Kunming Night-Market Vendors Clash Violently with Police and City Enforcement

On the evening of September 28, vendors at the Haile World night market in Kunming, Yunnan, engaged in a large-scale confrontation with police that lasted up to six hours. (Video screenshot) 

[People News] Lately, there’s a phrase often seen on Chinese social media: “Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.” It appears that popular awareness of resisting tyranny has been growing. Faced with violent enforcement by urban management officers and the police, grassroots people who traditionally kept silent have begun to fight back. Even when swarmed by a dark mass of police, people picked up whatever was at hand — pots, bowls, and pans — and struck back. Bystanders also began openly to voice support for those resisting and to condemn the police’s unreasonable suppression. 

On September 28, blogger “Yesterday (@YesterdayBigcat)”, who frequently follows China’s collective rights incidents, posted on the social platform X that from Saturday night into Sunday early morning (the night of September 27 into the early hours of September 28), vendors at the Haile World night market on Yongzhong Road in Guandu District, Kunming, clashed fiercely with city enforcement officers and, later, police, in a confrontation that lasted about six hours and drew large crowds of onlookers. The conflict involved night-market vendors, city enforcement (chengguan) officers, and police who arrived later. Witnesses said the scene turned chaotic at times, with “pots, bowls, pans, stools, and chairs flying everywhere.” The clash ended with multiple vendors injured and sent to the hospital, many people arrested, and the food carts they relied on for a living towed away. 

“Yesterday” described the spark for the confrontation: about half a month earlier, local government departments shut the night market under the name of “rectification,” and at the same time started recruiting merchants and charging stall fees. Vendors said the night market’s booming business was the result of their long persistence and hard work, scraping together daily earnings of only a few dozen yuan. What enraged them was that as the market began to improve, the chengguan forcibly closed it under the pretext of rectification and immediately began charging fees. When vendors went to register as required, they found that more than four hundred stalls had already been registered — many of which were not original vendors — and so they refused to pay. They also pointed out that they had previously paid over ten thousand yuan in various fees, but government departments repeatedly changed policies overnight; even after payments were taken, they were still driven away by chengguan, so they believed paying fees provided no real protection.

“Yesterday” said that for many vendors, street vending is the family’s only source of income, and prolonged closure had left them unable to bear the burden. On the 27th, upon learning the rectification had supposedly ended the day before, they returned to their original stalls to resume business. Around 9 p.m., a large group of chengguan gathered at the night market and attempted to evict the vendors, but the vendors refused to leave, and a conflict erupted. As some vendors were beaten by the chengguan, the confrontation escalated rapidly; angry vendors hurled pots, bowls, pans, stools, and chairs at the chengguan and the police who arrived later. The scene descended into chaos and attracted hundreds of citizens to watch. The clashes continued intermittently for about six hours, during which large numbers of police reinforcements arrived and violent confrontations erupted repeatedly; the disorder and standoff only began to subside at about 3 a.m. the next day. 

Witnesses reported that multiple vendors were injured in the clashes and were taken to hospitals for treatment. A large number of vendors were detained by police, and the food carts they relied on for their livelihood were towed away by chengguan. 

So far, Chinese official channels and media have issued no statements or reports about the incident. 

Many commenters on X under “Yesterday”’s post wrote that “nowadays whatever happens in China, public opinion basically cannot influence what the government does; after conflicts occur, they still do as they please. The handling is always the same: arrest a few people, shut down a few social media accounts.”

“‘The clatter of pots and pans at a night market should be the sound of normal life, but overnight they became weapons against the chengguan — this is a true fight for survival,’” one comment said. Others wrote: “The government is out of money, they’re grabbing everything!” “In the old days you paid protection money and thugs wouldn’t trouble you; now the system has become a bottomless pit, treating small vendors as ATMs,” “Feels like people who get on police vans disappear from the world,” “If you don’t resist you won’t even have a chance to survive later,” “The CCP’s shamelessness is beyond imagination — even a mosquito that drinks one extra drop of blood they’ll make you vomit it out,” “Unite and resist, the people must not be bullied,” “The power of awakening is right now,” “Good to resist! Small resistance, small gain; big resistance, big gain; if you don’t resist, you’re waiting to die.”△