The protest in Shanghai for the Meglev! 上海人不要造磁悬浮列车!

By Andrew Torchia

SHANGHAI, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Xiao Weiping, who lives within 50 metres (150 feet) of the planned route of Shanghai's high-speed "maglev" train, says there's a principle behind her decision to risk official displeasure by opposing the project.

"Development is a good thing, and as a Chinese I'm proud of Shanghai's development," the 39-year-old housewife says in her two-bedroom, walk-up apartment in the suburb of Minhang, bought five years ago for 370,00 yuan ($51,000).

"But when you're developing, you have to balance it with the lives of the people. Only when people's lives are stable can you have a stable society."

Demonstrations against the maglev in downtown Shanghai at the weekend, the city's largest public protest since thousands took part in sometimes violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in 2005, present authorities with a new challenge: a growing middle class that wants a say in major decisions on building the city.

Residents along the maglev's planned route are complaining about noise and electromagnetic radiation, rejecting city officials' insistence the line would be no threat to health.

Articulate, well-educated and adept at public relations, the demonstrators may prove harder to handle than the farmers and factory workers who stage thousands of protests against pollution and abuse of power in more remote parts of China every year.

"In the richer parts of China there's an increased willingness of people to make clear their dissatisfaction with the way things have been run," said Arthur Kroeber, managing director at Dragonomics, an independent research firm in Beijing.

The spread of home ownership in big cities, and rising home prices as the economy booms, make people more protective of their property and create "a general awareness that there need to be some checks on power" of city authorities, he said.

The weekend's demonstrations were triggered by Shanghai's plan to extend its magnetic levitation train line by 32 km (20 miles) through the city, to near its domestic airport.

A $1.4 billion, 30 km (19 mile) line from the city outskirts to the international airport, the world's only commercial maglev operation, opened in 2003. Built with German technology, the trains reach speeds above 400 kilometres (250 miles) an hour.

The extension plan was promoted by Chen Liangyu, the city's former Communist Party boss, fond of grandiose public projects to burnish Shanghai's image as a global city.

COMPLAINTS

But public opposition to the plan began growing last year, and increased after officials launched at end-December a three-week period for public comment.

Charging the comment period was too short and lacked transparency, protesters turned to an unauthorised method of expressing opinion -- demonstrations by hundreds of people on one of Shanghai's busiest shopping streets at the weekend.

Unauthorised protests in China involve risks. Police briefly detained dozens of people at Saturday's march, and ended Sunday's demonstration by chasing and manhandling protesters. Several police cars were parked outside Xiao's apartment building at the weekend, monitoring activity there.

But the protesters appear to be calculating Shanghai has changed enough to give them a good chance of succeeding. Chen was sacked as the city's party boss in a corruption scandal in late 2006, casting a political shadow over projects linked to him.

The protest may also benefit from national political trends.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is calling for a "harmonious society" in which the government pays more heed to the cares of common people, a slogan protesters have plastered on banners hanging from their apartment buildings.

Chinese official media have not reported directly on the Shanghai demonstrations. But protesters have had little problem promoting their cause through Internet chat rooms.

They have struck a chord with many people by asking why Shanghai should spend so much money on the maglev instead of improving the creaking public bus system, or its schools.

With state television declining to report the demonstrations, one protester uploaded video of them to YouTube, with subtitles (www.youtube.com/profile?user=tooodou). Others used Google Earth to calculate the distance of their homes from the line.

Kroeber said the comment period for the maglev extension showed authorities were sympathetic to the idea of listening to public opinion. But the process was proving difficult because residents expected to have a clear influence on decision-making.

Authorities "want public consultation while dictating the terms of engagement. That's where the problem comes," he said.

($1=7.25 yuan) (Editing by Jerry Norton)