Uranium plans quickly scrapped after protest Opposition: Hundreds of banner-carrying protesters who oppose the uranium processing plant paraded through Jiangmen city. Just one day after a rare public protest, Chinese authorities announced they were abandoning plans to build a uranium processing plant in south-eastern China, where residents raised concerns about its safety and potential environmental impact. The decision not to proceed with the plant in Guangdong province, less than 100 kilometres from Hong Kong, came after hundreds of people turned out last Friday and "took a walk" through the city of Jiangmen, carrying banners showing their opposition to the proposed plant, which would have been capable of processing half the fuel needed for the country's nuclear power needs. Unsanctioned gatherings are banned in China, but protesters said the police did not intervene to stop the protest. The Jiangmen City government website said the project had been "cancelled," and Southern Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper in Guangdong, said the decision was made "out of respect for public opinion." The protest in Jiangmen was the latest display of growing public disquiet about environmental hazards, which could frustrate China's ambitious plans for nuclear power and technology. The catastrophic failures at nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, also triggered anxiety in China about its expansion of nuclear power. That expansion is a big part of plans to decrease the reliance on coal, and the government has indicated that by 2020 it wants nuclear reactors to provide at least 5 per cent of the country's power, up from about 2 per cent. The government has also faced a widespread public outcry about the air pollution blanketing Beijing and many other big Chinese cities, forcing officials to institute a series of measures to try to control emissions. Word of the planned protest against the proposed Guangdong plant had spread rapidly on Chinese social media despite government efforts to censor the discussion on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter. Some opponents were outraged that the public was given only 10 days to comment on the plans, while others said they were upset that the public had no apparent role in deciding where the plant would be located.