Huangpo (AsiaNews/SCMP) - Residents of a county in western Guangdong where more than 20 people were wounded in a simmering feud between two villages accused police of "negligence" and "failing to prevent the violence from escalating".

Last Friday, residents of Dameichen village in Huangpo township, Wuchuan county, said they were attacked by villagers from neighbouring Xiaomeichen with home-made rifles and bombs. The victims were sent to hospitals in Zhanjiang city and were in stable condition last night.

A Wuchuan city government official yesterday admitted there was a gunfight between residents of the historically antagonistic villages and that the incident was still being investigated. Police seized at least three homemade firearms and sent officers to stand guard outside the villages. Violence between the villagers was triggered by a dispute over a road construction project.

Residents of Dameichen said they were provoked into fighting by the Xiaomeichen villagers, who they said had secretly prepared for the "war" for weeks. They also accused police of failing to stop the violence. "They [Xiaomeichen villagers] stocked up on bombs and rifles for weeks. Some of our people saw them smuggling illegal firearms into the village. We reported this to the police, but they did nothing," said one villager. "They were dressed in armed police uniforms and wore steel helmets. Where did they get this stuff? Some of their village heads have connections to the police."

A man from another village in Huangpo town also accused police of failing to prevent the violence from escalating. "We had heard rumours weeks ago that the two villages were going to fight each other. Some families from Xiaomeichen sent their wives and children to our village," he said. "We also saw their men practising with guns and digging dugouts. It was obvious something was going to happen. We reported this to the authorities, but they just ignored our warnings." Wuchuan party secretary Gao Yongyuan visited the two villages on Friday to try to mediate before the fighting started, but left after failing to persuade the two sides to make peace.

Guangdong county of Wuchuan is the latest incident to reinforce the impression Beijing is losing control of the vast countryside with a population of more than 900 million, said an expert. While the reasons behind the increasingly violent unrest and riots which have swept across the rural landscape in recent years are complicated and diverse, China's agricultural policies are also to blame. Every year the leadership lists agriculture as "a top priority of all work", but the reality is that government spending and investment have always been inadequate, exorbitant charges on farmers are prevalent and official corruption is rampant.

That partly explains why a mixture of optimism and cynicism greeted an ambitious plan unveiled by the mainland leadership under President Hu Jintao last year to build a so-called "new socialist countryside", billed as one of the main policy objectives for the next five years. While it remains unclear exactly what the new plan entails, Mr Hu and other Chinese leaders have appeared to strike the right tones by promising more favourable policies, including more government spending and investments, and less taxation. Many cynical observers believe the plan will fail to address the most sensitive issue of land ownership. For them, the agricultural woes will get only worse until the leadership makes the revolutionary move of privatising farmland.

But the Beijing leadership has repeatedly rejected this suggestion, arguing that privatisation has run directly against the nature of the country's socialist system. For many optimists, the plan still carries paramount significance, marking the beginning of a fundamental shift in Beijing's strategy towards agricultural development.