We will not be moved: one family against the developers

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Saturday March 24, 2007
The Guardian

Property-owning China has a new hero. Yang Wu, now better known as The Nail, has become the talk of the country for his refusal to abandon his home to property developers.

Despite an eviction order, offers of compensation and the chasm that has opened up around his home, the 51-year-old restaurateur is holding his ground in an increasingly high-profile challenge to the authorities.

Newspapers and websites have published spectacular images of the siege-like situation in Chongqing, where Mr Yang's home has been turned into an island, surrounded by a moat of mud and tractors.

The developers, who want to build a six-storey shopping mall, have reportedly offered compensation of 3.5m yuan (£233,000), a staggering sum in a country where the average income is about £1,000 a year. But Mr Yang and his family insist they are not concerned about money.

"I promise we will fight to the end," his wife, Wu Ping, told reporters outside the building site. "Even if we have to give up our lives, we will not move. This property is ours."

On Wednesday, Mr Yang placed a banner across the roof of his house declaring: "Citizens' legal property cannot be invaded."

According to local media reports, the former Kung Fu champion took a set of wooden clubs with him to fend off potential attackers, and shouted to the construction site guards: "If you dare to come up, I will beat you down."

The water and electricity have been cut off, but supporters give him food and drink, which he pulls up by rope.

Hold-outs, known as "nails" in China because they stick up despite attempts to beat them down, are becoming increasingly common in China.

Mr Yang's protest has been strengthened by its timing. Earlier this month, the National People's Congress, China's parliament, passed the country's first law to protect private property. Earlier this week, the government reported a surge in illegal land seizures by developers and local governments.

Mr Yang's case has sparked an online debate, which has been promoted even by the state-run China Daily. And the Nanfeng Metropolitan newspaper declared: "This couple are fighting for their own rights. But they are also fighting for the rights of all property owners in China and for the dignity of the property law that has just been passed."

The development companies, Chongqing Zhirun and Nanlong, said they were no longer in negotiations with Mr Yang.

"We haven't arranged negotiations with the hold-out. We talked to him before for a long time without achieving any agreement so now we are just waiting for the government to settle this issue," the manager, Wang Wei, told local reporters.***

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