Land rights |13 injured in attack on government office

Masked men attacked a government office in western China, smashing vehicles and equipment and leaving 13 people injured in a regional dispute over farmland, local authorities and state media said yesterday.
The attack was part of a disagreement between residents of Gansu province and the vast Inner Mongolia region it borders to the north, state newspapers reported.
China’s government regularly cites such incidents as justification for heavy-handed Communist Party rule. Often driven by economic or ethnic rivalries, such incidents stretch the capacity of local law enforcement bodies to cope, especially in the relatively impoverished west.
More than 100 men with their faces covered descended on the Ejin Banner office complex at about 3 a.m. on Sunday, the Ejin Banner county government said on its website.
They used pepper spray on staff members and herders who were helping guard the premises, the government said. They were hooded, threatened, beaten with clubs and dumped outside where temperatures were about -20 Celsius, the government said. Six men were taken to hospital for treatment.
Photos on the website showed demolished pre-fabricated structures and pick-up trucks crushed from being flipped over. The Ejin Banner government said the attackers used two bulldozers to carry out the destruction and also stole any personal or government property they could find.
Reports said the attack likely grew out of a long-running dispute over land rights in Ejin Banner, which had been part of Gansu until it was returned to Inner Mongolia in 1979. No suspects have been named publicly.
The vast region is home to 32,000 people, mostly farmers and herders, along with the Jiuquan satellite launch center used to launch China’s crewed space missions. AP

Financial Corruption | Citic Securities says it can’t reach 2 senior execs

One of China’s biggest securities companies said it can’t contact its top two investment bankers after media reports said the pair might be under investigation.
Citic Securities Co. said in a statement Sunday evening that it hasn’t been able to get in touch with Chen Jun and Yan Jianlin.
Financial news magazine Caixin reported Friday on its website that the two were taken away by authorities but it wasn’t clear whether they were the ones being investigated or were merely being asked to assist in an investigation
The two are the latest executives to go missing from Citic as authorities deepen an investigation into the company following a spectacular rout on China’s stock market over the summer.
Chen is head of Citic’s investment banking business while Yan is head of the company’s international investment banking arm, according to its website.
Authorities are also scrutinizing two other big Chinese securities firms as part of the investigation, which many see as an attempt by the ruling Communist Party to deflect blame for the Shanghai index’s 30 percent drop from its peak. State media had encouraged the public to buy stocks, fueling a bubble.
In August, the official Xinhua news agency said eight Citic employees were being investigated for illegal stock trading. The following month, the police ministry said Citic executives including its general manager, Cheng Boming, were suspected of insider trading and leaking sensitive information.
The company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange that operations were “normal” and some employees who were asked to help in unspecified preliminary investigations have returned to work, although it didn’t name them. Kelvin Chan, Business Writer, Hong Kong, AP