'It's every citizen's duty to stand up'

Almost everyone in Harbin knows Liu Tianxiao, a 60-year-old social crusader whose fans call him the city's "deputy mayor".

The retired teacher hit the headlines in December last year when he threw a half-empty plastic bottle of water at Yang Hui, deputy director of Harbin's bureau of commodity prices, during a government hearing to discuss a proposed water rate hike.

"I had no choice but to throw something, otherwise they wouldn't have let me speak," said Liu, one of 12 "resident representatives" invited to the hearing in the capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province.