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But promises from Beijing alone won't stem the discontent. Today, China is one of the only countries that puts the responsibility for health care, social security and education in local governments' hands, but the focus on generating foreign investment rather than supplying basic services has left much of rural China, where 70% of the population lives, in a dire condition. Millions live on the edge of destitution, without access to sustainable jobs or medical care. Although Beijing regularly pumps out well-meaning initiatives, most are unfunded mandates that are ignored by local officials. "We talk to the central government, and it's clear they want to reverse these huge inequalities," says the University of Washington's Wong, who also works for the World Bank as a consultant on China. "But fixing the problem is like pushing a piece of string through five levels of government. I think many people in Beijing have come to the conclusion that they don't know how to fix this problem."
To get a sense of why social conditions in the countryside have given rise to popular unrest, it is instructive to look closely at Panlong, where farmland is losing ground to foreign-invested factories that employ migrants instead of local peasants. Three years ago, the village didn't exist. Instead there were two villages, one named Peace, the other Patriotism. But in 2003 leaders from Peace and Patriotism decided to merge their farmland and rent it to a Hong Kong company that wanted a large plot for a textile factory. The new village was renamed Panlong, or Coiled Dragon--a moniker more suitable for a rural hamlet with economic ambitions.
But Panlong disappointed its residents. Villagers say they were not consulted on the land deal, and many resented their farmland being taken away. Even worse, they were told by village leaders that compensation per mu--a local measurement equivalent to 1/15 of a hectare--would amount to about $100 a year, even though the factory was paying $3,300 per mu. Where the rest of the money was going wasn't clear, although villagers claim that soon after the land contract was signed, several village committee members started building homes or bought new cars. (A Panlong village committee spokesman declined to discuss details of the alleged buying spree, telling TIME, "I don't know anything about this situation.") Says a Panlong resident: "We all live in the same place, and we can see what they are doing," adding that his friends were hired to construct a new house for one of the local officials. "They can't keep secrets from us."
There isn't much farmers can do with such knowledge. China's legal framework leaves farmers without a proper channel to protest land grabs or local corruption. The country's judges are hired and fired by local authorities, complicating efforts to instill judicial independence. "A lot of local officials do outrageous things, and the people they govern can't do very much about it," says Zhang Qianfan, a law professor at Peking University. "The courts are not working. They're often allied with the government and refuse to take cases."