Protests in China over local Grievances Surge

• Author: Barbara Demick

In a country with zero tolerance for public displays of disaffection, the 77-year-old retired doctor went very public with her anger over the demolition of her property in a booming Shanghai neighborhood: She stripped naked on the steps of a courthouse.

People, many of them middle-class homeowners, have been taking to the streets across the country in the last few months to air their grievances.

Unlike 1989, today's demonstrations lack an overarching political theme. Protesters for the most part are not demanding radical changes in the status quo of one-party rule.

These demonstrators have a narrow agenda and concrete demands.

The protests have been localized, with virtually no coordination between them, one reason the government has been relatively tolerant. But for Beijing, there is a danger that people will be inspired by example, because the issues are the same throughout China, and that the "micro-protests" will coalesce into something bigger.

The number of reported "mass incidents" rose from 8,700 in 1993 to more than 90,000 in 2006. A professor at Tsinghua University, Sun Liping believes the figure last year was up to 180,000.

Many of the new protesters are homeowners or middle-class professionals. Doctors at Tongren Hospital in Beijing staged a one-hour strike in mid-September to demand better security.

At a demonstration in the northeastern...