A series of protests in rural areas over the past year peaked in Wukan, where thousands of villagers in the eastern Guangdong village staged three months of unrest after the seizure of land by local governments. That incident and the subsequent unrest in multiple townships in Chaoshan region in eastern Guangdong province have highlighted deep-seated conflicts over economic development in rural China. These events, and thousands of other incidents in rural China in the last year, largely originated in the high level of corruption that accompanies land seizures. Previously marked by relatively brief and sporadic episodes, the unrest has grown sustained and is happening on a large scale — in some cases even showing signs of having been organized — making rural instability an increasing concern for Beijing.