Over a thousand protest over chemical plant in east China

More than a thousand people gathered in the eastern Chinese port city of Ningbo on Saturday to protest against plans to expand a petrochemical plant, highlighting a major challenge for the leadership as it readies for its once-in-a-decade power transition.

On Friday, protesters overturned a police car and attacked the police.

By early Saturday, protesters, watched over by police, gathered in a central shopping street in Ningbo, wearing masks and giving out pamphlets denouncing the expansion of the plant by a subsidiary of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation in the district of Zhenhai.

“PX...Get out of Ningbo!” read one placard, in a reference to the chemical paraxylene, which the protesters said was a carcinogen.

The protests come just two weeks before the Communist Party holds a congress which opens on Nov. 8 and will unveil the country’s new central leadership.

The past few years has seen a rise in protests over environmental issues. In July, Chinese officials cancelled an industrial waste pipeline project after anti-pollution demonstrators occupied a government office in eastern China.