A staged protest claiming that a street seller had been beaten to death in China went awry when the man supposedly dead under a white sheet was overcome by the region's heat wave and sprang up to quaff a bottle of water.

"It's too hot. I can't bear it any more," he was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Around 10 men had gathered with a trolley that carried the seller's body, covered by a sheet, in the Hubei provincial capital Wuhan. They were demanding tens of thousands of yuan in compensation for the alleged death, Xinhua said.

The incident drew 300 onlookers and about 80 police officers.

It was not clear how the group intended to press their claims without submitting the body for an investigation and autopsy. In any case, the game was up when the man jumped up from under the sheet.

The group had claimed that city management workers - known as "chengguan" - clashed with them after telling them that their drinks stands were blocking traffic near a subway stop.

Many members of China's public have long resented the heavy-handed tactics of the country's chengguan. Though they have no legal authority to use force, they are often accused of beating people who commit minor infractions in shows of power that have fuelled social tension, triggered riots and aggravated public discontent against the government.