Local governments initiate reform of taxi operations for personal gain (II)

28 July 2006

[Broadcast on 6 April 2006]

In recent years, various levels of local governments have used all manner of so called "taxi operations management reform" measures as a way to make money. The most commonly seen method is to forbid the continued use of cars which haven't yet reached the end of their useful life, forcing their sale at far below market value.  At the same time, governments insist that drivers must buy the cars they stipulate, and these cars are always very expensive.  The government just thinks about its revenues, and doesn't care about taxi drivers' livelihood.   Officials often receive bribes from bidding groups to influence the administration of a tender, and sometimes the officials themselves or their friends and relatives directly put in a bid in an attempt to profit.  Such activities carry with them a social consequence, in that after many taxi drivers lose their licenses to operate their car, they have effectively lost their living and don't have any money. 

In the program a few evenings ago, one driver who has already lost the right to operate his car, citizen Chen Shu Zhi of Yanji city in Jilin province, introduced us to about how 2,000 drivers in Yanji lost the rights to operate their cars and took the matter to the city authorities. In what follows, please continue to listen to my conversation with Chen Shuzhi.

Chen: The final situation was that we went to Beijing to raise the matter at a higher level; we have a prefectural governor called Li Jinxiu.

Han Dongfang: He's the [prefectural] governor of Yanji?

Chen: Right. On that occasion, he accompanied Yanji city's mayor to Beijing to receive us.  That time in Beijing we caused a commotion because there were 130 of us, and there was also a contingent from Yanji City Tianhe Commercial City, so altogether there were 150 that went.

Han: Of course, before you went to Beijing you had already been all round Yanji city trying various options,  sending delegates and so on; there'd been about one year's experience of this?

Chen: Yes, more than one year

Han: In this period of more than one year, how many times did you send your representatives to raise the matter?

Chen: I'll just say, a lot; we went to the provincial, city, prefecture governments.  We went a lot.

Han; Each time there were several hundred people?

Chen: Each time it was something like that.

Han; Did it ever get ugly, was anyone ever arrested?

Chen: Yes there were arrests.  At the beginning there were none, but later whenever they noticed people going to the city government for an audience, or sitting in the yard outside the city government building, the police would come in a big bus, minibuses, or police cars, carrying big sticks.  They would stand by the front gate of the government building and surround us, make us break up.

Han; Was this every time you went to Yanji city government to get an audience?

Chen: Yes.

Han: You didn't send a representative in to discuss?

Chen: You could say that I was the representative.  A few of us went in, and the remaining non-delegates stayed outside the city government building, waiting for us to come out. The most important objective was to listen to see if the government had anything new to offer, but after listening for ages the government didn't have any response.  They just asked the representatives, asked us what to do, they didn't give any answers.  So we all of us prepared to drive our taxis to the provincial government to raise the matter there.

Han: Each time was the same process more or less?

Chen: They all went about the same way.

Han: When the police decided to take action to break things up, what was the precise situation that prompted them to do this?

Chen: It's simply the more people there were, the more likely they were to break it up. They let the representatives go in, then when the representatives were in there negotiating, they surrounded the people and broke them up.

Han: When the representatives went in, they broke up the crowd of people waiting outside?

Chen: Yes.

Han: Each time it was this way?

Chen: Each time more or less the same thing.  They arrested people on 24 September 2002, and the handful of representatives were arrested and locked up as well. There were five representatives, and everyone waited for them at the side of the main gate of the Public Security Bureau.

Han; You say that they arrested these representatives on 24 September?

Chen: Yep.

Han: From where did they get them?

Han: They called them at their homes, asking them to come and discuss a few things, then they were only released after midnight. Moving on to 26 September, the TV station issued a small report, saying that the prefecture chief had made an order to ban the TV station broadcasting any more news about the taxi operation license issue. But despite that they continued to make broadcasts. Our representatives went to find the station chief, and said that it wasn't right for them to broadcast in this way, because the prefecture chief had already made an order not to let them broadcast.

Han: How were they covering the issue?

Chen: Their broadcasts had really made people angry.  They were particularly going on about the issue of operating rights and the aspect of us appealing to higher authority.

Han: What did they say?

Chen: They said we shouldn't go to the government just to make a fuss; they said we were just going to make a fuss, not to legitimately raise the issue.

Han: They twisted it to say that you were going to make a fuss.

Chen: Yes.

Han: This is Yanji TV station?

Chen: The Yanji Transport TV station.  At that time the representatives went to find the station chief, and argued that they shouldn't make broadcasts about this business. The prefectural governor had said that they were not allowed to do so, because we were in the process of resolving this issue. The station chief said: "I still don't know why the two parties are making such a fuss about this issue." Everyone went into the big foyer and had it out with the TV station manager.

Han: In the foyer of the TV station?

Chen: That's right, but things were under control.

Han: No outbreaks of fighting or anything?

Chen: No, none.  Then 110 police officers turned up together with them.

Han: Together with whom?

Chen: Together with the representatives, but the police who were with them on that day were wearing civilian clothes. The Yanji Transport TV station took one look and thought that they were ordinary folk, didn't take them as police.  They didn't know them, and so they telephoned 110 and just said that ordinary people had come and surrounded the station.  110 listened, and at once sent some people to arrest them.  But the plain clothes police all knew each other, and so they got out their work IDs and then arrested the representatives. They were taken at 3pm, and it wasn't until at least 6pm that everyone else got news that the representatives had been arrested by the police again and taken inside.  At that time everyone had to wait some more, once again opposite the police station.

Han: Just opposite the police station?

Chen: Right, opposite the police station is a big road; they were on the one side of the road.  The police saw that there was a large number of people, but they were not blocking up the traffic.  This is something I will vouch for; we didn't block up any traffic.

Han: You were just on the pavement?

Chen: Right; at that time that area belonged to the taxi divers.  We were all waiting for the representatives to come out.  We didn't know what was happening that the representatives had been taken in again, but following the example of the previous occasion, everyone waited. However, we heard no news after we'd waited until midnight. Then the police used their plain-clothes contingent to surround the people.

Han: By that time how many people were waiting?

Chen: 100 people or more.

Han: How many police came?

Chen: At least 500 police. A number of them were plain-clothes; they surrounded people. Afterwards the leaders came out and ordered them to start making arrests.

Han: How many uniformed police came out?                                                                                                                                                                   

Chen: There were more than 500 uniformed police, and more than 100 plain-clothes. At that time when the people were arrested, they were contained; the police hadn't seen any need to arrest these people. They thought, for one they were not blocking up the traffic, and secondly it was reasonable and fair for everyone to wait there. They thought in that way. The police then started to urge us to leave, saying we shouldn't stay there, we had no right to stand there waiting for people. We argued with them. There was a woman inside a taxi, a teacher, she was actually sleeping inside the taxi. At the time when the police were persuading everyone to go, and everyone was refusing to go, he (the policeman) opened that car, and dragged that woman out. The woman had been asleep, she didn't know what was happening. She said: "Who are you, grabbing me?" He said: "We are the police."  The female driver said: "Police or not, you still can't grab me." They then came to blows, and when the female still refused to go, the police ripped off her upper clothing, and beat her into unconsciousness. When this woman was in Yanbian hospital getting treatment, some photos were taken, and she had an enormous swelling.

Han: Where did they hit her?

Chen: On the head.

Han: What did they hit her with?

Chen: They had sticks in their hands

Han: The uniformed police were all carrying sticks?

Chen: They were all carrying something, and had protection. To put it one way, if you come and entreat me to leave somewhere, I need a good reason. We didn't go, we wanted to wait for our representatives, and we only left when we were arrested and taken to the police station. Obviously, if you drag me to the police station, I definitely will refuse to go; why should I go there?  I will run away. Seventy or eight people were all at the police station and were told: "Who among you went to Beijing to complain? - stand there; those who didn't go to Beijing to complain - stand over there. Those who went to Beijing had to stay there." The next day at lunch time they were all taken into custody.  Altogether they arrested more than 30 people.

Han: How long were they detained?

Chen: 15 days. I was arrested and detained too, I was released on the 12th, on the 13th I went to the police station to discover their case against me, and then on the 14th I had to go to hospital for serious treatment. I've basically got high blood pressure, heart disease; I was in the hospital getting critical treatment and taking oxygen.  I didn't dare to ask my mother to come; I was afraid the shock would kill her.

Han: This all happened after you petitioned to Beijing?

Chen: Right.

Next Saturday at the same time, please continue to listen to my conversation with Chen Shuzhi.

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