Migrants evicted in freezing Beijing
Mass action spurred by fire in apartment house that killed 19.
In his nationwide address to usher in the start of 2017, China’s President Xi Jinping said he was “seriously concerned” about people living in hardship in his country those who struggle to find jobs, housing, health care and education for their children. Xi pledged to “ceaselessly solve those problems remains an unshirkable responsibility for the party and the government.”
But as the year draws to a close, tens of thousands of migrant workers are being tossed out of their homes in the freezing cold and biting winds of the Beijing winter, with little or no notice. It is a mass eviction sparked by a fire in a crammed and unsafe apartment building on Nov. 18 that killed 19 people, but is part of a broader plan to modernize, beautify and gentrify the Chinese capital as a showcase for the Communist Party.
To many Beijing residents, it’s seen as callous and cruel. It also has touched off a rare outpouring of sympathy from the middle class toward the poorer sections of society who form the backbone of China’s economy but suffer the blunt end of Communist rule.
Hundreds of volunteers have gathered to help migrant workers with offers of temporary accommodation or assistance in moving their belongings. Others have brought soup or food to the evicted people, or donated warm clothes. Many more have taken to the Internet to declare their anger, sharing videos and photos of migrants thrown out of their homes. And more than 100 scholars, lawyers and artists signed an open letter protesting the evictions.
Even Chinese state-controlled media struggled to justify the evictions, admitting they were carried out too hastily and local authorities sometimes behaved in a “simplistic and brutal” manner.
But the response of the authorities has been typically defensive. Social media posts have been deleted, and a link allowing people to volunteer their services was taken down. Police closed a drop-in center to provide temporary accommodation to the evictees. In Communist-ruled China, and especially under Xi, civil society is suspect, and any attempt to protect the poor against abuse by the state is seen as dangerously subversive.
Wang Minglei, a 43-yearold housing decorator who has lived and worked in Beijing for nearly 15 years, said he felt betrayed after being given just 10 days notice to leave his home.
“When they needed people to work and build the city, they welcome us,” he said. “Now the construction’s almost done, and they want us out.”
Just a few hundred meters away, Su Kezhu, 38, packed his belongings into boxes and bags, while his wife Yang Juan cooked a final meal in the kitchen of their tiny room in a row of one-story houses.
Su came to Beijing to work as a warehouse keeper seven years ago, the couple leaving their only child behind in Shandong province with their parents to look after. But now he feels he has no choice but to admit defeat and go home because he can’t find anywhere affordable to live.