Payments will be made in batches, with the first due on July 15, state media outlet Global Times reported, citing the banking and insurance regulator and Henan province’s Financial Regulation Bureau in a joint statement.
The move comes after China on Sunday dispersed a protest through a slew of depositors, who were to claim their coins from banks that have faced a deepening currency crisis.
Four rural banks in China’s Henan province have frozen millions in deposits since April, threatening the livelihoods of thousands of consumers in an economy already battered by Covid lockdowns.
Hundreds of depositors have held several protests in the city of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan, but Chinese authorities are ignoring their demands, CNN reported.
On Sunday, more than 1,000 depositors gathered outdoors at the Zhengzhou branch of the country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, to hold its largest protest to date.
The local government wore civilian clothes to suppress the protest. This is the fourth protest through depositors that is expected to continue until the central and local governments reach an agreement on who will pay which part.
“I didn’t expect them to be so violent and shameless this time. There was no communication, no caution before we were brutally dispersed,” said an informant from an open-air City Henan who had in the past demonstrated in Zhengzhou and asked CNN to hide his identity. name for security reasons.
“Why would government workers beat us? We are just other people asking for the refund of our deposits, we have done nothing wrong,” Shandong’s wife said.
With limitations across China due to various Covid movement restrictions, the protest is one of the largest China has seen since the pandemic.
In particular, protesters have been observed using national flags to demonstrate their patriotism, a strategy not unusual for protesters in China. In a country where dissent is quickly suppressed, the tactic aims to appear that their grievances are only for local governments and that they depend on the central government to seek redress.
“Against the corruption and violence of the Henan government,” a banner written in English.
A giant portrait of backward Chinese leader Mao Zedong pasted on a pillar in front of the bank. Across the street, piles of police and workers’ security forces, some in uniform and others in civilian clothes, piled up and surrounded the site. while protesters shouted “gangsters” at them.
On an overdue Sunday, local police said they had recently arrested members of a “criminal gang” accused of taking control of Henan’s rural banks since 2011, leveraging their stakes and “manipulating bank executives. “
Police added that the suspects were also charged with illegally moving fictitious budget loans and that part of their budget had been seized. (ANI)