Life vs money

Miners' families angry at disaster
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6959844.stm

Life vs money?

Recently, one of the worst mining disaster happened in eastern Shandong Province. 181 miners have been trapped underground since last Friday.

These miners were working at two mine shafts when the torrential rain caused a river to burst the banks, sending water flooding in.

Although the rescue workers were trying to save the miners out by pumping the underground water out, their hope for survival faded as the time ran out.

The response from the mine officials arise the fury among the relatives of those trapped miners. They told the reports indignantly that they could not get information about their relatives on time from the officials. When they went to find the officials in charge, they either told them to wait or disappeared. The mine officials only care about the output of the mine in spite the lives of their relatives.

This accident was one of the worst mining disasters in China. It reflects one of the acutest conflicts existing in China society. In China, especially Shandong and Shanxi Province, a deluge of private small collieries were producing mines due to the huge demand of mines in China. In order to maximize the profits, nearly all the private small collieries have no security facility. The mine officials exploit their miners atrociously to fill their pockets. However, those government officials, who are supposed to supervise the management and security of the collieries, colluded with the mine officials so that they could gain a big share of the profits. As a result, those miners who live in an abyss of suffering became the biggest victim of this scam. However, they had no choice, this was their fate.

In my opinion, the mine issues revealed two severe conflicts existing in China society. First, the gap between the rich and the poor: in Southeast of China, people's living conditions are being ameliorated a great deal while in the rest of China, large amount of people are still suffering from hunger. In order to scrape a living, those people are forced to accept the unfair and rigor treatment from the rich. In the mine officials' mind, those peasants are the same as the slave labor. They have no welfare, no medical insurance, more importantly, no dignity. In order to feed their families, they have to abide the insult and abuse from the miner officials. We can say, that was not merely the misfortune of those miners, but also the shame of our society and race.


The second conflict is the conflict between the central government and the local government. In 2007, in order to meliorate the security conditions of China’s mine industry, the central government had promulgated several documents which order the local government to shut down those collieries that don’t have eligible security facilities. However, due to the huge profit of mine industry and the financial income of the local government, the local governments didn’t carry out the order form the central government. What they did was a symbolistic check after informing the mining officials. This certainly makes no sense.

All in all, mine issues is one of the acutest problems that hinder the stable economic development of China. Without solving these severe problems, China's peaceful grow-up will be merely a castle in the air; without solving it, China's society will never be peaceful.