A British newspaper said that hundreds of Chinese peasants have been cleared off their land so a factory can be expanded to make Rover cars under the company’s proposed buy-out by the Chinese government.
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Half a dozen local men were arrested and briefly jailed without trial after protesting to the Communist authorities in Beijing. They were threatened with arrest again after talking to The Daily Telegraph last week.
The paper said a handful are still refusing to accept the compensation they have been offered. They are refusing to leave their houses, some of which are blocking the path of a new road.
The Telegraph noted that Rover is in the last stages of negotiations to link up with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), China’s largest, state-owned car manufacturer, and, although both sides deny it is a takeover, Rover’s remaining operations in Britain will be subsumed into a new company in which the Chinese will have a 70% stake.
According to the report, SAIC has identified its factory at Yizheng, four hours’ drive from Shanghai, to build the Rover 25 – it currently makes Opel vans and Volkswagen Santanas there.
The Telegraph said that, in anticipation of the deal, the local authorities have handed the farmland behind the factory to a special auto industry committee while local residents and factory workers say they have been told construction will begin on it immediately the deal is signed, possibly as early as next month.
