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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040300542.html

BEIJING -- For weeks, the little house sitting stubbornly atop an earthen pillar in the middle of a busy construction site was a symbol of individual rights in the face of China's breakneck and often heedless economic development.

Reporters from across China and beyond traveled to Chongqing, a sprawling Sichuan city 900 miles southwest of Beijing, to document the campaign by Wu Ping and her husband, Yang Wu, to get more compensation for the small building where they had lived and run a restaurant for years. As they repeated tirelessly into reporters' microphones, they were the lone holdouts among the owners of 280 houses bulldozed since 2004 to make way for a shopping center -- and they vowed not to move until they got what they wanted.

On Tuesday, news spread that the long struggle was finally over. Wu and Yang had quietly reached an agreement with the development company Monday, local authorities reported. Bulldozers moved in during the night to raze the house, flatten the little pillar it stood on and carry on constructing yet another place for increasingly well-off consumers to shop.

Wu and Yang, who had courted reporters for weeks to dramatize their plight, dropped out of sight after signing the deal. Despite their silence -- or perhaps because of it -- they and their house remained symbols for many in this country of 1.3 billion people.

The Internet buzzed with comments citing the couple's case as an example of the way government and big business often crush individual Chinese or, alternatively, of what people can achieve, even in this authoritarian country, if they stick to their guns and work the news media well.

The nationwide attention given to the Chongqing drama hinted at the frustration felt by many Chinese over the lack of legal protection for individuals in a country where business and government are cooperating closely in the pursuit of economic growth. The house was gleefully labeled a "nail house," borrowing from a popular Chinese expression in which a "nail" is a person who sticks out by refusing to submit to authority.

News stories and Internet comments suggested that the Chinese were cheering the couple on for precisely this reason, urging them to hold firm against the combined weight of local authorities and big business. When it became known Tuesday, the solution was also generally hailed as a wise compromise and a victory for the couple.

"It's a multiple-win outcome," concluded Beijing's Xin Jing Bao newspaper.

Wu and Yang came out ahead, the newspaper said, because they got a ground-floor apartment with space to open a new restaurant. The developer came out ahead, the editorial added, because his company can now proceed with the shopping center project. And the local government came out ahead, it reasoned, because a long dispute with embarrassing public repercussions had been settled to the apparent satisfaction of both parties.

Some Internet commentators agreed. "We appreciate what the nail couple did," one wrote on the popular Web portal sohu.com. They set a good example for common citizens. They protected citizens' dignity by sticking with their little house."

"The case was a typical collusion by officials and developers to invade the interests of common people," said a contributor to the official New China News Agency's site. "If there were more such disobedient citizens, we would be closer to a society with rule of law."

But other commentators were not convinced. "A farce," said one. "Bully the weak and fear the strong," said another. "Was Wu Ping threatened?" asked Zhou Shuguang, who had been following the struggle on his blog. "Or were we used by Wu Ping?"

The doubts stemmed partly from the couple's silence. After weeks of broadcasting their demands, they did not publicly describe the terms of their agreement or detail what finally persuaded them to leave.

The Jiulongpo District Court, which had given the couple until April 10 to leave or face forcible eviction, announced that Wu and Yang would get a new apartment and business space in another neighborhood, in addition to about $120,000 in compensation for loss of business during the standoff. That amount was markedly higher than the developer's initial offer.

"I am not a nail, and so I got less compensation," a sohu.com contributor complained. "If I had been, I would have got more. It's not fair."