300 Irate Chinese Taxi Drivers on Strike Smash Cars, Demand Crackdown on Unlicensed Cabs
Sunday, November 30, 2008
BEIJING — About 300 taxi drivers went on strike in a southern Chinese city, smashing cars and demanding a crackdown on unlicensed taxis in the latest protest against illegal taxi competition in China.
Hundreds of cab drivers gathered Saturday in front of government buildings in Chaozhou, a city in Guangdong province, said an official Sunday from the Chaozhou city government who would only give his surname, Chen.
More than 200 taxis were parked in front of the gate of a government office as drivers sought greater enforcement against unlicensed taxis, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Excuse me while I replace the batteries in my irony meter. 
In the country notorious for unlicensed knock-offs and counterfeits of products invented and developed in the West, the country in which one can buy in open market stalls bootleg copies of software ranging from Adobe Photoshop, to Microsoft Office (costing hundreds of dollars), to expensive manufacturing and CAD/CAM software (costing tens of thousands of dollars), in the country which has refused to work with US and European patent, trademark, and copyright agents. . . cab drivers are rioting and destroying private property because they want their government to crack down on the unregistered cabs, which is estimated at approximately 5% of the current transportation force.
I'm just saying, you know?
