Gangs are demolishing the workshops and office blocks of the Beijing Engine Plant, a site the size of several football fields east of the capital's third ring road. Behind them are the red-brick factory buildings, their colour dimmed by years of dust and sand, but which still produce car engines.
'They should close the plant,' said Wang Min, a local resident.
'We are 30 to 40 years behind the west and even more in the car industry.
The plant has debts totalling two billion yuan (about HK$1.8 billion) to three billion yuan, according to the official press, equivalent to nearly three times the value of its assets.
'There is little demand for these engines and things will worsen when we join the World Trade Organisation,' the resident said. 'Many of the workers have been laid off.
'But how can they shut the plant and put so many people on to the street? Beijing already has 750,000 people out of work.'
