Can China Have It All in a Coal Transition?: How the CCP Will Struggle to Balance Climate Reform With Labor Concerns

A coal miner in Xingtai, China, Photo by ZHart.

In 1922, coal miners in Southeast China orchestrated a labor strike that would become the backbone of the early Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) labor politics. In 2016, coal miners from that same area gathered again to protest wage cuts. The difference? The 2016 miners were protesting the CCP. The protests highlight a stark difficulty China is facing as it begins to feel the effects from both climate change and a coming transition away from coal: the fate of fossil fuel industry workers.

China is currently the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, but recent, lofty policy proposals to move away from fossil fuels, such as reaching peak carbon (greatest level of carbon emissions) by 2030 and being carbon neutral (no net emissions) by 2060 have made  the challenges of a Chinese coal transition clear. One often overlooked aspect of such a transition is the effects on workers who are currently employed in the coal industry, particularly on those working in towns where coal is the primary industry or who are close to retirement. As of 2015, approximately 3.7 million people were employed in the Chinese coal industry. As the country transitions away, China has begun to reduce coal employment and, without a comprehensive plan to account for laid-off workers, the cracks are beginning to show. A number of workers have gone on strike against former employers, making the path to a coal transition more complicated. 

While anti-imperialist protests like the May Fourth Movement helped provide the impetus for the establishment of the CCP and China as an independent nation, the government itself has worked to quash collective action. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which became a national turning point, the CCP was increasingly harsh on protestors, leading to events like the Tiananmen Square Massacre, estimated to have killed over 10,000. However, in order to maintain regime stability, the government allows some degree of protest and will often negotiate heavily with activists in order to prevent a local movement from going national. For example, China’s feminist movement has faced significant state repression, leading it to go almost entirely online. UCLA’s Professor Ching Kwan Lee and Yonghong Zhang, of Sun Yat-sen University calls this concept “bargained authoritarianism,” or the idea that the CCP has to make some concessions on the local level in order to maintain control on the national level.

With regards to coal miners, bargained authoritarianism became relevant in the wake of 2013, when the price of coal rapidly fell due to overcapacity, forcing the Chinese coal industry to lay off workers. Moreover, the 2016 decapacity policy led to the closures of several state-owned mines, inciting further layoffs. While there has been no national labor movement by coal miners, thousands of miners in Heilongjiang, Shandong, and other regions, some of whom had been laid off, have gone on strike for back pay. Many regions where miners went on strike were  historical producers of coal, and affected towns often used coal as the main economic driver. These regions also tended to be less developed than other parts of China, making the loss of their economic backbone debilitating. The government put an end to these protests by creating a $15 billion assistance fund for laid off coal miners and increasing police presence. Ultimately, while individual strike movements did not go national, the CCP likely perceives them as a huge threat. Over the course of a climate transition, millions of people in China will lose their jobs. Workers in Shuangyashan, a coal city in Heilongjiang, have stated that the new jobs they have found, if any, pay significantly less. Without a comprehensive plan for moving away from coal while supporting coal miners, the Chinese government will face more protests from those who lose their livelihood. Fear of these protests going national or of the coal miners organizing as a collective group will likely delay the coal transition.

However, even in the absence of a climate transition, China is facing a significant loss of coal employment that could create a crisis in provinces which are heavily reliant on coal. After the aforementioned 2013 pricing crisis, there has been a significant decrease in the number of mining employees,60-70% of whom are coal miners in China. While coal production is appearing to increase, mining employment has dropped from a high of 6.4 million in 2013 to 4.1 million in 2018. This is likely due to an increase in efficiency—one of the core goals of the capacity policy was eliminating old and inefficient mines, while promoting those that are more efficient and require fewer workers.

Chinese Coal Production with Mining and Energy Sector Employment over time, data compiled by Caitlin Hamilton. Data provided by the Chinese Statistical Yearbook.

This trend is more pronounced in specific provinces. For example, Inner Mongolia, one of the top coal producers in China, experienced a 38% decrease in mining employment—from approximately 214,700 employees to 135,600 employees—from 2013 to 2018. These numbers, in conjunction with the goals of the capacity policy, demonstrate a trend in Chinese coal: regardless of whether or not the Chinese government transitions away from coal, jobs in coal will continue to be lost, likely leading to the same kinds of social instability previously discussed.

Inner Mongolian Coal Production and Mining Employment over time, data compiled by Caitlin Hamilton. Data provided by the Chinese Statistical Yearbook.

How can the Chinese government move forward while attempting to balance the interests of the environment with the interests of the people? China needs to transition away from coal, but a fraught relationship with political protest and social pressure from coal miners could prove to be a stumbling block in a successful coal transition. Moving too far in either direction is untenable—it is unwise to sacrifice the environment for social stability or vice versa. With this in mind, it is imperative that China constructs a plan for a coal transition that heavily considers the needs of those employed in fossil fuel industries. While China has proposed some policies, like a nebulous $15 billion coal miner relief fund, many coal miners have found themselves unable to find employment that pays a similar amount as coal. China could potentially provide job retraining, relocate miners, or promote green industry in the area to help miners find satisfactory jobs. There will likely be more labor protests in China, just as there have been labor protests in other countries looking to move away from coal. In order to maintain regime stability, China must face the short term problem of coal unemployment in order to mitigate the long term problem of climate change.

Caitlin Hamilton (CC ’25) is a first-year at Columbia College. She is from Incline Village, Nevada, and is interested in Chinese politics, sustainable development, and international relations. Caitlin plans to major in East Asian Studies and Economics.