The South China Morning Post reports today that a journalist for Oriental Outlook magazine, Sun Chunlong, was forced to suppress his reporting about a mine cover-up that killed at least 40 people in Shanxi. The accident occurred on August 1, 2008 at a mine owned by Tianyuan Iron and Steel, a key SOE that makes important for China’s military and space programs.
Sun was quoted as saying, "I was told that the State Administration of Work Safety had taken over. I must keep my mouth shut from now on… (t)here is pressure, and the situation is delicate."
The cover-up suggests that protecting complex political and economic interests has, again, superseded press freedoms and worker safety in terms of importance. These results mirror similar findings in a new report by MIT researchers about emissions coming from coal-fired power plants. The article shows that the energy sector is more complex, and generally more “advanced”, than the international media gives it credit for. A summary of the report says:
"A detailed analysis of powerplants in China by MIT researchers debunks the widespread notion that outmoded energy technology or the utter absence of government regulation is to blame for that country's notorious air-pollution problems. The real issue, the study found, involves complicated interactions between new market forces, new commercial pressures and new types of governmental regulation."
The SCMP report and the new MIT report would seem to suggest that improving China’s labour and environmental situations will depend on increasing the pressure compelling officials to abide by environmental and labour laws, perfecting and enhancing the regulatory framework, while fighting endemic corruption. Certainly, public pressure and press supervision is a necessary component for this strategy to work.