Shanghai offers fee cuts to defuse drivers' strike at port

SHANGHAI, April 23 (Reuters) - The government of the Chinese city of Shanghai is cutting some fees to defuse striking truck drivers' anger over high fuel prices, an official spokesman said after days of sometimes violent confrontation disrupted the world's busiest port.

But it was not immediately clear whether the steps would end the protests that galvanized hundreds of striking truck drivers and brought flashes of unrest over inflation to China's biggest commercial hub.

The promised steps include "lowering standard fees and removing non-standard fees", an unidentified spokesman for the Shanghai city government said, according to a brief report from China's official Xinhua news agency issued early on Saturday.

It did not give other details of the steps.

The city spokesman said "all ports in Shanghai were operating normally", according to the Xinhua report.

Up to now, Shanghai officials have not commented publicly about the strike, a boldly public demonstration of anger over rising consumer prices and fuel price increases in China.

The government is struggling to contain inflation, which hit 5.4 percent in March, magnifying the ruling Communist Party's long-standing jitters about the potential for public resentment over prices, taxes and fees to escalate into protest. [ID:nL3E7FF0AC]

The Party leadership is especially jumpy about threats to social stability following online calls for "Jasmine Revolution" protests inspired by anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world, and has detained dozens of dissidents.

On Friday, a crowd of about 600 people milled about outside an office of a logistics company near the Baoshan Port, one of the city's string of ports. Some threw rocks at trucks whose drivers had not joined the strike, breaking the windows of at least one truck.

Many of the strikers are independent contractors who haul goods to and from the port, and they have demanded that the government do something about rising fuel costs and what some called high fees charged by transport firms.

The Xinhua report about the Shanghai government's steps was in English, and China's tightly controlled state media has otherwise made scant mention of the unrest. (Writing by by Chris Buckley in BEIJING; Editing by Robert Birsel)