After the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Company was declared bankrupt on 5 November 2001, workers from the plant and from some twenty other Liaoyang factories demonstrated from 11 March 2002 over unpaid wages, pensions and medical reimbursements and the embezzlement of enterprise assets. The protests were met with arrests of the workers' representatives in March 2002 and the trial and imprisonment of Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, the 'Liaoyang Two'.