Chapter 70 The Burden of Mining Accidents and the Difficulty of Governance in a Coal Province

Rich coal reserves were once the pride of Shanxi people. However, the safety and economic problems of this industry and the resulting social impact have also made Shanxi people feel unprecedented pressure from public opinion and moral values. This pressure comes not only from China being at the middle and low end of the entire world industrial chain, but also from Shanxi being at the "low end" of the entire Chinese economic industrial chain. The "low-end" position always makes people have "psychological festivals" of "old men". The feeling of "low-end" makes people see the heavy burden of mining disasters in coal-rich provinces.

In fact, for a long time, this extensive production method has scarred Shanxi. The embarrassment of Shanxi's economic development model dominated by the "one coal dominance" thinking in the modern market economy environment is really unexpected for Shanxi people. But who would have expected all this? To this day, no one would have imagined that a "controlling mine disaster" would become the first and heaviest "development proposition" in Shanxi's coal economic life. For a long time, under the guidance of the idea of ​​"production in command" and "production overriding everything", Shanxi's coal industry has formed a "production-only theory" that is "one-sided". One of the consequences is that Shanxi's overall economy is "structurally inclined."

The reality we are facing is that the ecological debt caused by mining coal is becoming more and more serious.Some people say that we "have no blue above our heads, and less clear water under our feet." It seems that there is still a long way to go before the grand project of "clear water and blue sky" can be realized.According to data, Shanxi consumes 2.48 tons of water for every ton of coal dug.According to this calculation, digging 500 million tons of coal every year will destroy about 1.2 billion cubic meters of water resources.Today, it is an indisputable fact that the groundwater level in Taiyuan City, the capital of Shanxi Province, has reached below 1,000 meters.

In some local mining areas, we can often see such a scene: Due to excessive coal mining, the once beautiful land is devastated, the rivers are dry, the trees are dead, and the mountains are cracked. Today, this kind of economic "development cost disease" is everywhere in Shanxi. According to data, at present, the area of ​​severe geological disasters in the local area is more than 2,940 square kilometers, and the area of ​​subsidence area newly increased every year is about 94 square kilometers.At the same time, coal mining has seriously affected surface vegetation, ecological landscape, and biodiversity, leading to serious problems of soil erosion and ecological decline in mining areas.

Of course, the coal in Shanxi is not "inexhaustible and inexhaustible". Some people say that today's "Shanxi" can still count on coal, so what should we do "after 'Shanxi'"? What should I do after "post-Shanxi"? In this regard, people of insight are all worried: Shanxi has taken a development path that is contrary to the market economy, and has entered the "curse of resources"-a country and region with a large amount of resources will not be able to bring this country and region " good luck".In the words of the Africans: "When God bestows a place with abundant resources, he also puts a spell on it. It will curse the people in this place not to have good luck."

Looking around the world, this statement is not without any basis. A study by the International Fund and the World Bank shows that countries with resources are better than those with few resources in terms of economic development, corruption, conflict, neonatal mortality and literacy rates. The country is far worse.In Africa, countries with large resources such as Congo, Sudan, and Angola are declining in the process of development. Experts believe that if Shanxi wants to carry out structural adjustment thoroughly and form a more reasonable industrial structure, it will take at least the same time or even longer.Of course, this is still under the premise of "appropriate means", "appropriate method" and "appropriate measures".

If you are poor, you will think, if you think, you will change, and if you change, you will understand. Some people may say that the transformation of Shanxi needs time and space.But as far as the reality of Shanxi is concerned, the "time" and "space" here have to be reversed in terms of the ranking of the "legal weight" and "nature weight" to solve Shanxi's problems: first is "space", and then ranked The latter is "time". Here we put the “space” of Shanxi’s transformation in the first place because it is a complex “non-linear state”. At this level, there are economic problems, institutional problems, and even more important The related "official governance problem".Therefore, for Shanxi today, the narrow "transformation space" seems to be several orders of magnitude more important than the "importance" of "time" in the "tomorrow and tomorrow" style.

Let's just talk about "government issues". I remember that there was a sentence in the previous article: "There was a 'bang' from the ground, and a large area fell on the ground." Therefore, some people will ask, if there is a situation in Shanxi, is it a good policy to change it? A scholar from the Shanxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences believes that "changing officials" is just an "after-the-fact warning" and not a "good prescription." I remember that some local officials whispered in private that being an official in Shanxi has long been called sitting on a "crater" by the outside world, while officials in charge of production safety are called "dancing on eggs".This really corresponds to the current reality in Shanxi: the storm of accountability is getting stronger and stronger, and the political circles in Shanxi "the trees want to be quiet but the wind does not stop."

After careful analysis, in the past few years, most of the people who were "administratively held accountable" in Shanxi Province were local government officials.What is particularly striking is that on September 8, 2008, the dam of the tailings pond of Shanxi Linfen Xinta Mining Company collapsed, which "fulfilled" the local political circles in Shanxi within three years, "quickly changing" the four provincial governors. A perfect legend", which is really rare in the history of the development of the Republic.But in any case, the "high-level change" in Shanxi Province and frequent news of re-appointment and dismissal of officials in the place where the incident occurred are a current reality in Shanxi's political arena.In this regard, some outsiders commented that such "frequent" personnel changes seem to have some impact on the "sustainability" of Shanxi's local economic development policies.

Some people also commented that Shanxi, as a large coal mining province, although the central administrative accountability is stricter, but if it does not take the "drugs from the bottom" style of "prescribing the right medicine", and expects to move from "storm" to "normal", then the security issue I'm afraid it will go against our good wishes. Today, when we have all the good hopes in our hearts and develop this hope in a better direction, we really hope to see a "big coal province" that has got rid of the burden of mining disasters and is strutting towards the future.

We sincerely hope to see a large economic province with clear politics and harmonious society as a whole.