Tiger's Claw

TEN

SHANGHAI, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

AUTUMN 2015

The afternoon protest was just getting under way. For the past several weeks, idle dock workers at the Wangma Jiazhai piers in northeastern Shanghai would gather, organizers would whip them up by giving speeches with a bullhorn, then the angry crowd would march down Wuzhou Avenue to the Government Administration Building a few kilometers away to protest the continued high food prices, layoffs, inflation, and perceived government indifference to the precipitous economic collapse that was gripping China. Their numbers started out modest, just a few hundred, but now the protesters numbered in the thousands, large enough to block the Shanghai Ring Expressway during rush-hour traffic, which made everyone angrier still. The signs and banners that the protesters brought at first were still there but in much greater size and numbers, and more and more protesters were bringing tools, chains, and other implements from the docks.

The protests started two months earlier, following the news reports of the Chinese use of a nuclear depth charge in the South China Sea. At first every country involved denied it, but soon independent tests confirmed low levels of plutonium contamination in the sea. Even so, the public outcry was not as loud as might be expected: China said it reacted because of a perceived submarine attack on its carrier battle group, which Taiwan did not deny; the contamination levels were not very high and still dropping; minimal damage had been done to the seabed and nearby coral formations; and China had pledged to compensate all involved for the deaths and damage done.

However, the matter was far from over. Unseen by the public was the astronomic climb in insurance rates for cargo ships transiting the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Yellow Sea—any body of water in which a Chinese warship was patrolling or within range of a Chinese air base. It was simply too risky for most private companies to insure a vessel traveling anywhere near mainland China, and the companies that did write insurance policies charged hefty premiums. As a result the cost of everything, from clothing to electronics, nearly doubled overnight. Unsold goods started to pile up in warehouses and on piers. The Chinese government tried to subsidize workers’ salaries, but soon the layoffs began, and in a few months hundreds of millions throughout the entire country were unemployed. There was double-digit inflation, and not on a yearly basis, but a monthly one.

It was immediately apparent that this protest march by unemployed dockworkers was different. In all other marches the city police were on hand to protect stores and commuters, and there was rarely any violence, but this time the protesters noticed that the closer to the Government Administration Building they got, the more they saw soldiers and armored vehicles in the streets. By the time they were within two blocks of the administration building, the avenue was completely blocked by soldiers armed with automatic weapons. In the center of the avenue was a truck with a large rectangular panel atop it mounted on a pedestal that resembled a blank white billboard.

Over the protesters’ chants a voice over a loudspeaker said, “Attention, all protesters, attention, this is Major Li Dezhu, commander of the 117th People’s Armed Police Force from the Zhimalou barracks. You are hereby ordered by the Shanghai Municipality Office of Safety, the mayor of Shanghai, and the Ministry of Security to disperse and go home immediately. You can be assured that your grievances against the government have been heard and will be addressed by your government leaders. There is nothing that can be accomplished by your presence here, and these protests are disrupting the movement of your fellow citizens. Go home to your families immediately.”

“We are not leaving!” a protester with a bullhorn shouted back. “The monthly unemployment money we receive will not pay for even two weeks’ worth of food! Our landlords are threatening to turn us out into the street if we do not pay the rent!”

“No one will be rendered homeless during this financial emergency,” Li said. “The National People’s Congress is voting to appropriate more unemployment funds. All that can be done is being done! There is nothing you can do here at this time, and you are disrupting traffic! Now go home!”

“You tell us the same every day!” another protester shouted. “But no one in Beijing listens to us! Let us in to talk with the mayor and city council!”

“You have been warned!” the major said. “Disperse immediately and go home! The use of special crowd control systems has been authorized! Disperse immediately!”

“We are not leaving until the mayor speaks to us!” a protester shouted. “If he will not come out to talk with us, we will go in!” The mob started to surge forward.

Li brought a portable radio to his lips, keyed the microphone button, and spoke, “Level green, jihuó.”

At that moment the first one hundred protesters at the head of the mob stopped and began patting their arms and face, as if their skin was being pelted with windblown hot sand. The ones farther back in the crowd still marched forward, colliding with the stopped ones in the front, and then the ones moving forward had the same strange feeling on their bodies. But now confusion started to turn into panic as more and more of the mob was affected. People started to run in every direction, mindless of who they ran into. Despite the strange sensation, many of the mob still marched forward.

“Level yellow,” Li ordered.

Now the sensation of being hit by a sandstorm turned into the feeling of standing in front of an open furnace. Shouts of pain and fear quickly changed to screams of panic. Persons were no longer trying to brush away sand—they were trying to protect themselves from the searing heat, although they saw no fire and their skin did not seem to be damaged. Some tried to put out the fire they felt by throwing themselves on the ground and rolling. There was no tear gas, no sounds of bullets or shotguns, but people were falling to the ground as if shot. Finally the crowd stopped advancing, and they bolted left and right to get away from whatever they were being exposed to . . .

. . . and as they ran behind buildings or darted down adjacent streets, the feeling of being set afire disappeared.

“Get over here!” several of the protesters shouted to their comrades who were still writhing in pain out in the open, and as they ran for cover the pain stopped. “What is going on? What is happening?”

“I saw something like this on television,” another worker said. “I will bet it is that large sign in the middle of the street.”

“A sign? What does that have to do with anything?”

“It is not a sign—it is a microwave transmitter,” the other man said.

“A microwave? Are you joking?”

“Remember that major said something about ‘special crowd control systems’? I will bet that is what he was talking about. The police are using microwaves on us! The microwaves heat the fluids in our bodies without burning the skin.”

“How are we going to shut that thing down?”

“I think it is directional—I did not see any of the police standing beside it affected, and as soon as we ran behind this building the pain stopped,” the other said. “I think if we rush it from the sides it will not affect us, either.”

Using handheld radios and runners, the protesters quickly organized. While a large group remained on the avenue chanting and shouting as a diversion, two groups circled several blocks around on either side of the police guarding the microwave transmitter. As darkness began to fall, all at once they rushed the police from two sides. Within moments they had overwhelmed the police and torn down the microwave transmitter. Standing victorious over the subdued police, grabbing weapons, they turned toward the administration building . . .

. . . and at that moment machine guns mounted on armored vehicles on both sides of the avenue opened fire, mowing down protesters like a scythe cutting wheat. Several dozen protesters tried to rush the armored vehicles but were blasted apart long before they could reach them.