Blood Coal

I was recently reading through an issue of Time depicting the Chinese coal miners. It is said that officially 5000 coal miners died last year doing thier job, unofficially nobody knows. Human-rights activist think that as many as 20000 miners die in accidents a year and this count does not include the thousands more of China's 5 million miners who die of lung affliction and diseases every year. The awful conditions of the industry has earned it a name, blood coal. Aptly named indeed.

This issue highlights an important issue faced by Beijing:the inability of the central government to get local authorities to follow orders. The clash is between the central government's desires and the local authorities' pressing economic needs. 99% of the time, local wins.

This is a frightening prospect in a country whose future depends on how the economic boom is dealt with. If China continues on this path, its air and water will becime even filthier with its workers-many who work in appalling conditions-will never enjoy the fruits of the economic growth. No matter how enlightened the central government may be, if they fail to bend the local authorities to their wishes, all is still lost. When Beijing announced a plan to force the closure of thousands of small mines, it was ignored and actively blocked. Local authorities see mines as major capital resources. These small mines a re often subcontracted to individuals and with over 17000 mines, supervision by authorities is non-existent.

To maximize profits, mine owners ramp up production levels beyond the sanctioned limit and employ more than the regulated amount of mines while neglecting safety equips and procedures. Local officials are often bribed to turn a blind eye to this and corpses have been known to be shipped to other provinces to escape detection.

These are challenges that the state does not yet know how to meet. So long as China economic grows at its current blistering pace, the countrt's thirst for coal will continue. However there is still hope for the miners as they believe that the central government will do all it can to protect miners.