An old gang war makes the front page

Chinese Business View
April 24 2008

Today’s Chinese Business View ran a very short article reporting a gunshot incident in Lufeng.

Here is a translation of the entire thing:

Armed gang members blocked a Hong Kong-invested Hotel in Lufeng, Guangdong Province.

On April 21, a post about a group of people armed with various weapons in front of a hotel in Lufeng city appeared on major Internet forums. The post contained 13 photos. The incident was confirmed by local people. At 3:30 of April 22, there was a gunshot at the same hotel.

This short snippet made the front page, at bottom-center.

The photos in the online post were originally taken on January 12, 2008, and were only recently put up on the Internet. Given the shocking nature of the photos, (which, according to a comment, can “be easily mistaken as for ‘Lhasa riot’ images), they spread fast and furious before supervisors took notice and deleted them. Currently, they can still be found here.

South Metropolis Daily‘s 23 April issue had a more detailed article on the same event. But the article seems suspiciously vague and lopsided, not unusual for Chinese journalism.

• According the article, the gang’s weapons included AK-47 assault rifles, but none of the pictures available on the Internet show this.
• All three of the interviews are with the side of the victims: the hotel boss, a hotel employee, and the individual who posted the images. No third party views are cited, not even the police who investigated the case.
• The article says that a few hundred gang members blocked off the road and bulldozed a under-construction government building. Police investigated but made no arrests.
• The article made no mention whatsoever of possible ringleaders. It seems the gang came from out of nowhere, made a scene for a few minutes, and then disappeared to wherever they came from.

Online sources provide additional information missing from the above newspaper articles, but like most internet information, it is hard to determine which story is true.

South Metropolis Daily
April 23

According to an online source, a Hong Kong businessman named Liu Shu invested in the hotel involved in the incident. He had been at odds with a local businessman, Xu Yuchang, who was the owner of the biggest privately-owned bookstore in Guangdong Province, and was a member of the Guangdong People’s Political Consultative Committee.

Xue sent the gang to the hotel, but Liu didn’t give in. So on 21 April, Xue’s men dug up the graves of Liu’s ancestors.

But another online report said there was no gang at all, and the crowd in the photo were local people who had taken up arms to defend themselves against Liu, who was the real thug. Liu had intimidated local people into giving up their land at low prices and had occupied public land illegally. The online post also said that Liu was not a Hong Kong businessman at all, but just a Lufeng local who made his fortune through running an illegal casino.

Who is the bad guy? Liu? Xue? Neither Or both? Decide for yourself: the mainstream media doesn’t seem like it has the answer.