MIKEMUN

Blood and coal: the human cost of cheap Chinese goods

Jonathan Watts in Miaowan, Sha'anxi province
Monday March 14, 2005
The Guardian

"Someone has snitched. The security men are coming. Shut the door, close the curtains and stay quiet."
Moments later, footsteps outside. A rap on the door. A mother squeezes her child tightly to her breast to ****le his cries. An older woman holds back sobs, her eyes red with tears. Two others sit on a bed, exchanging anxious glances. It is my fault the security are here, bringing trouble to people who have already suffered too much. But why is a meeting between four middle-aged women and a foreign journalist considered such a threat?

The women are not subversives, they are widows and bereaved daughters. Their husbands and fathers were among the 166 men killed in an explosion at the Chenjiashan colliery in Miaowan, a mining community in north-west China's Sha'anxi province, last November. Such accidents are so common in China that their plight and that of tens of thousands of other mining widows has become one of the most sensitive issues facing the communist government.

More than 5,000 Chinese miners are killed each year, 75% of the global total, even though the country produces only a third of the world's coal. Working under appalling safety conditions, they are sacrificed to fuel the factories that make the cheap goods snapped up by consumers in Britain and other wealthy nations.

Faced with energy shortages this winter, the government has stepped up the pressure on mine operators to raise output. This has contributed to a spate of the worst disasters in the country's history. Last month, 216 miners were killed at Sunjiawan mine in north-east China in the most deadly accident in 50 years. Last October, another gas explosion killed 148. Last Thursday, a cave-in at a mine in Sha'anxi province killed 16 miners and left another 11 trapped underground.

Countless other accidents at small unregistered mines go unreported because the owners - often in collusion with local officials - buy off or threaten the victims' families. There is widespread anger that miners' lives are being sacrificed for economic growth. "It's said there is blood on every piece of coal in China," says one of the widows, Mrs Wang. "My husband used to talk about the danger all the time. But we are very poor. We have children. What else could we do?"

The five-mile deep pit at Chenjiashan had a particularly bad reputation. Four years ago, 38 men died in a gas explosion. Five days before the latest accident a fire broke out underground. "We came up, but the bosses told us to go back. We didn't want to, but we had to," says one miner, Li, who lost his brother in the explosion. "We all needed the money and there is a penalty of 100 yuan (around £6) for refusing to go down."

The managers, who had reportedly been promised a hefty bonus to increase production, ordered the men to keep working even though it had become hard to breathe underground. On the morning of the accident, Li was preparing to start his shift, when workers came running out of the shaft, saying they had seen thick fog and smoke. "Every miner knows that means there's been an explosion," he said.

Last week the bereaved were supposed to hold ceremonies to mark the end of the 100-day mourning period, but many widows say they are still unable to grieve properly because their husbands' bodies have yet to be recovered. "Our husbands' bodies are still underground," said Mrs Zhang. "But when we went to ask the mine supervisor for action, the security men beat us. One woman was hurt so badly she is still in hospital."

Economics are a major factor in the death rate. Life is cheap, while coal is increasingly dear.

In calculating compensation for the victims of the Chenjiashan blast, the state estimated the value of a miner's life at 51,000 yuan (£3,200). An extra 20,000 yuan was paid as a widow's allowance and another 20,000 yuan for an unrecovered body. By contrast, mine operators were reportedly promised a 400,000 yuan bonus if they could raise output by 400,000 tonnes in the last two months of the year. They could afford at least three deaths and still come out with a profit. Providing 75% of the country's energy needs, coal output must more than match the near 10% annual growth of the economy. There have been no reports of punishments for any of the mine operators who forced their men into the burning pit.

"The government won't make real inroads into the mining death toll until it increases compensation and signals that managers will go to jail for putting people's lives at risk," said Robin Munro of Labour Action Bulletin. "Why haven't they arrested any of the men who perpetrated crimes that led to more than 100 deaths?"

The government has closed many of the most dangerous illegal pits, but the death rate remains alarmingly high at big state-owned collieries.

China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has gone further than any previous Chinese leader to tackle the problem and in a rare show of solidarity, he visited Miaowan at new year and attended a memorial service for the dead. But the widows of Chenjiashan say Wen's visit earlier this year was a clumsily staged propaganda exercise.

"We weren't allowed anywhere near him," said Mrs Zhang. "We heard he personally donated money to the victims' relatives, but none of it came to us or anyone we know."

There was no way to check the allegations. After leaving the widow's house, I was spotted by mine security personnel, and taken to the police station for a four-hour interrogation. "You shouldn't be here without permission," a local police officer said. "Something very unfortunate happened here. You should not make more trouble for the local people."

· All names in this report have been changed to protect their identities.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...437055,00.html

__________________
"They want to test our feelings.They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and their newspapers."

Protester

Confed999

I hope this is as accurate as most of the Guardian's reporting.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

barrowaj

This is why China is so competitive. They have no worker's rights. Of course American manufacturers can't compete with the Chinese, because we have to supply a decent standard of living and a safe work environment to our workers. Add on to that the fact that we can't simply pollute away our natural environment. This is why the US should demand safe working conditions and fair labor practices for the products it imports. To practice anything else is immoral, and bad for the US economy.

bonehead

Consumers in the states have to be reeducated. It really is cheaper to buy quality goods once than it is to buy cheap cr@p over and over and over again. American manufacturers also have a responibility to put out a superior product if they want consumers to buy american. No more shell games! Tell the consumers where the parts came from and where the product was put together.

jon_j_rambo

yeah, so now it's our fault. Far as I'm concerned, shut the borders down & quit trading, lets be Nationalists.

bonehead

We do not have to quit trading. We should however, ask ourselves if we really need to get all that made in china crap at the local dollar store, use it once or twice and fill up our land fills with it. Do our children really need the toys in Fast food kids meals. The toys you pay extra for, the kid plays with once or twice, then you have to throw it away. Sometimes the price tag on an item does not tell the whole story.

Confed999

If we don't, we're supporting a hostile regime that thinks little of human rights.

Praxus

Stop using the term "human rights". There is no such thing. Use "Individual Rights".

Confed999

They're commies, they wouldn't understand.

Praxus

True

bonehead

We have traded with middle eastern countries for their oil for decades and their human/individual rights are not any better than those of China.

Lucien LaCroix

Our government is at least morally culpable in tthe deaths of these poor souls. In our never-ceasing efforts to placate the Chinese, we continually granted China MFN (Most Favored Nation) trade status--through both Republican and Democratic Administrations. In doing so, we have contributed to the vast expansion of the Chinese economy. And we are well aware in advance that Chinese treatment of its workers leaves much to be desired.

Now we criticize the European Union for its desire to sell China sophisticated technology that could be used to make weapons that might one day be used to kill Americans. Obviously, that's a legitimate concern. But I am certain that such concerns are of little consolation to the widows and children of those miners killed--sacrificed on the altar of manufacturing cheap fabrics and electronic goods that American consumers so willingly purchase.

So...what do we say about the deaths of those Chinese miners?

It doesn't matter.

Do we even know what their deaths...say of us?

__________________
"If I see further than other men, it is because I stand upon the shoulders of giants."

Confed999

I know that, and like I've said many many times, if it were up to me I would choose isolationism over support. You may excuse one for the other, but I do not...

Officer of Engineers

China actually still has on its books one of the most strongest worker's rights in the world. It was a Worker's Paradise after all. What happenned was the Iron Rice Bowl, a person gets a job for life and don't do the work or at least don't do good work and all he had to do was to cite some obscure Mao quotes about safety or worker's rights, etc.

I would not say it has swung to the other extreme but the average Chinese is certainly much better off today than he was when even Deng Xia Peng came to power. Maybe alot of people were too young but China was looking at famine at 2010-20 during the 1980s and the harsh (and now reversed) One Child Policy.

Deng promised and delivered a stove in every house. They're getting a refigerator now and most are eyeing that TV.

Not saying that the Chinese don't have problems but I remember Chinese militia were going to fight against Soviet tanks wearing pajamas.