-
USPS: Radical Surgery Needed
May 17, 2013 | 19 comments
-
No Fisker for Your Garage
April 22, 2013 | 50 comments
-
A Breakthrough in Ukraine?
April 17, 2013 | 7 comments
-
Thatcher Passes
April 8, 2013 | 8 comments
-
Moving Ukraine’s Democracy Forward
March 13, 2013 | 8 comments
Another Perspective
A Tale of Two Mines
Why can’t China be more like Chile?
To borrow a phrase from Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The best in Chile, the worst in China in the wake of two mine collapses. In Chile, a copper mine cave-in half a mile under the earth’s surface trapped 33 miners. In China, a gas explosion triggered an avalanche of coal dust, trapping 37 miners. Of these, 26 have been found dead and 11 are still missing.
In Chile, finding and rescuing the miners became the nation’s immediate and highest priority.
President Sebastián Piñera said the nation would stop at nothing — and it didn’t. Offers of assistance came in and they took them. The resolve of the government, combined with innovations from the private sectors of a dozen countries, led, first, to finding and communicating with the men, then their rescue. Revolutionary drill bits that cut through to the miners came from a small Pennsylvania company. The Chilean Coast Guard designed and built the recovery capsule that brought each man to the surface. When Luis Urzua, the last man up, stepped out of the capsule, he said to the president, “We have done what the entire world was waiting for.”
While trapped deep in the mine, the men organized themselves into shifts with chores, exercise routines, and rationing of food. Decisions were made democratically. Chile being a democratic capitalist society, it was not surprising that the miners took both a team and an entrepreneurial approach toward telling their story once they were back on the surface. They decided to tell very few details until all the book, television, and magazine deals had been made. All the funds will go into a joint account to be shared equally by all. It was democracy and the capitalist spirit in action.
As the rescue day approached more than a thousand media reporters were at Copiapo to film and write about it. Millions around the world watched as the men came out to be greeted by grateful families and friends and a president who staked his reputation on the belief that his country would make this a great success.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world in Henan Province, Chinese rescue workers were still sifting through coal dust in the hope they would find a few miners alive. This was the second disaster at this mine in two years. In 2008 another gas explosion killed 23 miners.
Unlike Chile, China invited foreign news people to stay away and it declined any outside rescue help. State media did show television and still pictures of rescue workers, but the lasting image the rest of the world saw was a photo of a distraught woman outside the mine being comforted by neighbors.
Despite the Chinese government’s ongoing efforts to limit access of its citizens to news it doesn’t like, many Chinese citizens were online on Internet forums and sites criticizing the government for its poor mine safety record.
Meanwhile, in Zambia, in sub-Saharan Africa, workers at the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine were protesting low pay and bad working conditions when their Chinese supervisors opened fire on them, wounding 11. A spokesman was quoted in the press as saying that the miners were “misguided.” Some of them are paid as little as $70 a month. This was not the first protest at a Chinese-owned mine in Zambia.
Despite a successful effort in April to rescue 115 miners trapped in a flooded coal mine shaft in Shanxi Province, China has the world’s worst mine safety record. Last year it recorded 2,631 mining fatalities. That is down from a high of 6,995 in 2002, but still reflects a much lower valuation on human life than it should have.
All this comes on the heels of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, a key participant in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations 21 years ago. Their sense of “face” embarrassed, the Chinese authorities put his wife under house arrest and cut off her telephone. It is further proof that, despite China’s great economic gains in recent years, authoritarian rule and human rights are incompatible.
Mr. Hannaford is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (10) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Peter Hannaford
More Articles From Another Perspective
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/10/22/a-tale-of-two-mines
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Hannah and Her Friends
- Consternated Conferences
- A Nation on the Edge
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
PJ| 10.22.10 @ 7:55AM
The difference between Chile & China is how both countries consider people. Chile views her people as human beings who deserve respect. However, it is not perfect but the foundation for human dignity is there.
On the other hand, mainland China views her people (& others) as expendable parts in a machine, a major problem with communist theory.
Any country who treats its people inhumanly will never be an enduring, great power for good. I'll even wager that if mainland China ever becomes a "super power" it will be for a very short period of time (Think Nazi Germany.), unless it changes its attitude towards people.
Melvin| 10.22.10 @ 8:21AM
It is apparent that our government run education centers don't teach this small fact but since time immortal Chinese have treated other Chinese with the utmost disregard and complete lack of any semblance of human compassion.
Chinese elitists view and treat other Chinese as mere beasts of burden.
30 or 3000 miners get trapped and die horrible deaths in sub-standard mines no problem, because the attitude is that there is another 30 or 3000 Chinese willing to take the place of those who have fallen.
Taken from Fox Business: "The Zambian police has charged two managers at the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine with attempted murder in relation to last week's shootings which left at least 11 miners injured during a wage protest, police officials said Monday."
Chinese mentality is, "You no want to work, then there is no need for you to live." Now this is in Zambia. Now how are citizens here in the United States react when our Chinese masters come here?
Chinese have no regard for human life, human life is base upon how long you can work without food, water, or wages. Ahh yes, what really goes on inside of China is not what the world saw at the Olympics.
What Chairman Mao did to his people makes Adolph Hiller look like Walt Disney.
Paul| 10.22.10 @ 10:05AM
Yes, many cultural anthropologists have noted the different way of thinking between Oriental and Occidental cultures.
In Occidental, we look on strangers as other people, like us, to whom we owe a duty of respect and consideration. Perhaps this comes from the Christian heritage of Western Culture.
But in Oriental societies, the only duty of respect and consideration one owes is to immediate family and friends. Strangers are considered to be "nothings." Consequently, Oriental cultures do not react to natural disasters (which always happen to the "other guy") with the same degree of compassion that we do in the West.
GW| 10.22.10 @ 8:04PM
Correct. The comparison goes beyond "capitalism" or economic issues, it can be seen through a cultural/religious lens.
Franklin| 10.22.10 @ 3:07PM
I think the true difference in the two countries is one believes in God, the other believes in the government.
Answers1| 10.24.10 @ 1:19AM
Chinese think they are superior to everyone else and are vicious, mean-spirited commie elitists.
believer| 10.24.10 @ 4:43PM
In the Chile mine disaster it was American know how and American technology as well as an American driller and crew who rescued the miners. In China saving face meant more than lives, in a few months the Chinese workers will forget it ever happened.
bone china tea set | 10.24.10 @ 10:09PM
I'm glad they made it. After long miserable days. Looking at how the tunnels was built and how far down there it was. I almost gave up my hope for them. Thanks God for giving them another chance.
Anti-Chink| 10.25.10 @ 2:15AM
China has too many chinks anyway.
Adult toys | 7.4.11 @ 3:42AM
three drunk friends made a bet whoever can make their wives scream the longest during sex win 1000.next day when they met.
first guy:I made love to my wife 2.5hours and she screaming for 1.5hours;
second guy:I licked my wife for 2hours and she was screaming whole time and even 1/2hour after I was done;
third guy:that’s nothing,I made love to my wife 10mins and I came twice,wipe my dick on the curtain and my wife still screming at me up to now!