No Justice, No Peace.(tax collection)(Brief Article)

You'd think an authoritarian state would have no problem collecting taxes. But for three years the remote Chinese village of Yuntang refused to pay. Fed up with arbitrary taxes and alleging embezzlement by local officials, the 1,400 villagers erected a barrier across the only road. Last April authorities finally cracked down. More than 600 People's Armed Police entered Yuntang, and when villagers resisted, the police opened fire on the unarmed farmers, killing two and wounding 20.

These are bad times for tax collectors in the Middle Kingdom. Beijing is trying to recentralize power to pull in revenue--partly because regional authorities have been extracting fees willy-nilly from the rural population, calling them "taxes." But peasant incomes have been dropping due to ...