Striking truck drivers protested for a third day yesterday in Shanghai’s main harbor district amid a heavy police presence and signs the action has already started to curb exports from the world’s busiest container port.
The strike is a very public demonstration of anger over rising consumer prices and fuel price increases in China.
It comes as Beijing struggles to contain higher inflation, which hit 5.4 percent last month, fearful that rising prices could fuel protests like those in the Middle East.
A crowd of up to 600 people milled about outside an office of a logistics company near the city’s Baoshan Port. Some threw rocks at trucks whose drivers had not joined in the strikes, breaking the windows of at least one.
The strikers, many of them independent contractors who carry goods to and from the port, stopped work on Wednesday demanding the government do something about high fuel costs and what some called high fees charged by logistics firms, said the drivers, who clashed with police on Thursday.
As many as 50 police officers were at the area yesterday and at least two people were arrested after throwing rocks at trucks. Plainclothes officers also briefly detained some foreign reporters and manhandled a Reuters photographer.
The crowd thinned out after a policeman said authorities planned to meet representatives of the truck drivers on Monday for talks aimed at ending the strike.
However, two truck drivers said that they would continue their campaign for the government to offset the rising cost of fuel.
Workers organized the strike by word of mouth, one driver said.
China’s tightly controlled state media has made no mention of the unrest and the city’s government has denied knowledge of the strike.
An official reached by telephone at Shanghai International Port (Group) Co, which runs the Shanghai port, said the strike “has not affected operations,” though he would not comment further.
However, Wei Yujun, assistant to the general manager at China Star Distribution Center (Shanghai) Co, said the action had “delayed exports and many ships cannot take on a full load before leaving.”
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