In just the past few days, the city of Shifang in Sichuan Province has become the scene for the latest example of what seems to be a new phenomenon in China: the successful grassroots protest. As citizens demonstrated against local authorities' plans to build a highly-polluting copper-alloy plant, with sometimes violent clashes with police, their story and video footage went viral on the Chinese-language internet.
Officials have now announced that plans for the industrial facility are to be scrapped, a victory for the citizen protestors. Meanwhile some observers, including in Chinese Communist Party-run media, have speculated that local officials made lucrative and illegal deals to profit off of the construction plans, without conducting a legally required environmental review.
If so, such profits are likely now running dry; the firm behind the stalled plant, Sichuan Hongda Co., has cited the debacle as certain to damage its earnings for the quarter. While Hongda did not specify the scope of losses, it has previously claimed that the plant would generate $217 million per year in profits. The firm's shares have dropped by roughly 13% in just the past two days.
