I would not invest in China and give my $ to developers who would do anything and hurt the small people for their own profits. (see below)

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Lonely struggle in the rubble of China's hottest real estate

Lonely struggle in the rubble of China's hottest real estate
Posted on Sunday, April 08, 2007 (EST)
Barely 500 paces from revolutionary leader Mao Zedong's resting place in the heart of Beijing lies some of the hottest real estate in China.

BEIJING (AFP) - The new "traditional-style" courtyard homes planned for the Chinese capital's historic Qianmen district just south of Tiananmen Square are expected to fetch as much as 50 million yuan (6.5 million dollars) each.

With those sorts of figures, Zhang Hailiang and his wife, Wang Xiaolan, find it hard to understand why they have not been given a cent for their old courtyard home that developers destroyed to make way for the new.

Ten months after their 100-year-old house was demolished, the couple continue to live in the rubble that was once their home, refusing to move until the property developers or local authorities give them someplace else to live.

"My heart is filled with anger and disappointment," Wang, 52, told AFP as she stood on the jagged remains of a broken concrete slab that a year earlier had been her living room floor.

"At the beginning we were promised another place to live. But we have been cheated."

Since their two-storey house was demolished, Wang and Zhang, also 52, have lived in a makeshift hut just big enough to lie in and which they erected in the rubble after scraping together wood and other materials from the wreckage.

The roof of their hut, made of plastic sheets, was barely able to take the harshest edge off the cold during the brutal northern Chinese winter just passed, when temperatures regularly dropped well below freezing.

Living off Wang's pension of 980 yuan (125 dollars) a month, they struggle to buy anything but the simplest of essentials to survive.

"We only eat the cheapest food. Meat and even vegetables are too expensive sometimes," Zhang said, explaining their most common meals are instant noodles and steamed buns.

Zhang said he was born and lived all his life in the house, which his father had owned.

The real estate developer, however, told AFP that Zhang had not been a resident in the house and had no claim to the property.

China's leaders have said repeatedly in recent years that land disputes are one of the biggest social problems currently facing China, and that they are determined to stamp out the problem.

Countless people are being kicked off their land or out of their homes to make way for new property or industrial developments without adequate compensation.

Sometimes, though rarely, the little man or woman wins.

In a case that made world headlines last week, a restaurateur in southwestern Chongqing city who was dubbed the "Stubborn Nail" for her defiance of a property developer was awarded an extraordinary house and compensation package worth around four million yuan (510,000 dollars).

More often, though, property developers and industrialists, in collusion with local governments, emerge victorious, taking control of the land and leaving those evicted to struggle through a murky justice system or voice their anger through protests.

In Qianmen, the old trading and entertainment pulse of Beijing that is undergoing a huge revamp ahead of the 2008 Olympics, more than 12,000 people have been moved out of their homes to make way for new buildings, according to a local government report.

Liu Anjun, a well-known rights activist in Beijing, said many people in Qianmen had been forced from their homes, and the problem infected much of Beijing.

"For all of Beijing there are about 2,600 families who refused to leave their homes and have had their houses demolished without their permission," Liu said.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Public Security, there were 87,000 protests across the country in 2005, up 50 percent from two years earlier, many of them to do with land grabs.

But the plight of Zhang and Wang is more remarkable because it is happening right under the noses of China's leadership.

Their home is about five minutes walk from the Great Hall of the People, China's parliamentary building where lawmakers last month passed an historic property law that was partly aimed at ending such land grab disputes.

"Hu Jintao calls for a harmonious society," Zhang said, referring to the current Chinese president's mantra about creating a fairer China in which the rights of the marginalised are better protected.

"But what is harmonious about what is happening to us?"

Zhang then angrily referred to the irony of the enormous roadside billboards that are shielding the demolition of Qianmen's old buildings, one of which bears the slogan: "Protect the historic city, maintain the beauty of the ancient city."

The realty of life is not always good, there are people who benefit and others are kicked to the floor, the capitalist system, encourages individualism and selfishness, but also efficiency and liberalism. The current system in china was not working so they looked to the west for ideas, and hence there will be people with nothing and others with everything.

As an investor your heart has not the place, as an investor, you can be ethical and invest where you want, if you want to make money it is another thing. China maynot be right for you, but there are millions of people that want it. China is growing, stronger and there will be abuse of power there always is, in the US, in any country. But the process of westernising will benefit the chinese in the longer run. A freer state with more liberty is good for the world, and it empowers the chinese people.

The statements are true, but do not confuse investing with heart felt mentality. China over time will come of age. It is the same with any fledgling economy, though china is more than that.

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I agree, China would need to come out of the dark ages re human rights before I would invest.