On July 28, 2012, protesters in Qidong city had violent clashes with the police over fears of pollution from a paper factory. Local officials announced that a waste water pipeline project from the paper mill, which belongs to Japanese company Oji Paper, would be “permanently cancelled.”
On August 3, the workplace union of the Abekawa paper mill, a subsidiary of the Oji Paper, released a statement in its journal supporting the Chinese protesters. It reminded readers that in the sixties the paper making industry in Japan was very polluting, criticising the corporations for being anti-social corporations. In the case of the Oji project in China, the statement criticised the way that the company put the blame on the Chinese law on pollution as being insulting to the Chinese people. Towards the end it appealed to the corporation that it should not just talk to the local government but should engage in dialogue with local residents.
Refer to the previous article: Qidong NIMBY protest that occupied the local government and stripped a mayor may mark a new era of grassroots activism in China