China's cabinet, the state council, directed the closing of the credit cooperatives, many of which have run up losses, in a secret document issued early this month, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. The directive also forbade domestic media, all of which are state-run, from reporting subsequent unrest in Sichuan, Hunan, Henan and Guangxi provinces and the city of Chongqing, the group said. An official in the agricultural bureau for Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, confirmed the shutdown. But the official and others in Chengdu denied farmers demonstrated in the city last week, the sole act of protest detailed by the information center.

More than 10,000 farmers crowded cooperative offices in Chengdu and on its outskirts last week followingthe shutdown, the information centre said. It added that on Thursday, about 200 farmers from a suburban county went in two groups to city hall and the agricultural bureau to demand their money. Rural china is already restive. Farmers are upset over heavy taxes, stagnating incomes and an officialdom seen as corrupt or indifferent. Protests by farmers and unemployed state industrial workers erupt frequently in cities and towns. Premier Zhu Rongji told members of the National Legislature this month that clean government was crucial to staving off unrest. Shutting down the credit cooperatives is in line with other Zhu policies to straighten out the urban and national banking systems and prevent losses to ordinary Chinese.

Under the state council order, provincial governments have been told to run checks on all cooperatives and immediately close down ones in trouble, the information centre said.