The strife that engulfed the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region with irate residents attacking government workers and police across seven towns has come to an end. The protests were sparked by anger at government family planning law enforcement measures, said officials on Tuesday.

Twenty-eight people have been detained by police, suspected with starting the violence. 

On Thursday last week, around 300 residents converged on the town of Dungu in Bobai County and attacked government workers and police, revealed the county government. The violence spread to six other towns in Bobai County over the next two days with some government offices and documents by protestors, while vehicles were set alight.

Residents complained that local government workers had been rude and had collected illegal fees when dealing with family planning policy violators. Bobai County’s population now stands at 1.6 million, a population explosion from the 490,000 seen in 1949.

"The population has grown too fast, which has caused a sharp reduction in the per capita available land of the county," said a local official.

China brought in a national family planning policy in the late 1970s which encouraged young couples to only have one child. This was accompanied in 2002 by a further population and family planning law.

Bobai residents regularly flout these laws due to a persistent belief that a larger family will result in a happier life. As a result, the county's family planning workers have led large-scale campaigns to ensure compliance and curb the population boom.
 
"There may be problems with the family planning work of the government, which has prompted complaints from residents," said Huang Shaoming, head of the Bobai county government.

Huang Wei, a deputy head of the Bobai county government, also speculated that other individuals may also have fueled the residents’ anger and pushed them to attack the authorities,

Yulin City, which administers Bobai County, has sent around 4,200 government officials to 28 townships for face-to-face meetings with the residents to address their complaints.

(Xinhua News Agency May 23, 2007)