The guy who stood in front of a line of tanks

Right now, the first two hits for a google image search on "tiananmen" give you photos of this:
People seem to prefer to decontextualize this image. Dropping the context makes sense: you know immediately what the picture means anyway.

Nevertheless, the decontexutalization bothers me. My difficulty isn't just that no one knows who this guy was or what happened to him. I know that the anonymity contributes to the symbolisism and can live with that. The thing that bothers me is that you rarely even see the end of the video. Some people hustle this man away. First there is a guy on a bike, then a man in a blue shirt, and then a man in a black shirt with his hands in the air. Finally two guys in white shirts come out, but they don't even need to run all the way to Tank Man because the others are pushing him off.

As far as I can tell, no one has posted this video unedited to the web. You can watch it on Frontline, interspersed with commentary. There are plenty of versions of it on Youtube with the end missing, generally overdubbed with protest music. The video should just be put out there to speak for itself, though.

Tank man did not fight against the people who dragged him off. Why?

In a better world, Chang'an avenue would be blocked off for keeps, and they'd put up a statue of a man with a couple shopping bags standing in front of a column of tanks.

In the Frontline video, a professor at Pepperdine comments that Tank Man did not bring down the CCP, but he did help down the Soviet Union. Before the Berlin wall fell, activists in eastern Europe said, "if that kid in China stood in front of those tanks, we can do what we're doing."

Developers and nailhouse family reach agreement

A few days ago I blogged about the Chongqing nailhouse, a family restaurant holding out against top-down driven development in China. A few days later, my students informed me that the owners signed an agreement and the house was bulldozed. It looks like they signed because they got what they wanted: ground floor space to run their restaurant. The space is off in another neighborhood, not in the new building. The family is not talking to the media anymore, but apparently, we have the kind of outcome so many people in China prize: a face saving compromise for all.

Showdown for property rights at a Chongqing nailhouse

Wu Ping and Yang Wu own a restaurant, which is also their home, in Chongqing. A development company, Chongqing Zhengsheng Real Estate, backed by the government, wants to put an apartment and shopping complex on the same spot. Ms. Wu and her family refuse to move, even as the development firm excavate all the land around them. The building is now what the Chinese call a "nailhouse" (dingzihu, 钉子户), a house that sticks out in resistance to development.



(Picture from Virtual China)

The story, along with its dramatic photos has been running wild in the Chinese blogosphere, and has now broken into the English language mainstream press, with articles at CNN ,and Time,and Annanova.

The battle started in 2004. Reports about the negotiation are conflicting. CNN says the couple was offered 20 million yuan ($2.6 million) or two higher floors in the new building, but are holding out for space on the ground floor of the new building, where their restaurant will presumably get foot traffic. Time, on the other hand, says the couple are holding out for 2.5 million dollars. (Then again, Time also says that Chongqing is a part of Sichuan province.) Ananova says the householders are demanding 20 million yuan. The blog Peering into the Interior says they are holding out for space in the new building, and have only been offered a small sum of money. There is also disagreement about whether the woman taking a stand should be called Ms. Wu or Ms. Wuping.



The important thing about this case though, is that it is a high profile test of China's evolving property laws. The right to private property was written into the Chinese constitution in 2003, and in October of this year, a law allowing the sale and transfer of land is supposed to go into effect. The situation remains vague, however, because the constitution still asserts that the state owns all the land.


(Picture from Peering into the Interior)

In an effort to acquaint myself with the English-language Chinese blogosphere, I'm posting some links to this story as it appears in other blogs. I'll also update the China resource box on the right to include blogs.

Peering into the Interior has a translation of an interview with Ms.Wu along with video links.

Danwei has an overview of the internet conversation with links.

Virtual China has also been blogging this.