Do China’s safety measures have teeth?

After years of ineffectual regulation, the Chinese government appears to be getting tough on coal-mining safety.

On Jan. 5, China’s official news agency reported that the government will close 5,290 mines — although the announcement lacked details of how closures would be enforced.

Roughly 5,000 miners are killed annually in the small mines that have blossomed along with the price of coal and swollen demand. Many worry the central government lacks the ability to keep such mines closed, once they have been shut down.

In the previous 13 months, six mine accidents killed 528 people in China.

The worst disaster occurred in February 2005, when 214 miners were killed at the Sunjiawan mine — the country’s deadliest accident in 50 years.

John Foarde, staff director at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) — a commission sanctioned by the U.S. Congress to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China — says the announcement is part of the Chinese government’s slow movement towards better practices.

Foarde says increased internal pressure from Chinese citizens — buoyed in part by a somewhat bolder Chinese press — is shaming the government into taking more drastic action.

“There’s a lot of popular disgust with the corruption and the environmental degradation,” Foarde says from CECC offices in Washington, D.C. “Chinese leadership likes to see itself as leading a modern country . . . (The mining accidents) make them look bad and they don’t like it.”

But Foarde is doubtful of the central government’s ability to implement even popular policies, as local officials are often corrupt.

“The central government tries to implement things down to the local level but China is a big, amorphous place,” Foarde says. “The further you get from the capital, the harder it is to get the implementation of something.”

The announced closures come on the heels of mine inspections carried out in 2005. The inspections were part of the government’s attempt to cut down on the number of mining accidents that have made China’s coal mining industry one of the deadliest in the world.

Despite the stepped-up inspections, the number of people dying in mines has remained largely unchanged.

Another 12,000 of the country’s estimated 34,000 coal mines are set for inspection as part of the crackdown; 24,000 of China’s coal mines are small mines producing 10,000 to 30,000 tonnes of coal per year.

Foarde says state-run mines have better safety standards than smaller, often illegal mines.

He believes increased international awareness, coupled with greater freedom of the press in China, is the best way to ensure dangerous mines remain shut.

For now, Foarde is cautiously optimistic about the government’s announcement.

“In a lumbering sort of way, the system is moving in the right direction,” he says. “But not as fast as anyone would like to see.”