China’s push for coal is killing its miners | World | News [Video]

China’s unquenchable thirst for energy is exposing Beijing’s inability to keep its workers safe – and that could spell problems for the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy, experts warned last night.

More than 2,000 investigations are being carried out in China’s coal mines after the deaths of hundreds of miners following a decision to drastically increase production.

Though China’s mines are known to be among the deadliest in the world, accidents and deaths had been falling steadily in the decade to 2021, after Beijing shut down excess mining capacity, reduced coal burning and strengthened safety checks.

But nationwide power shortage and a quadrupling of domestic prices led to a decision to increase output by 9 percent to a record 4.5 billion tons in 2022.

Soaring global coal prices and energy supply disruption in the wake of Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine also prompted Beijing to seek to improve its energy security.

This has meant digging deeper …