The Political Economy of Coal Mine Disasters in China: “Your Rice Bowl or Your Life”* Tim Wright

7/22/2019 The Political Economy of Coal Mine Disasters in China: Your Rice Bowl or Your Life* Tim Wright

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The Political Economy of Coal Mine Disastersin China: Your Rice Bowl or Your Life*

Tim Wright

ABSTRACT The conditions of industrial workers have been increasingly eroded in

post-Mao China. This article examines conditions in coal mining: the industry with

the worst health and safety performance in China. After briefly outlining Chinas

record, the article analyses the fundamental causes of the high level of accidents.

Despite many regulations on mine safety, governments at all levels have had great

difficulty in enforcing the law. Because of the important role of township and village

mines in local development, often in areas with few other sources of income,

powerful forces work for the survival of many unsafe small mines. Indeed, the safety

discourse in Chinas press partly reflects the interests of the state mines attempting

to reduce competition by foisting (higher) safety costs on the small mines. The

problem of coal safety will not be solved until Chinas rural population has other,better and safer, ways to increase family incomes so that they have the option to

refuse to risk their lives.

In most societies, changes in the working conditions of the industrial

labour force closely reflect the position of workers within the broader

political economy. Theo Nichols influential work has argued that indus-

trial health and safety, one important aspect of working conditions,

reflects the balance between labour and capital in a society.1 He describes

his work as an attempt to locate industrial injuries within the structure

and dynamics of capitalist society.2

Such an approach can also throwlight on Chinas transitional economy as it moves from socialist planning

towards a capitalist market.

Fatalities from coal mining accidents are among the most important

health and safety issues in China.3 Coal mining accounts for less than 4

per cent of the broadly defined industrial workforce but over 45 per cent

of industrial fatalities.4 This is a serious embarrassment to the leadership,

with the head of Chinas safety bureaucracy admitting in 2001 that

* I would like to thank Chris Bramall, Beverley Hooper, and participants in the School ofEast Asian Studies seminar series and the European Association for Chinese StudiesConference in Moscow for useful comments and suggestions on this article.

1. Theo Nichols, The Sociology of Industrial Injury (London: Mansell PublishingLimited, 1997), pp. 98112.

2. Ibid. p. 10.3. The article does not attempt to cover mining-related diseases, such as pneumoconio-

sis, of which there are over half a million victims. See Tony Fung Kam Lam, Occupationalsafety and health in China, Asian Labour Update, No. 39 (AprilJune 2001), http://www.amrc.org.hk/alu/Alu39/013906.html (16 April 2003).

4. Tabulation of the 2000Population Census of the Peoples Republic of China (Beijing:Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2002), Vol. 2, p. 885; Fu Jianhua, 2001 nian quanguo meikuanganquan shengchan zhuangkuang ji dianxing shigu anli fenxi (The safety situation in Chinascoal mines in 2001 and an analysis of typical accidents), http://www.chinasafety.gov.cn/hy200204081.htm (10 April 2002).

The China Quarterly, 2004


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630 The China Quarterly

fatality rates were eleven times higher than in Russia, and 15 times higher

than in India.5 The regular occurrence of coal mining disasters has

attracted widespread and sometimes sceptical press coverage both

within and outside China. The nations top leadership has called for

action; for example, during New Year 2003, Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao

shared dumplings with coal miners 500 metres underground and urged

officials to give priority to improving coal safety.6

This article builds on Nichols insights to argue that the structure and

dynamics of Chinas socialist market economy are crucial in explaining

its dismal coal safety record. The transition from socialist planning to a

largely market economy has involved a reduction in the states commit-

ment to Chinas urban working class. The workers have lost much of the

previous secure employment, relatively good working conditions and

political prominence that they enjoyed in the old state owned enterprises

(SOEs).7 Both urban workers and the large number of new rural workers

in the township and village enterprises (TVEs) have faced increasing

competitive pressures on their wages and conditions, and are often seen

as losers in the process of Chinas economic reform.8

Chinas complex political economy encompasses a wide range of

industrial operations from large-scale relatively modernized enterprises

in the cities to tiny, unmechanized, operations in the villages. Thus,

Chinas working conditions reflect international precedents ranging from

pre-industrialization to post-Second World War capitalism. In his study

of mining safety in Belgium, Leboutte identifies three stages in the

history of mining accidents9: a pre-industrial phase when there is hardly

any mechanization, when workings are small and scattered and accidents

are of a generally small scale; a phase of industrialization, when the scale

of work increases and the danger of large accidents is therefore greater,

but when those accidents invite official intervention; and a phase ofmechanization, when better safety provisions are implemented and ma-

chines take over many of the most dangerous tasks, so that the accident

rate falls. China is experiencing all three stages at once, from small-scale,

almost individual, pits in the villages, through the bigger TVE mines,

which approximate the phase of industrialization, to the large SOEs,

which represent that of mechanization.

After outlining Chinas record in coal mining safety and briefly

5. Bi fubai geng weixian de shi shenme? Shanxi meikuang shigu pinfa yuanyin touxi(What is more dangerous than corruption? An analysis of the reasons for the frequentaccidents in Shanxi coalmines), Sanlian shenghuo zhoukan (Life Weekly), 5 December 2001,http://news.sina.com.cn/c/20011205/413304.html (19 December 2001).

6. China Central Television, 2 February 2003, http://202.108.249.200/english/news/China/Politics/20030202/100089.html (2 April 2003).

7. See for example Meei-shia Chen and Anita Chan, Chinas market economics incommand: footwear workers health in jeopardy, International Journal of Health Services,Vol. 29, No. 4 (1999), p. 798.

8. See Greg OLeary (ed.), Adjusting to Capitalism: Chinese Workers and the State(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998); Dorothy J. Solinger, Labour market reform and the plightof the laid-off proletariat, The China Quarterly, No. 170 (June 2002), pp. 304326.

9. Rene Leboutte, Mortalite par accident dans les mines de charbon en Belgique auxXIXe-XXe siecles, Revue du Nord, Vol. 73, No. 293 (1991), pp. 73435.


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631The Political Economy of Coal Mine Disasters

Table 1: Fatality Rates in Chinese Coal Mines in International Context

Number Deaths/ Deaths/ Deaths/1000

Period of deaths year million tons workers*

United States 19922002 434 39 0.04 0.31

India (Coal India,

large mines) 19922001 1,020 128 0.50 0.32Britain 19631979 1,922 113 0.75 0.33

China (large state

mines) 19922001 6,220 622 1.19 0.53

China (all mines) 19922001 59,543 5,954 4.99

China (TVE mines) 19922001 41,120 4,112 9.13 2.20

Note:* 199298 for China; unweighted average 199599 for India.

Sources:For the Chinese figures see sources to Table 2; National Coal Board, Statistical Tables

1978/9 (London: National Coal Board, 1979), pp. 34; United States Department of Labor,Mine Safety and Health Administration, Coal fatalities for 1900 through 2002,

http://www.msha.gov/centurystats/coalstats.htm (24 June 2003); US Department of Energy,Annual US coal supply and demand, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/a7tab.html(24 June 2003); Table, No. of accidents, fatalities & fatality rates (19751999),http://www.coalindia.nic.in/safety.htm (23 June 2003); Government of India, Ministry ofCoal and Mines, Department of Coal, Annual report, 20012002, ch. 12, http://coal.nic.in/chap120102.pdf, p. 6 (27 November 2002).

examining the regulatory environment, this article analyses in greater

detail the reasons for Chinas poor safety record in both SOE and TVE

mines,10 with particular reference to changes in the broader political

economy.

Chinas Coal Safety Record

As with other Chinese statistics, those for coal mining fatalities are

unreliable.11 Mine owners and local governments have many incentives to

conceal accidents, and this has become a major concern in Chinas

press.12 Actual numbers of fatalities are almost certainly much higher

than those reported. Nevertheless, no conceivable correction of the figures

would be likely to throw doubt on four key conclusions: Chinas mines

are the most dangerous in the world; fatalities vary systematically be-

tween different types of mine; a safety record that was improving in the

10. Unless otherwise stated, SOE mines refers to the mines previously under directcentral control. In 1998 control over these mines was devolved to the provinces; see ElspethThomson, The Chinese Coal Industry: An Economic History (London: Routledge/Curzon,2003), p. 165. There was also a smaller sector under county or provincial state control.

11. For the choice of fatality figures as an indicator of mine safety see Nichols,IndustrialInjury, pp. 7, 126.

12. See for example Xinhua, Yinman zhenxiang zhuzhou weinue: bi meikuang shigugeng kepa de shijiu renxin (Colluding in concealingreality even more agonizing than coalmining accidents), http://news.sina.com.cn/c/20020519/1835580002.html (23 May2002).


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1980s largely ceased to do so from the mid-1990s; and China has failed

to prevent the incidence of major mining disasters.

As Table 1 shows, Chinas fatality rate is very high by international

standards.13 Reflecting the highly differentiated and generally backward

level of mechanization in Chinese mines, current fatality rates find their

comparators in earlier periods of European history: even for SOE mines,

fatality rates per million tons of output have been running at around 50

per cent higher than in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, while those in

TVE mines are more reminiscent of Belgium in the early 20th century or

of Britain in the third quarter of the 19th.14

Secondly, fatality rates vary widely between different types of mine.

As Table 2 shows, the large, centrally controlled state mines have by far

the lowest rates of fatalities. Mines run by state organs at county or

provincial level are substantially less safe. Finally, although the Inter-

national Labour Organization has found little evidence to say whether

small-scale mining is more dangerous than large-scale mining,15 Chinas

generally small TVE mines have registered fatality rates around seven or

eight times higher than the large state mines.Thirdly, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the safety record of all types

of mine particularly the SOEs during the 1980s was improving,

though the growing proportion of the total industry accounted for by TVE

mines slowed overall progress.16 As Table 2 indicates, however, this

improvement seems to have ceased, or at best slowed, in the 1990s.17

Finally, since 1994 China has experienced an annual average of more

than two major disasters, each costing more than 50 lives. This indicates

that China has failed to solve safety problems overcome long ago in

Europe. In Britain over a century ago, the introduction of safety lamps

and the increased insistence on mechanical ventilation in gassy mines

sharply reduced the incidence both of gas or coal dust explosions and oflarge-scale disasters.18 In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both the

number and the percentage of deaths caused by explosions fell almost

13. The extraordinarily high productivity of US coal mines, most of which are open-cast,means that death ratesper million tons are very low. Accidents perworker are, however, quitehigh, reflecting an overall poor safety record; see Peter Dorman, Markets and Mortality:Economics, Dangerous Work, and the Value of Human Life (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1996), pp. 2225.

14. Roy Church, The History of the British Coal Industry, Volume 3: 18301913:Victorian Pre-eminence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 586; Leboutte, Mortalite, p.711.

15. International Labour Organization, Social and Labour Issues in Small-scale Mines(Geneva: International Labour Office, 1999), p. 13.

16. Zhongguo laodong renshi nianjian (1949.101987) (Chinese Labour and PersonnelYearbook, October 19491987) (Beijing: Laodong renshi chubanshe, 1989), p. 802;DangdaiZhongguo de laodong baohu (Labour Protection in Contemporary China) (Beijing: DangdaiZhongguo chubanshe, 1992), p. 170.

17. The apparent very sharp increase in fatality rates in the TVE mineswas arithmeticallythe product of a basically constant number of fatalities and a decline in output from almost600 million tons in 1995 to around 250 million tons in 2001. It is likely that the decline inoutput is considerably over-stated.

18. John Braithwaite, To Punish or Persuade: Enforcement of Coal Mine Safety (Albany,NY: State University of New York Press, 1985), pp. 15, 1718.


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Table 2: Fatality Rates in Chinese Coal Mines, 19702002

Fatalities/million tons

Key state owned minesTownship

Large mine Local state and

All fatalities owned villageYear/s All mines fatalities only mines mines

1970 8.20 7.11 10.50 9.03

1980 8.17 4.53 10.19 16.88

19811985 7.55

19861990 6.89

1990 6.76 1.43 9.06 12.07

19921995 4.95 1.83 1.51 4.73 7.91

19962000 5.06 1.67 1.19 4.16 9.31

2001 5.20 1.59 1.26 4.63 14.82

2002 4.64 1.26 3.79 11.73

2003 4.17 1.08 3.13 9.62

Notes:For the years 1992 to 2001, the figures are my own calculations from data on casualties

and on output; sometimes these differ slightly from other figures in Chinese sources. Thereare separate figures for accidents in small pits operated by state mines only from 1994. Thesesmall pits were (supposed to have been) closed in 2001.Sources:

Wang Qingyi, Zhongguo meitan gongye: yanbian ji qianjing (shang) (Chinas coalindustry: development and prospects [1]) Zhongguo meitan (China Coal), Vol. 27, No. 1(January 2001), p. 11; Li Wenjun,Quanguo meikuang anquan shengchan zhuangkuang fenxi

ji fazhan duice (An analysis of the safety situation in Chinas coal mines, and proposalsfor future development), Zhongguo meitan, Vol. 27, No. 6 (June 2001), p. 53; Zhongguomeitan gongye nianjian (Chinese Coal Industry Yearbook) 19942000; Guojia meikuang

anquan jiancha ju, anquan jiancha si, 2000 nian 112 yue quanguo meikuang anquanshengchan qingkuang (The safety situation in Chinas coal mines, January to December2000), http://www.chinacoal-safety.gov.cn/aqtj6.htm (31 October 2001); Fu Jianhua, 2001nian quanguo meikuang anquan shengchan zhuangkuang ji dianxing shigu anli fenxi (Thesafety situation in Chinas coal mines in 2001 and an analysis of typical accidents),http://www.chinasafety.gov.cn/hy200204081.htm (10 April 2002); Zhongguo meitan bao(China Coal News), 16 January 2003, http://www.cinic.org.cn/img/disp.asp?id3&baoshezhongguomeitanbao&banci1 (16 January 2003); Quanguo meikuang anquanshengchan dianhua huiyi 1 yue 14 ri zhaokai (National coal mine safety telephoneconference opens, 14 January), http://www.chinacoal-safety.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/200401/14/content_1638.htm (14 January 2004).

continuously, from an average of 263 a year (25.4 per cent of the total)in 187382 to 52 a year (5.3 per cent) in 192332, while most fatalities

came to occur as a result of roof falls and involved only a small number

of workers at a time.19

By contrast, explosions have continued to occur regularly in China,

causing heavy loss of life. Since 1991, gas explosions have caused

between 71 and 83 per cent of fatalities in accidents involving three

19. P.E.H. Hair, Mortality from violence in British Coal-Mines, 180050, EconomicHistory Review, Vol. 21, No. 3 (1968), p. 554.


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Table 3: Proximate Causes of Coal Mining Fatalities in China in the

1990s and in Europe, 18731932

Percentage of total fatalities

China, 19941999UK Belgium

Cause Total Large SOEs TVEs 18731932 18811913

Explosions 48.8 41.2 52.9 13.0 17.7

Roof falls 29.1 27.2 27.1 50.7 39.0

Coal transport 6.8 15.4 4.9 19.3 15.9

Others 15.3 16.2 15.1 17.1 23.7

Notes:These figures were not all compiled on exactly the same basis.

Sources:Chinese Coal Industry Yearbook, 19962000; Mines Department, Eighteenth

Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines for the Year Ended 31st December, 1938(London: HMSO, 1940), p. 207; Rene Leboutte, Mortalite par accident dans les

mines de charbon en Belgique aux XIXe-XXe siecles, Revue du Nord, Vol. 73, No.293 (1991), p. 719.

workers or more.20 As shown in Table 3, even in the SOE sector

explosions account for a much higher proportion of total fatalities than in

early 20th-century Europe. Still more vulnerable are the larger TVE

mines, reflecting Lebouttes phase of industrialization, with substantial

numbers of workers working in a relatively un-mechanized and unregu-

lated environment. In Guizhou between 1966 and 1985 gas caused 70 per

cent of fatalities in TVE mines and only 27 per cent in SOE mines;roof-falls were responsible for 16 per cent and 34 per cent respectively.21

The Role of Government Regulation

In the United States and Britain, state regulation brought about long-

term reductions in fatality rates.22 After reviewing neo-classical theories

arguing that regulation will only make everyone worse off, Dorman

concludes that it has consistently been the most effective strategy for

improving the lot of the worst-off workers.23 In China since 1949 the

state has been closely concerned with safety in the mining industry. Asthe chief engineer of Chinas state mines wrote: In the darkness of

pre-communist China, the safety of coal miners had no guarantee. But

20. Zhongguo meitan bao (China Coal News) (hereafter ZMB), 29 August 2002,http://www.cinic.org.cn/img/disp.asp?id2&baoshe zhongguomeitanbao &banci1 (2September 2002).

21. Guizhou sheng zhi: meitan gongye zhi (Gazetteer of Guizhou: The Coal Industry)(Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 240.

22. Braithwaite, To Punish or Persuade, p. 83; Nichols, Industrial Injury, p. 79.23. Dorman, Markets and Mortality, p. 128.


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after 1949 the working class became the masters of the country, and coal

mining safety was given a high priority.24

The narrative on government policy and legislation on coal mining

safety therefore closely follows that on Chinas broader political develop-

ment.25 During the 1950s, new institutions were established, legislation

enacted and accidents sharply reduced, but the Great Leap Forward led to

the neglect of safety work in a rush for production. After a short-lived

improvement in the early 1960s, the politics of the Cultural Revolution

again led to neglect of safety work and a higher accident rate. After the

beginning of reform, the basic policies, laws and institutions for coal

safety were re-established during the 1980s, and have been further refined

in the 1990s and beyond.26 Among the hierarchy of laws and regulations

in force, the Labour Law (1994), the Mineral Resources Law (1996) and

the Coal Law (1996) are the most broad-ranging. The Mining Safety Law

(1992) and the Mining Safety Implementation Regulations (1996) are

more specific. The Coal Mining Safety Inspection Regulations (2000), the

Methods of Managing Coal Production Permits (1994), the Regulations

for Managing Township and Village Mines (1994), the Coal Mine SafetyRules (1992, new set of rules in force from November 2001) and the

Small Coal Mine Safety Rules (1996) stipulate more detailed require-

ments for safety. Even this list does not exhaust all the various pieces of

legislation, and in most cases local regulations supplement the national

laws.

These laws cover two broad areas: technology and management.27

They stipulate minimum technological standards, such as the need for

proper ventilation involving at least two shafts (one for the ingress of air,

one for the outflow) in order to reduce the incidence of explosions. In

terms of management, they require the establishment of safety depart-

ments under the direct leadership of the line managers and a clear systemof responsibility for safety, and specify a role for the trade unions and

procedures for reporting and dealing with accidents. Finally, a series of

government inspection institutions at all levels monitor and enforce the

implementation of the regulations.

A range of penalties, both administrative and criminal, back up the

laws. Even without any accident having occurred, mine inspectors can

issue warnings, impose fines, recommend the closure of mines, or request

24. Zhao Quanfu, Caiqu kexue zhili cuoshi nuli shixian meikuang anquan shengchan(Actively promote coal minesafety by adopting scientific measures),in Peng Shiji and FengWeimin (eds.),Zhongguo meitan gongye sishi nian (Forty Years of the ChineseCoal Industry)(Beijing: Meitan gongye chubanshe, 1990), p. 96.

25. See for example ibid. and Dangdai Zhongguo de meitan gongye (The Coal Industryin Contemporary China) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1988), pp. 23139.

26. The Coal Industry in Contemporary China, pp. 23537; Labour Protection inContemporary China, pp. 178180; ZMB, 18 October 2001, http://202.84.17.111/baoshe/mtb/20011018/GB/mtb^2976^1^mtb101819.btk (19 October 2001).

27. Zhou Qiping, Shilun meikuang anquan shengchan fa tixi (On the legislativesystem for coal mining safety), Meitan jingji yanjiu (Studies on the Economy of Coal),August 2001, pp. 2324; Labour Protection in Contemporary China, pp. 178180.


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the authorities to impose administrative or legal penalties.28 During a

province-wide safety inspection, for example, the Henan safety office

issued a small number of on-the-spot fines, a much larger number of

orders to rectify the situation, plus 24 orders to stop work on the coalface

concerned and 36 orders to stop using pieces of equipment.29 Severe

criminal and other sanctions are also frequently imposed afteraccidents30:

for example, after an accident in Zhongyang county, Shanxi in November

2001, mine officers were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging

from three to seven years.31

The Political Economy of Coal Mining Fatalities

Despite the efforts of the government and Dormans argument for the

effectiveness of regulation, Chinas accident rate has remained worry-

ingly high. Geology and technology have played some part: 48 per cent

of Chinas SOE mines have a high level of gas, and the increasing depth

of the mines has contributed to the growing proportion of deaths due toexplosions.32 Nevertheless, European experience has shown that these

problems are largely soluble, and Chinas failure yet to solve them

reflects broader political and economic considerations.

In a general theoretical sense, the determinants of industrial safety can

be analysed on a number of levels. Even abstracting from theorists who

blame the victims for accident proneness or carelessness (one common

issue is that of workers smoking underground), organizational and com-

munication problems are often cited as the causes of specific accidents. 33

However, what Nichols calls the determinants of the determinants can

mostly be found in the political and economic system, and in the struggle

between different groups within that system.34 Even Braithwaite, whoemphasizes organizational issues, admits that corporate violations (of

28. Wu Yanyun, Qiantan meikuang anquan jiancha zhong de xingzheng chufa wenti(On administrative sanctions in coal safety inspection), Zhongguo meitan, Vol. 27, No. 5(May 2001), pp. 5051.

29. ZMB 14 March 2002, http://202.84.17.111/baoshe/mtb/20020314/GB/mtb^3044^1^mtb031413.btk (15 March 2002)

30. Braithwaite, however, believes that it is far more important to impose penalties forviolating safety regulations in the absence of an accident; indeed, he recommends againstprosecution after an accident (on the grounds that the social opprobrium after naming andshaming will be so strong). Braithwaite, To Punish or Persuade, p. 140.

31. ZMB 19 January 2002, http://202.84.17.111/baoshe/mtb/20020119/GB/mtb^3025^2^mtb011923.htm (22 January 2002).

32. Wang Xianzheng, Yi fangzhi wasi zaihai wei zhongdian kaichuang meikuanganquan shengchan gongzuo xin jumian (A new situation in coal safety focusing on avoidinggas disasters), ZMB, 31 August 2002, http://www.cinic.org.cn/img/disp.asp?id1&baoshe zhongguomeitanbao &banci2 (3 September 2002).

33. See for example Braithwaite, To Punish or Persuade, p. 39; ZMB, 24 October 2000,http://www.cinic.com.cn/mtb/20001024/GB/mtb^2784^1^mtb102413.htm (26 October2000).

34. Nichols, Industrial Injury, pp. 1112, 103 and passim; Michael Wallace, Dying forcoal: the struggle for health and safety conditions in American coal mining, 193082, SocialForces, Vol. 66, No. 2 (December 1987), pp. 336364.


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safety regulations) lie more in the domain of calculated risks taken by

rational people.35

The incidence of fatalities in Chinese coal mines has been intimately

connected with the countrys political economy. The improvement in coal

safety after 1949 reflected the establishment of a relatively privileged

status group of urban state workers.36 Although accident rates in SOEs in

Maos China were certainly higher than those in later periods, the

mechanization of the large mines in the context of relatively soft budget

constraints had at least the potential substantially to improve safety.37

Political movements rather than economic fluctuations led to temporary

reversals of this trend during the pre-reform era.

In the post-Mao period, Chinas political economy has centrally in-

volved the rise of rural industry the TVE sector using Chinas

massive reserve army of labour to produce cheap goods with low-cost

technology to compete in world and domestic markets. As Anita Chan

has documented, such enterprises tend to pay low wages in poor condi-

tions.38 At the same time, however, they provide millions of rural workers

with incomes considerably higher than they can earn from agriculture,and constitute an important source of revenue for many local govern-

ments, which in turn support their growth. Finally they make a key

contribution to the development of many rural areas and to the achieve-

ment of a comfortable standard of living (xiaokang).

The rise of the TVE sector has had major implications for the SOEs

and their workers, by greatly increasing competition and leading to a

long-term decline in profits.39 At least potentially, this pressurizes the

SOEs to cut costs and reduce the large welfare component of worker

incomes, threatening the privileged position of Chinas industrial work-

ers. Indeed, since 1978, but in particular since the late 1990s, the Chinese

state has progressively weakened its previous ties to the urban workers,and retracted its commitment to defend their privileges. Up to the late

1990s, SOEs were partly protected from these forces by the soft budget

constraint,40 and indeed that period saw substantial increases in real

wages and other worker benefits.41 However, Zhu Rongjis programme

for SOE reform then began to lead to massive lay-offs of industrial

workers as enterprises either cut their costs or went bankrupt. This

35. Braithwaite, To Punish or Persuade, p. 87.36. See Andrew G. Walder, The remaking of the Chinese working-class, 19491981,

Modern China, Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1984), pp. 348.37. For the positive relationship between mechanization and safety see Nichols,

Industrial Injury, pp. 11415, 181. For another industry in China, see Chen and Chan,Chinas market economics, p. 798.

38. Anita Chan (ed.), Chinas Workers Under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in aGlobalizing Economy (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), esp. pp. 82136.

39. Barry Naughton, Implications of the state monopoly over industry and itsrelaxation, Modern China, Vol. 18, No. 1 (January 1992), pp. 1441.

40. See for example Edward S. Steinfeld, Forging Reform in China: The Fate ofState-owned Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

41. Nicholas R. Lardy, Chinas Unfinished Economic Revolution (Washington DC:Brookings Institution Press, 1998), pp. 4950.


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situation sharpened the contradiction between urban industrial enterprises

and workers on the one hand, and TVEs and their workforce on the other.

The history of the coal industry reflects this general political economy,

with rapid growth of TVE production in relatively small and unmecha-

nized mines since 1978.42 Low-cost competition kept coal prices down

and prevented SOEs from benefiting from the winding down of price

controls in the early 1990s. In the late 1990s, the industry experienced

static demand and falling prices and the SOEs posted large losses. The

governments response was to attempt to cut TVE production, using

safety as the main pretext, in order to raise prices and improve the

profitability of the SOEs. It was only, however, from early 2000 that

prices, and the situation of the SOEs, began to improve.

The SOE sector. The economic situation of SOE mines, as of SOEs in

general, has been one of increasing price competition from TVEs,

hardening budget constraints, especially from the late 1990s, and growing

conflicts of interest between workers and managers.43 In this situation, the

forces leading to the improvement of safety (particularly the government,the press and the unions) have been weaker than those working in the

opposite direction. Even the central governments commitment to safety

was perceived by some observers to have been weakened by the 1998

transfer of responsibility for worker safety from the Ministry of Labour

to the State Administration of Work Safety Supervision under the State

Economic and Trade Commission, because of a possible conflict between

responsibility for production and for safety.44

Chinas burgeoning press has played a role in bringing the issue to

public notice, and thus pressurizing the government to take action.

Reporters descend on the sites of major accidents in both SOE and TVE

mines and often investigate the background; many of the sources for thisarticle originate in such reports. However, mine managers often try to

hamper the investigations. For example, after a serious accident at

Muchonggou in Guizhou in February 2003, the authorities threatened

workers if they talked to reporters, and denied reporters access to mine

officers, forcibly expelling them from the hospital when they tried to talk

to injured miners.45 While restricting the range of reporting, this also

probably indicates that mine authorities fear the power of the press.

The trade unions, despite their formal responsibilities, have not played

42. The major study of Chinas coal industry since 1949 is Thomson, The Chinese Coal

Industry. For TVESOE relations see Tim Wright, Competition and complementarity:township and village mines and the state sector in Chinas coal industry, China Information,Vol. 14, No. 1 (2000), pp. 113130.

43. Kate Hannan, Industrial Change in China: Economic Restructuring and ConflictingInterests (London: Routledge, 1998), ch. 2.

44. Zhongguo meikuang de sandao anquan guanli nanti (Three difficult problems forsafety management in Chinas coal mines), 21 shiji jingji baodao (21st Century EconomicReport), 9 July 2002, http://www.china5e.com/news/meitan/200207/200207090030.html (9July 2002).

45. Tian Yue, Guizhou yi meikuang baozha 38 ren siwang, jizhe caifang kunnanchongchong (Thirty-eight killed in a Guizhou coal mine explosion many obstacles placedin the way of visiting reporters), Shenghuo xinbao (Life News), 27 February 2003,http://www.china5e.com/news/meitan/200302/200302270003.html (9 April 2003).


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a strong role in protecting workers interests. In general, the official

unions are closely integrated into the corporatist state, while unofficialunions are ruthlessly suppressed.46 One miner described the unions as

bullshit, and went on:

They [the trade union] talked like well, isnt it all right that you got some money

back? How much do you want? The victims families said our family members

were killed and you thought I wanted just money? They couldnt live again, no matterhow much you pay us. But sometimes the people in the trade union simply shut

them out of the office and ignore them outside.47

Even in the UK, Nichols finds only a weak relationship between levels of

unionization and worker safety,48 and the same is the case in China.49

Set against these relatively weak forces working for improved safety

has been the need for SOE managers to reduce costs in order to adapt to

the increasingly competitive environment and hardening budget con-

straints. SOE cost cutting has affected safety in a variety of ways.

Directly it has involved skimping on a range of safety provisions.50 An

article in Zhongguo meitan (China Coal) reported that expenditures on

safety during the Ninth Five-year Plan (19962000) were running at onlyhalf the planned level, with the result that many obsolete pieces of

equipment were not being replaced, leading to a decline in safety

conditions, especially in the area of ventilation.51 Many of these problems

were evident at the Jixi mine, site of a major disaster in June 2002. Seen

by the Chinese government as among the largest natural loss-making

mines,52 Jixi was running up to five years and 400 million yuan behind

with wages, and 500 million yuan behind with safety expenditures. Lack

of productive investment had left its equipment equivalent to 1960s or

1970s levels. Because most of the experienced workers had left, much of

the workforce had been recently recruited from the villages. But reducingthe intensity of work in order to improve safety was not an option: even

to pay basic wages, the management had to push to maximize pro-

duction.53

46. Anita Chan, Revolution or corporatism? Workers and trade unions in post-MaoChina, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 29 (January 1993), pp. 3162.

47. What can we claim after the blast? A miners son in Sichuan talks about injusticeat coalmines, China Labour Bulletin (hereafter CLB), 27 July 2002, http://www.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article_pv.adp?article_id3129 (2 September 2002).

48. Nichols, Industrial Injury, pp. 149155.49. Daniel Z. Ding, Keith Goodalland MalcolmWarner, Theimpactof economicreform

on the role of trade unions in Chinese enterprises,International Journal of Human ResourceManagement, Vol. 13, No. 3 (May 2002), pp. 431449.

50. For an explicit reference to the link between TVE competition and low safetyinvestment by SOE mines, see ZMB 31 July 2001, http://202.84.17.112/mtb/20010731/GB/mtb^2935^3^mtb073135.htm (1 August 2001).

51. Insufficient investment a major cause of accidents, translated in CLB, 8 June 2001,http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article.adp?article_id1077 (4 September 2001). See alsoZMB, 17 May 2001, http://202.84.17.112/mtb/20010517/GB/mtb^2892^2^mtb051726.htm (17 May 2001).

52. Peter Nolan, China and the Global Business Revolution (Houndmills: Palgrave,2001), p. 730.

53. Guoyou meikuang: anquan zhi wai de kunjing (State-owned coal mines:difficulties apart from safety), Nanfang zhoumo (Southern Weekend), 7 August 2002,http://www.china5e.com/news/meitan/200208/200208070070.html (8 August 2002).


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Cost cutting also lies behind the increasing practice of contracting out

the operation of the mines, which elsewhere has tended to detract from

work safety by allowing each party to shift responsibility on to others.54

For example, an old worker at Jixi attributed the inattention to safety

precautions to the contracting out of coal faces to gang bosses. 55 Neither

the contractors nor the mine authorities were willing to pay for the

necessary safety equipment and precautions.56

Less directly, cost cutting was involved in the opening of small pits

often by labour service or diversified economy companies in order

to expand production cheaply without major new investment but also

often to provide employment for workers laid off as the parent enterprise

shed staff. These pits caused serious safety problems and were the sites

of several major disasters, such as that at Hegang, Heilongjiang, where 54

were killed in May 2001.57 In response, the government decided from the

end of June to close all such pits.58 In 2001, 739 pits, mostly in Shanxi,

Heilongjiang or Jilin, were closed.59

Within this situation, both downswings and upswings in the economic

cycle were problematic. The downswing of the late 1990s increased thepressure on SOEs to cut costs, and reduced the resources available for

investment in safety. Nor did the upswing from 2000 improve the

situation. In the West, the incidence of industrial accidents has tended to

be positively correlated with the business cycle, because of the pressure

to increase production as business improves.60 Similarly in China, a

leading official pointed out that in better economic times both SOE and

TVE mines strain to increase production and workers work extra shifts to

win bonuses, so that safety takes a back seat. He concluded: the more

coal prices rise and the better the economic situation is for coal enter-

prises, the greater the effort the government must put into safety. 61

54. Nichols,Industrial Injury, p. 95; Dorman,Markets and Mortality, p. 19; Miners paythe price of privatization, CLB, 4 April 2001, http://www.china-labour.org.hk/iso/arti-cle_pv.adp?article_id1168 (3 April 2002) .

55. Three difficult problems for safety management; Subcontracted mines leave noroom for safety from a Jixi miner (2), broadcast by CLB, 6 July 2002, http://www.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article_pv.adp?article_id2718 (2 September 2002).

56. Why the Jixi mine blast? An interview with a Jixi coal miner (2), CLB, 22 June2002, http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article.adp?article_id2678 (19 July 2002).

57. Chinesenewsnet, 9 April 2002, http://www2.chinesenewsnet.com/cgi-bin/news-fetch.cgi?unidocbig5&srcSinoNews/Mainland/cna-176284.html (10 April 2002)

58. Anquan shigu pinchu, woguo jiang guanbi quanbu meikuang kuangban xiaojing(Because of frequent accidents, China will close all small pits operated by large mines),China Coal Information Network (hereafter CCIN), 23 May 2001, http://www.chinacoal.gov.cn/coal/jryw/0523x1.htm (23 May 2001)

59. 2001 nian guanbi guoyou zhongdian meikuang ziban xiaojing mingdan (List ofsmall pits operatedby state mines closed in 2001), CCIN, http://www.chinacoal.gov.cn/coal/hygl/jjyx/jjyx010806.htm (19 April 2002)

60. Nichols, Industrial Injury, pp. 128129, 137; Dorman, Markets and Mortality, p. 15.61. Xu Yi daibiao tichu, meijia shangzhang shi geng yao zhongshi anquan shengchan

(Xu Yi points up the even greater need to stress safety in a period of rising coal prices),CCIN, 13 March 2002, http://www.chinacoal.gov.cn/coal/jryw/020313x1.htm (15 March2002)


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The TVE sector. The balance between forces working for and against

safety is even more complex in TVE mines, where the most serious safety

problems reside. Cost cutting has been central to the success of these

mines, as it was for Britains traditional capitalists (as identified by

Dwyer), who employed a labour intensive mode of production where

safety expenditures were pared to the minimum.62 Similarly, Chinas

TVE mines skimp on safety standards and training: crucially, ventilation

provisions, whether in the form of mechanical ventilation or of extra

shafts to allow for circulation of air, have been far inferior to those

provided in the state sector.63 One official graphically described the perils

of working underground in the small mines, where lighting was by the

occasional incandescent lamp, fans for ventilation were only switched on

briefly every 20 minutes or half-an-hour, and coal faces as high as

churches had no timber support.64 In addition, the TVE mines use

relatively untrained workers who have recently transferred from agricul-

ture. While there are many problems in blaming the victims for

accidents, in general newly employed workers tend to have higher injury

rates than more experienced ones.65

The low level of safety consciousnessamong the miners (which, however, is structural rather than contingent)

in TVEs does make some contribution to their high accident rate.

In 1997 the central government launched a major campaign to improve

safety in the TVE mines. Supporters of the campaign included the SOE

mines, which used it as a weapon of competition to suppress their rivals.

Similarly, Dwyer interprets the history of safety legislation in British coal

mining as an attempt by industrial capitalists to reduce low-cost

competition from traditional capitalists.66 Such an interpretation fits

quite easily with the Chinese case, with the difference being the re-

emergence of the traditional capitalists in the TVE sector. Thus the

campaigns agenda was not simply to improve safety in TVE mines butto close pits and reduce output in order to raise prices and improve the

SOEs financial position.67

However, the campaign faced strong opposition from a broad coalition

of local interests, which illustrates the difficulties of enhancing safety in

the sector. As over many other issues, such as fiscal restraint or environ-

mental protection, this coalition made it difficult for the central state to

impose its will.68 In the case of coal, the campaign challenged not only

62. Tom Dwyer, Life and Death at Work: Industrial Accidents as a Case of SociallyProduced Error(New York: Plenum Press, 1991), ch. 1.

63. The coal miners dark fate, Los Angeles Times, 23 January 2002, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-012302coal.story (24 January 2002).

64. ZMB 27 March 2001, http://www.cinic.com.cn/ZMB/20010327/GB/ZMB^2867^1^ZMB032719.htm (28 March 2001).

65. Nichols, Industrial Injury, p. 128.66. Dwyer, Life and Death at Work, ch. 1.67. See for example the State Economic and Trade Commission order No. 457 (2001),

CCIN, http://www.chinacoal.gov.cn/coal/hygl/jjyx/jjyx_16.htm (19 April 2002); Thomson,The Chinese Coal Industry, pp. 167169; Wright, Competition and complementarity, pp.12627.

68. Jean C. Oi, Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 189190.


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the low-cost mode of production but even the very existence of the TVE

mines themselves, so that not only owners and operators, but also many

local governments and even workers joined the opposition.

As with other TVE enterprises, the mines were closely linked to local

governments in a nexus described by Jean Oi as local state corpo-

ratism.69 Fiscal reforms during the 1980s made many local governments

dependent on revenue from TVEs to balance their books. The Jiawang

township in Xuzhou, where 92 miners were killed in an explosion in

2001, received 30 per cent of its revenue from small coal pits.70 In other

cases, the dependence was less direct, in that local coal was needed for

other industries crucial to local development. For example, the tobacco

drying industry in Maotian, Hubei, found it far cheaper to buy coal from

illegal local mines than from legal mines further afield. 71 Such consider-

ations are often (not entirely accurately) categorized in the Chinese press

as local protectionism.72 As a result, county or township level cadres

often tolerate the illegal reopening of mines, or even give licences to

mines that do not meet the criteria.

The actual operators of the mines, private or collective, also had astrong interest in their continued and successful operation. While the

great majority (over 85 per cent and increasing in the late 1990s) of the

mines were formally under collective ownership, in practice the distinc-

tion between private and collective was often blurred. On the one hand,

even when a mine was formally defined as collective, it was often

contracted out to an individual operator.73 On the other, private owners

were still mostly former officials and their relations,74 and they remained

deeply imbedded in the structure of local state corporatism. Many local

and provincial officials held shares even in illegal mines.75 In the Meng-

nanzhuang mine in Shanxi, site of a major disaster in March 2003, the

largest investor was the head of the city coal bureau; although he hadearlier been ordered to close the mine, he tried to dump responsibility on

the mine manager.76 Where they could be identified, private

69. Classically in Jean C. Oi, Fiscal reform and the economic foundations of local statecorporatism in China, World Politics, Vol. 45, No. 1 (October 1992), pp. 99126.

70. See Yao ming haishi yao fanwan guanyu Xuzhou meikuang baozha de sikao(Your rice bowl or your life thoughts on theexplosion at the Xuzhou coal mine), Sinacom,28 July 2001, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/20010728/314398.html (26 April 2002).

71. Zhongguo xinwenwang, 19 March 2002, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/20020319/1457514671.html (3 April 2002).

72. As suggested by Professor Li Qiang of Qinghua University, see Your rice bowl oryour life.

73. See for example Luo Wenjing Gongtou wei duochan liang dun mei zangsong 40yutiaoming (Foreman buries more than 40 miners in order to produce two more tons ofcoal), http://news.fm365.com/xinwen/shehui/20000426/50400.htm (9 April 2003).

74. Jonathan Unger, The Transformation of Rural China (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe,2002), pp. 14345.

75. Chinese mines exploit workers desperation, Washington Post, 9 September 2001,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A605302001Sep8.html (4 April 2002).

76. Women bu yao dai xue de mei! Shanxi 3.22 teda wasi baozha shigu diaocha (Wedont want bloody coal an investigation of the 22 March major gas explosion in Shanxi),Xinhua wang, 27 March 2003, http://www.china5e.com/news/meitan/200303/200303270039.html (9 April 2003).


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owners made an easy target and were often characterized as interested in

money but not in lives.77 At Mengnanzhuang, it was reported that, an

hour before the explosion, workers had smelt gas and tried to leave, but

were ordered back into the mine by the boss.78

Workers in the TVE mines had an ambiguous attitude towards safety

issues. In the aftermath of the 2001 Xuzhou disaster, the China Central

Television Economy Half-Hour programme put the dilemma of work-

ers considering working down TVE mines in the words your rice bowl

or your life. To some extent the workers were attracted by the pay, and,

when reporters asked villagers why they worked in such a dangerous

environment, they replied that the wages were high.79 However, the idea

that safety campaigns embody upper income groups impos[ing] their

job risk preferences on the poor, as Viscusi suggests,80 involves many

unrealistic assumptions about full employment and compensating

wages.81 In general, the situation of Chinas TVE workers, under im-

mense pressure from a massive reserve army of labour, is much closer to

the situation described by Dorman: The fundamental problem is that

workers are rendered vulnerable by the fear of losing their jobs, and, inthe absence of regulation, this prevents them from demanding and

achieving safe working conditions.82 Rather than being compensated

precisely for increased risk by higher wages, differences in the level of

risk faced by workers correspond to the other differences in their life

chances and thus compound them.83 Similarly, Nichols argues that

those who have little scope to exercise preferences should be afforded

the protection that can only be bestowed through collective means.84 For

China, Martin King Whyte perceptively sums up the situation:

Two key factors, however, undermine the power of TVE workers to demand

improvements in their working conditions: the heavy stress local authorities place on

attracting new investment and making local TVEs profitable and the fact that a

reserve army of the unemployed exists other villagers. Most rural cultivators would

prefer Dickensian industrial working conditions to a life of agricultural toil. 85

Although Dorman argues that even non-unionized workers often mobi-

77. After the Xuzhou disaster of July 2001, one villager blamed it on the too cruel heartof the mine owner; see Renmin ribao (Peoples Daily), 26 July 2001, http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/GB/shehui/47/20010726/521047.html (3 April 2002).

78. Miners fleeing escaping gas forced down into mine shaft shortly before massiveexplosion kills 72 of them, CLB, 31 March 2003, http://www.china-labour.org.hk/iso/arti-cle.adp?article_id4099 (11 April 2003).

79. See Your rice bowl or your life.80. W. K. Viscusi, Risk by Choice: Regulating Health and Safety in the Workplace

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 80.81. Dorman, Markets and Mortality, passim.82. Ibid. p. 156.83. Ibid. p. 21.84. Nichols, Industrial Injury, p. 71; a widow of a miner killed in Shanxi expressed it

in these terms: Who told us to be poor? He had no choice, see The coal miners dark fate.85. MartinKing Whyte, Thechanging role of workers, in Merle Goldmanand Roderick

MacFarquhar (eds.), The Paradox of Chinas Post-Mao Reforms (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1999), p. 181.


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lize around safety issues,86 there is little evidence of pressure from TVE

mine workers to improve safety. That workers are not happy about the

situation is shown by the reaction after accidents such as when victims

families beat up the owner of an illegal small mine in Jilin where 30

workers were killed in 200287 but even after accidents workers realize

they have few if any alternatives. A woman whose husband had been

killed in the Xuzhou disaster said: The mines wont stay closed, and

when they open again, I will work in them too. Its not safe, but what else

can I do? I dont think of it as good or bad. Theres just no other way;

while another pointed out: If we complain, they can always find

someone else to work.88

Moreover, the miners realized that the real agenda of the safety

campaign has not been to improve their conditions but to close their

mines for the benefit of others. As a leading Chinese economist percep-

tively observed: Objectively speaking, this [campaign] transfers a (n

albeit illegal) benefit from the peasants to the workers.89 Thus, the

TVE miners would have welcomed better conditions but not the loss of

the income stream. TimeAsia reported: In desolate places like Guizhou,there is no other way to make money, and quotes a worker there as

saying: How can the government close the mines? We need the coal.

Everybody does.90 In the same province, the head of the Lupanshui

Mining Bureau discussed the difficulty of closing down small mines:

The government has its general policies, but for us on the ground we

have to deal with the real problems of livelihood, local economy and job

creation.91 Indeed it was often possible to mobilize miners and local

peasants to oppose government attempts to close down mines for safety

reasons: even as late as 2002, when the campaign had been in operation

five years, one report from Shanxi listed a whole series of sit-ins and

disturbances organized by local mine owners to resist closures.92 In orderto weaken the nexus of interests supporting unsafe mines, some of the

86. Dorman, Markets and Mortality, p. 123.87. 27 coal miners killed and families held in isolation in Jilin province, CLB, 10

December 2002, http://www.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article.adp?article_id3528 (12 De-cember 2002).

88. Washington Post, 9 September 2001, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/arti-cles/A605302001Sep8.html (4 April 2002); for similar statements by workersdisadvantagedin other ways, see Marc J. Blecher, Hegemony and workers politics in China, The ChinaQuarterly, No. 170 (June 2002), pp. 283303.

89. Shi Xunpeng, Dui ganjing yachan gongzuo de pouxi fansi he jianyi (Analysis,rethinking and proposals for the work of losing pits and reducing output ), Meitan jingjiyanjiu, June 1999.

90. What dies beneath, TimeAsia, Vol. 158, No 9 (3 September 2001), http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,172581,00.html (19 October 2001).

91. Problems in Chinas coal policy from Liushuipan [sic Lupanshui] Coal Bureauchief in Guizhou province, CLB, 3 August 2002, http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/arti-cle.adp?article_id2903 (2 September 2002).

92. Zheli de xiao kuang za gan wufa wutian lai zi Shanxi Jialequan, Luyukou kuangqude diaocha (How can small mines act in contravention of the law and morality? A reportfrom Jialequan and Luyukou mine areas in Shanxi), Zhongguo anquan shengchan bao(China Safety News), 27 March 2003, in CLB, http://big5.china-labour.org.hk/big5/arti-cle_pv.adp?article_id4155 (9 April 2003).


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more far-sighted local authorities have attempted to detach the local

population (less so the migrant workers) from the opposition to mine

closure by providing incentives for other forms of income generation. As

one report argued: It is only if one can provide the peasants with new

routes to prosperity that the closure of small mines can be successful.93

Because of this broad coalition opposing the campaign, the central

government has had considerable difficulty closing even unsafe mines. A

Xinhua report admitted that campaigns to reform the small mines have

taken place every two years for 20 years, but the mines always seem to

come back.94 Difficulties tended to be greater when economic conditions

became more favourable. After coal prices began to recover from around

April 2000, small mines, spurred on by profit, began to reopen, often

illegally.95 Indeed, a report from Hunan in mid-2001 suggested that the

recovery of the market, together with a lax attitude on the part of local

authorities, had led to the illegal reopening of many small mines, so that

virtually all the campaigns achievements had been dissipated.96

Bribery, corruption and the networks of patronage that permeate the

TVE sector lie behind much of the problem.97

In Wuan county, Hebeiprovince, a Zhongguo meitan bao (China Coal News) report suggested

that, for payments of 5,000 (for mines with licences) or 10,000 yuan (for

those without), the township government allowed mines to operate clan-

destinely, during the daytime mining the coal underground and leaving it

at the bottom of the shaft, during the night bringing it up and shifting it

by truck to the coal yards.98 Such payments often came to light only after

an accident, as did the several thousand yuan paid to officials of the

Hancheng mining company by the contractor illegally operating the

unsafe mine in which 48 workers were killed in 2001.99

Even when imposed, closure orders were often not obeyed. According

to a report on a serious accident at a small mine in Panxian, Guizhou, inDecember 2000, the mine had been closed down earlier that year. But,

93. ZMB, 11 June 2002, http://202.84.17.111/baoshe/mtb/20020611/GB/mtb^3079^1^mtb0611114.btk (14 June 2002).

94. Xiao meikuang: qi yige guan zi liaojie (Can small coal mines be brought to an endwith the one word close ), Xinhua, 14 August 2001, http://www.xinhuanet.com/focus/xi-angguan/shx10.htm (7 June 2002).

95. Gongren ribao, 31 August 2001, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/20010831/344440.html (30 October 2001); Quanguo guanbi zhengdun xiao meikuang gongzuo fazhanbu pingheng (Uneven development of the closure and reform of small mines), CCIN, 20November 2001, http://www.chinacoal.gov.cn/coal/jryw/0111020x1.htm (20 November2001).

96. Hunan feifa xiaokuang sihui furan changjue guanjing yachan chengguo jihu dangranwucun (Reopening of illegal small mines in Hunan undermines achievements of campaignto close mines), CCIN, 8 June 2001, http://www.chinacoal.gov.cn/coal/jryw/0608x1.htm (8June 2001).

97. Unger, Transformation of Rural China, pp. 202203; Chinesenewsnet 27 March2002, http://www2.chinesenewsnet.com/cgi-bin/newsfetch.cgi?unidocbig5&srcSinoNews/Mainland/Tue_Mar_26_19_30_40_2002.html (28 March 2002).

98. ZMB 6 August 2002, http://www.cinic.org.cn/img/disp.asp?id4&baoshezhongguomeitanbao &banci1 (9 August 2002).

99. Chinesenewsnet 23 January 2002, http://www3.chinesenewsnet.com/cgi-bin/news-fetch.cgi?unidocbig5&srcSinoNews/Mainland/cna-156621.html (23 March 2002).


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with the permission of the township government (though not of the

county), it had reopened in order to provide coal for local use. The county

authorities issued an order prohibiting mining, but took no further im-

mediate action. In September and November they inspected the mine,

finding serious violations of safety requirements, and again ordered it to

be closed. Despite repeated orders, the mine continued to operate until the

disaster occurred.100

The inability of the state to close unsafe mines certainly had an impact

on fatality rates, and illegal mines accounted for 22 per cent of recorded

deaths in 1998 and no doubt for a higher proportion of actual deaths.101

In Guizhou, 32 per cent of the accidents and 42 per cent of the fatalities

in TVE mines in the first ten months of 2001 occurred in illegal mines. 102

Conclusion

This article has argued that, after a long-term improvement in its coal

mine safety performance, Chinas progress stalled, essentially as the

result of the cost pressures introduced by the competition generated bythe TVE sector. Current government policy focuses on reducing the level

of cost competition by closing down many TVE mines, thereby reducing

the size of the sector with the worst safety record, while at the same time

improving the situation of the SOEs and enabling them to increase

investment in safety.

An analysis of the roles of different types of production in the overall

political economy, however, throws doubt on the likely success of this

strategy. The fundamental trend over the last two decades has been the

progressive opening of the Chinese economy to competition, and it is not

clear that the central state has sufficient reach to reverse that trend in

areas where coal mining is an important source of income generation.Rather, even for the state sector, cost pressures will be intensified by

globalization and Chinas entry into the WTO, probably less through

direct competition in the coal market than through pressure to reduce

energy costs in the production of export goods. Moreover, meeting

increased demand for coal may well stretch the capacity of the SOEs,

thus leading to further pressures to revive the small mine sector. The

long-term solution will lie in the broader development of the Chinese

economy to a stage where it can offer the hundreds of millions of rural

labourers a decent living without their needing to resort to risking their

lives in backward and dangerous small mines.

100. Guojia meikuang anquan jiancha ju, Zai kaicai minyong mei de huangzi xia Guizhou Wangjiazhuang kuang 12.26 zhongda wasi baozha shigu de diaocha (Under thepretext of providing coal for the people an investigation of the 26 December explosion atthe Wangjiazhuang mine in Guizhou), http://www.chinacoal-safety.govn.cn/aqdt/aqdt97.htm (19 April 2001).

101. ZMGN, 1999, p. 73.102. Dui meikuang feifa shengchan shicha de guanyuan jiang bei lianzu (Officials

guilty for failing to investigate illegal coal mines), CCIN, 2 November 2001, http://www.chinacoal.com.cn/coal/jryw/011102x2.htm (6 November 2001).

The Political Economy of Coal Mine Disasters in China: “Your Rice Bowl or Your Life”* Tim Wright

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Transcript of The Political Economy of Coal Mine Disasters in China: “Your Rice Bowl or Your Life”* Tim Wright