More Coal Mining

Looking back at this post on November 29th, I see China had 4,153 coal mine deaths in the first nine months of last year. Over 5,000 total for the whole year.

Well, they just had another major accident which killed at least 203 miners:

"The blast occurred 242 meters (800 ft) below ground at the Sunjiawan colliery of the state-owned Fuxin Coal Industry Group, Xinhua said."

[My emphasis.] Did you get that? State owned.
In my previous post, I said:

"One would have to be totally crazy to work in a Chinese mine."

Allow me to rethink that statement. I was thinking that these coal miners are there working like the average Joe would be here in the United States, trying to support their families with whatever work they could find, but that they would rather work about anywhere rather than work in a coal mine.

Now after reading this article in the sunday newspaper, more specifically 'Parade' insert, about "The World's Ten Worst Dictators", I realized they probably don't have a choice:

3. Hu Jintao, China.
Age 61. In power since 2002.
Last year’s rank: Dishonorable mention.

"Hu spent 38 years moving up the Communist Party hierarchy, proving himself efficient and willing to do whatever was necessary to advance himself. Now, as president and general secretary of the party, Hu is the leader of an unusually repressive regime. Apologists point to China’s economic liberalization and say its human-rights situation “is better than it used to be.” However, the party still controls all media and uses 30,000 “Internet security agents” to monitor online use. More than 300,000 Chinese are serving “re-education” sentences in labor camps. China carries out in excess of 4000 executions a year, more than all other nations combined."

[Again, my emphasis.]
My thought now is they probably did something the government didn't like and got sentenced to re-education in a labor camp - working in a coal mine. You speak your mind or surf midget pr0n in China and you get a virtual death sentence in a labor camp.
And people over here bitch about how fucked-up our government and 'W' are?

Side note: Now the irony is, even though coal mining is the country's largest (and most dangerous) industry, they have had many lengthy power outages this year, because there has been a coal production shortage. Since most of their electrical generating plants are coal fired, they have cut back production drastically.
Gee. Do you think that maybe if the mines were a little safer and the work force wasn't reduced by 5,000+ miners every year they could produce more coal?
Just a thought.