Dispute leads to confrontation in China

Up to 1,000 people clashed with security personnel in China's southern Guangdong Province in the latest of several protests around the country, officials said. The weekend incident in Xintang near the provincial capital of Guangzhou led to the detention of 25 suspects, China Daily reported Monday. The clashes stemmed from a dispute among street vendors, it said. The report said some of more than 100 people gathered at the scene began throwing bottles, bricks and stones at police officers investigating the dispute after reports that one of the vendors had been killed by police. At one point, the crowd had swelled to more than 1,000. The Xintang clashes came in the wake of days of protests in Lichuan in Hubei Province, where the streets were being patrolled by some 1,000 riot police, The New York Times reported. The protests were over the death of a local legislator who had been in police custody. In other recent protests, the death of a Mongolian farmer hit by a vehicle in Inner Mongolia led to clashes last week between Mongolians and Chinese security personnel. Security has remained tight in the region, where ethnic Mongolians feel the growing Han Chinese migration attracted by mining activities is leading to the erosion of their culture and livelihood. The Times report said Chinese figures show there were 127,000 protest incidents last year, many of them quite small to gain attention. The Wall Street Journal said the incidents point to rising public anger at official corruption and abuse of power and come as the Chinese government continues a crackdown on dissent.