Villagers say that they have enough supplies to hold out for only 10 more days.
Wukan has been encircled by the police cordon since Sunday, after a failed attempt by 1,000 armed police to capture the village. No food or water is allowed in, and no villagers allowed out.
But the villagers were unbowed yesterday, and their leaders said they had seen signs that the government would “blink first”.
“We have an old saying here,” said Chen Liangshu, one of the villagers, referring to the legendary aggression of the Wukanese and their neighbours. “In heaven there is the Thunder God, on earth there is Lufeng and Wukan.”
Trouble in Wukan has been brewing since September, after the fishing village revolted at an attempt to take one of its last parcels of farmland and give it to a major Chinese property developer, Country Garden.
However it was the death of 43-year-old Xue Jinbo, one of the village’s 13 temporary representatives, in police custody that pushed Wukan into its current fury, and saw the last of the village’s dozen Communist party officials flee. His family believe he was murdered.
Thousands of villagers have held daily protest meetings outside the village hall since the news broke on Monday.
Almost all the village’s roadside restaurants are shut, but at the market around half the stalls are open. “We think we can last for 10 to 12 days,” said Zhang Xiaoping, a stall owner.
“We are using a corridor to the next village to smuggle in meat and vegetables on the back of motorbikes, but each trip takes an hour,” she added.
Wukan’s fleet of fishing boats has also been shut in. One fisherman, who asked to be named as “United Wukan”, said he had already cut down to two meals a day and was prepared, like everyone else, “to starve myself to death”.
Wukan used to make a tidy sum from fishing, and was originally happy to sell off its farmland. But in recent years, a combination of pollution and large trawlers has diminished the fishery.
The gap between the rich and poor in the village has also upset many, with at least a hundred families, including those of the former party secretary and village finance chief, living in palatial mansions, all built on farmland. By yesterday, almost all the rich families had also retreated out of the village, while the ones who remained refused to comment on the protests, shut in behind high walls and strong steel gates.
So far, the police have not made any further attempts to retake Wukan, and the village’s temporary leadership said negotiations with the government are now under way.
The local government sent a relative of Zhang Jiancheng, one of the four Wukan villagers still being held by local police, to offer a deal, according to Yang Semao, a village representative. It was refused.
“We turned down the offer,” said Mr Yang. “We want them to admit responsibility for the bloodshed when the riot police beat us in September, admit that we have a legal complaint, admit that the village representatives are a legal negotiating team, and to return all of our land to us, for us to split evenly among the villagers.”
