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Peasants might not be so upset if cash from confiscated fields were used to build new schools or clean water projects. Instead, they complain, the money is often diverted by local officials. And few corruption investigations lead to sentencing, not least because officials tend to protect their own. Farmers who once trusted the central government's ability to fix problems find their faith in the system dimming and their anger rising. "They had been told that reform was coming, so they were patient," says Philip Brown, an economist who studies rural China and teaches at Colby College. "But now they see that the reforms don't go far enough, and they think, This is what we've been waiting for?" The official Chinese media, which has tried to educate farmers on their basic rights, only heightens that disenchantment. "The media can't report on the bad things that happen to you, and so it overreports on the good things," says Mary Gallagher, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. "And that causes unrealistic expectations."
The question is whether Beijing can assuage rural discontent before it hardens into a wider, more flammable agrarian revolt. The central government has experimented with programs that channel money more directly to the people meant to receive it--one project involves wiring teachers' salaries to post-office accounts instead of leaving pay at the discretion of local officials. But the authorities' main tactic for stopping the spread of rural protests remains preventing word about them from getting out. Panlong residents say that since the Jan. 14 protest, their uncensored satellite feed from Hong Kong has been cut, so they have little idea how the outside world views their story. Journalists who try to get close to the village have been detained.
But China may not be able to stifle the voices of protest much longer. About 30 miles from Panlong, in the village of Lishan, a farmer named Liang Beidai is one of the growing number who are ready to fight back. Three Lishan residents were injured last month after protests of land seizures turned bloody, with a high school student allegedly shot in the head. "We are prepared to die for [our rights]," says protest leader Liang. "The entire village is doomed anyway. We have no money, no job, no land. There's nothing left to be scared of." If angry farmers truly lose their sense of fear, it may ultimately be Beijing that is running scared.