Motorway builders encircled the homes of three Chinese families with a four-lane flyover after they refused to make way for the bulldozers. Demolition teams in Guangzhou had planned to destroy the houses in order to connect the city’s road network to a recently opened tunnel under the Pearl River. However, when some homeowners refused to accept compensation packages, the construction company decided to build around them. Chen Tong, a prominent media executive, joked that authorities had given locals homes “with a 360-degree road view”. Others criticised the “greedy” homeowners for trying to force the government to pay them unreasonable amounts of compensation. “Most Chinese people will follow the rules but some people will think they are special,” wrote one user of Weibo, China’s Twitter. “The whole project cannot be influenced due to one person.” Telegraph |