Fixing China’s Mines

During a Lunar New Year visit to the hardscrabble mining town of Fuxin in 2003, Wen Jiabao told a group of miners that China’s leadership was concerned about the coal industry and the lives of its workers. “At present,” the soon-to-be Premier said, “we want to solve the problem of safe coal production.”

That goal still seems a long way off. Last week, a huge explosion ripped through Fuxin’s Sunjiawan mine, killing 213 miners, the worst mine accident reported since the founding of the People’s Republic. The blast was the latest in a series of massive disasters that have prompted government pledges of reform and official recognition that $6 billion needs to be spent improving safety in state-run operations. China’s mines are the world’s deadliest: last year 6,027 coal workers were reported killed in Chinaabout 80 percent of the global totalthough independent observers say the actual number could be three times that.

Officially, annual coal-mine fatalities have dropped by nearly 1,000 since 2002, even as coal output has increased by a third. But despite the gradual improvements, ensuring mine safety remains a daunting challenge. China’s skyrocketing demand for coal to keep its power plants and factories humming has forced one out of every three state-owned mines to operate above capacity, according to the State Administration of Work Safety, and has led many smaller, more dangerous mines to reopen illegally. Independent worker organizations are banned and China’s official trade union is closely tied to the government, leaving miners with few outlets to press for reforms. “You cannot have mine safety without a strong union,” says Robin Munro, research director of the China Labour Bulletin, based in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, mine owners who do double-duty as government-workplace safety inspectors cause a “serious conflict of interest” in enforcing existing regulations, according to Stephen Frost, a research fellow at the City University of Hong Kong. “Until the central government is able to separate the regulatory body from business, it’s going to run into problems.”

Wen told a group of officials he was willing to take responsibility for last week’s blast, according to Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po newspaper. But it will take more than that before Fuxin’s workers feel safer underground.