China’s mining accidents have received a great deal of publicity outside China in the past few years. Is this problem really as severe in China as reports would lead us to believe? Here are some numbers:

• In 2006, the world’s top five coal producers were China, the U.S., India, Australia and South Africa. China’s coal production was 2.5 times America’s, with 2482 Mt* to 990Mt. 78% of China’s power is produced by coal. (World Coal Institute) (*Mt = million tons)
• “In 2003, the average coal miner in China produced 321 tons of coal a year; only 2.2 percent of that in the United States and 8.1 percent that of South Africa. The death rate for every 100 tons of coal, however, is 100 times of that of the US and 30 times that of South Africa.” (People’s Daily)
• According China’s State Administration for Work Safety (SAWS), China produced 35% of the world’s coal last year, but reported 80% of total deaths in coal mine accidents. (China Daily)

These are rather worrying statistics. With China expanding its energy consumption at an ever-increasing rate and relying on coal to provide much of that power, the need for coal is likely to expand–as are the incentives from employers to cut corners to increase production. Tougher mining regulations passed by SAWS in 2006 cut deaths by accidents the next year by 20%, but the number was still a whopping 3,786 of reported deaths.

Then…

I stress “reported” because the truth is that given the nature of the industry, it is relatively easy for employers to conceal isolated deaths. Most miners are migrant workers in the most dire circumstances, who travel to work in the coal mines despite their general reputation in China as death traps. This means that, unlike the U.S., where miners are often have local roots and are unionized, there are few to watch out for the interests of Chinese miners–it would be just as easy to report to a miner’s death as being naturally occurring as being caused by poor safety regulations, in some cases. Keep in mind, of course, that there are absolutely no facts on how often, or if, this ever happens–but the way things work now there is certainly great potential for abuse.

To be fair, however, one might wonder how much the great discrepancy in minings deaths is due to differences in mining methods. Most mining accidents reported in China seem to occur in traditional underground mines, while the trend in America is towards mountaintop removal mining and longwall mining, which involve significantly less safety issues but also have enormous environmental and geographical impact.

So, maybe China is sacrificing individual lives for the greater environmental good? One doubts that this is the intention but, given that America’s EPA recently lowered the value of a human life, you can’t help but worry that the same inhumane calculus of benefit vs. human life is simply being applied in both countries–with the only relevant numbers being dollar signs.

…and now.

China is obviously changing–the Olympics are not only the country’s modern coming-of-age party but also an apparent landmark in a shift from industry and manufacturing to an economy based more on “affluent” economic sources such as services, entertainment, and investment. The sign that the government, which has long been reluctant (and even defiant, internationally speaking) to do anything that might curb it’s manufacturing dominance, would choose to do so for the Olympics is a sign of this shift.

This change of economy, of course, is necessary if China is to continue developing. But what are the greater consequences of Beijing’s choice to forcibly reign in industry for other goals? The businesses affected by the industrial curbs in the capital, most of which are happy to oblige out of national pride (and the rest of whom are smart enough to know not to make a fuss), may be less supine if it turns out that the effect of the Olympics isn’t just to change the world’s view of China, but also China’s view of itself.

As Dongcha has mused before, who isn’t to say that, seeing the Olympics bring cleaner air and less traffic to the city, these won’t become amenities that Beijingers ask for on an ongoing basis, not just when white dignitaries are in town? Even without grassroots action, it seems plausible that, since curbs on industry around Beijing are already in place, the government keep them indefinitely–using the Olympic momentum to push the city in a new economic direction? This would, after all, be an easy way to further develop China’s capital city into an international center.

Of course, this change would be positive for many, but not the manufacturers. Groups of people and businesses getting left behind and becoming obsolete is inevitable in any major economic shift, but seems somehow easier when that shift happens naturally, without the hand of the government pushing it on. In those cases, the (typically) slow pace of free market change gives more people more time to adapt to the new economy, and adjust their lives to get by in it. Also, it makes it harder for the people who lose on the change to find someone to blame. If Beijing, then, does what seems sensible and rides the Olympic economic and social inertia into a more modern economy, they also risk isolating a large segment of people that will see themselves as being betrayed for doing their patriotic duty–first they became manufacturers to make China great, then they curbed their businesses to show the world how great China had become, and at last they found that the government had moved on to other things, without them.

Can they see what the future holds?