from friends to buy a shabby red taxicab in the western Chinese city of Yinchuan. The couple, laid-off factory workers, struggled to make ends meet, with Ma working the night shift and her husband chasing fares during the day. So when local authorities announced last month that cabbies would have to pay thousands more to keep their licenses, Ma and Zhang were furious--and they weren't alone. On July 30, more than 4,000 taxi drivers in Yinchuan went on strike and staged a series of protests at government buildings. Mobs of cabdrivers enforced the strike by smashing the cars of the few hacks who tried to pick up passengers.

Three days later the mayor and a provincial party official did something that once would have been unthinkable in China: they caved in. Not only did they tell a crowd of drivers that the city was suspending the new rule, but they praised the cabbies as valuable members of the community. Ma says she'll take to the streets again if the city tries to raise the fees. "If the new regulations were enacted, it would make my life so hard," she says. "The whole family relies on this taxi."

Demonstrations and strikes are on the rise across China, and have become a daily feature of life under a communist regime historically known for crushing dissent. The number of protests increased from 8,700 to 32,000 between 1993 and 1999, according to official police figures. And they continue to grow in number. Last year there were 58,500 "mass group incidents," up nearly 15 percent from 2002. Experts say that not only are the protests growing in size and sophistication, but there are signs that the party is becoming more confused about how to handle them, especially as they spread to areas that haven't seen unrest in decades. Police officers are rarely trained in how to manage demonstrators and one botched operation where protesters are hurt--or worse--could easily inflame the masses. Beijing recently issued directives to local authorities, but they were confusing at best. The orders discouraged local officials from using violence, but then maintained that police officers should not be afraid to crack down hard and won't be punished if they do. The upshot is that neither Beijing, the police or protesters know what to expect when unrest erupts.

In some ways public demonstrations have begun to resemble business transactions. In other countries, protesters may rally for political causes, but in China they almost always focus on specific grievances--an excessive tax, unpaid wages or the demolition of homes without fair compensation, for example. Because people in China have little faith in the country's legal system, many see protests as the only way to seek relief. And increasingly the government is meeting at least some of their demands. Rather than full-scale suppression, the authorities try to target protest leaders for arrest or payoffs. The goal is to defuse a demonstration quickly.

The strategy has worked so far, but there is a danger. "That's effective for putting down one protest, but it creates a tremendous incentive for other ...