'Model Village' Officials Probed

Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen have suspended seven village officials pending a corruption probe linked to land sales, after local residents took to the streets calling for their removal.

But local residents said the officials were still at work and still running the affairs of Wanfeng, once touted as a model that other Chinese villages could aspire to under the economic reforms of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping.

"They have suspended seven who were Party [committee members] and nine from the property management company," a villager surnamed Pan said in an interview on Wednesday.

"But they are still coming to work because they hold positions in government [as well as the Party]," Pan said.

"They are still running the affairs of the village."

Pan said some villagers were calling for the officials' full dismissal following a long-running dispute over the proceeds of a lucrative property deal struck between the village Party committee and a local property developer.

"Some people were complaining and saying that they shouldn't be allowed to come to work because of all they have done," Pan said after attending a meeting of villagers on Wednesday.

But he said the meeting also discussed ways to cooperate with the government over the investigation.

Wanfeng residents also want collective land transferred at below-value prices in recent years to be recovered, and the financial accounts relating to the management of the land to be made public.

Three people sent by the Party committee of Shajing subdistrict are now handling the daily work of the Wanfeng Party committee, the English-language China Daily quoted a subdistrict government statement as saying.

Investigation under way

Meanwhile, the Shenzhen-based Daily Sunshine newspaper reported that the Party disciplinary body of Baoan district was now investigating "possible corruption and related financial matters," it said.

Hundreds of local people staged a protest last weekend on a main thoroughfare in the Baoan district of Shenzhen, saying they had seen only a fraction of the 200 million yuan (U.S. $31.75 million) in revenue from the sale of a plot of their land, which had been under collective contract to the villlage.

In China, all land is ultimately owned by the state, but is allocated to communities under collective contract and through the household responsibility system that replaced state-run farms and communes under Deng.

Pan said many residents of Wanfeng, whose name ironically means "10,000 harvests," are now utterly dependent on dividends from such land sales for their daily living expenses.

Villagers say an "enormous sum" of money has gone missing from village accounts since 2006.

A Wanfeng protester surnamed Shu said many of those who protested on Saturday have no salary or assets, and denied official suggestions that some of the demonstrators had been paid to show up.

"No one organized us; we just showed up and blocked the road," Shu said. "The only thing they have to rely on is the dividends from their land."

"The revenue that has gone missing is too large a sum ... We estimate it at around one or two million yuan per head of population," he said.

"And that is only taking into account the land that has been sold since 2006," Shu added. "There is a lot of other land that hasn't been included in that."

Xie Xiaodong, Party chief of Shajing subdistrict, admitted that problems exist in Shajing subdistrict, and that the situation in some communities is "serious and complicated," the China Daily said.

Xie also pledged "to work out measures in accordance with the law and to improve communication and coordination," it added.

Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.