On the eve of the implementation of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Ecological Environment Code” last Saturday (15th), a clash between police and civilians occurred in Baching Town, Kunshan City, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. The incident reportedly started when authorities deployed large numbers of police, special forces, and urban management officers to drive away street vendors, leading to dissatisfaction among the vendors and resulting in a conflict.
According to a video posted by a user on the X platform who monitors collective protests in China, on Friday night (14th), the authorities in Baching Town, Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, dispatched large numbers of police, special forces, and urban management officers to drive away street vendors selling near the Lizhen Precision Intelligent Manufacturing (Kunshan) Co., Ltd., leading to a conflict between the two sides.
The video shows many police cars parked around the scene, and although the conflict between the police and the vendors has ended, there are still large numbers of law enforcement officers in uniforms maintaining order at the scene. Many onlookers can be seen around, and the atmosphere appears very tense.
Some netizens left comments saying, “What I found was that the vendors had to pay a fee, over a thousand per month, which sparked dissatisfaction. However, relevant news on domestic platforms has been almost taken down, hardly searchable. What can be found is all expressed in an ambiguous way.”
In the context of the impact of the pandemic and the difficulty in employment, in 2020, then Premier Li Keqiang proposed promoting “street vending economy” to alleviate economic pressure, which led to a nationwide trend of street vending. Cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou temporarily accommodated mobile vendors by setting up “tide stall areas” or regulating night markets.
However, with the implementation of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Ecological Environment Code,” authorities have once again cracked down on open-air vendors.
According to the new regulations, no individual or unit is allowed to operate open-air barbecue activities in prohibited areas and time periods designated by the authorities. Offenders will have their tools and illegal gains confiscated, and will be fined from 500 yuan to a maximum of 5,000 yuan. For those who refuse to correct their actions, they could be fined up to 20,000 yuan.
Furthermore, it is prohibited to construct dining projects that produce oil fumes and odors in residential buildings and other places, with offenders facing fines of up to 100,000 yuan. The new regulations include as many as 1,242 provisions, involving a large number of fine stipulations.
According to reports by “Yesterday,” since the official implementation of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Ecological Environment Code” on August 15th, many local governments have used it as a reason to crack down on street vendors and have deployed police and urban management officers to forcibly disperse them.
It is expected that with the implementation of the new regulations, these vendors who have resorted to street vending to make a living due to unemployment might once again lose their livelihoods.