DAM TESTS:

Vast dam proposal is a test for China (Jim Yardley, DECEMBER 23, 2005, The New York Times)

Far from the pulsing cities that symbolize modern China, this tiny hillside village of crude peasant houses seems disconnected from this century and the last. But follow a dirt path past a snarling watchdog, sidestep the chickens and ducks and a small clearing on the banks of the Nu River reveals a dusty slab of concrete lying in a rotting pumpkin patch.

The innocuous concrete block is a symbol of a struggle over law that touches every corner of the country.

The block marks the spot on the Nu River where officials here in Yunnan Province want to begin building one of the biggest dam projects in the world. It would produce more electricity than even the mighty Three Gorges Dam but would also threaten a region considered an ecological treasure. This village would be the first place to disappear.

For decades, the Communist Party has rammed through such projects by fiat. But the Nu River proposal, already delayed for more than a year, is now unexpectedly presenting the Chinese government with a quandary of its own making: Will it abide by its laws?

They're a long way from the central Judeo-Christian insight, that certain rights precede the State, which then exists on the central Anglo-American insight of the sufferance of the citizenry, but perhaps they can at least accept the basic notion that the state too is bound by the law.

MORE:
China's Probe of Mining Disasters Finds Corruption, Chaos (Edward Cody, December 24, 2005, Washington Post)

The Chinese government announced Friday that it found "astonishingly serious" corruption, chaotic management and lax enforcement of safety rules in investigating coal mine disasters that have killed thousands of Chinese workers this year.

Li Yizhong, who heads the cabinet-level Work Safety Administration, said at a news conference that 96 people have been turned over for criminal prosecution this year for their roles in the explosions and floodings that occur with relentless regularity in the coal industry as mine owners race to keep up with demand. In addition, 21 mine managers and 105 government and Communist Party officials were demoted, fired or otherwise sanctioned, including two deputy provincial governors, he said.

More than 6,000 workers perished in Chinese coal mines during 2004, making mines here the most dangerous in the world. More than 4,000 miners were killed in the first nine months of this year, and the rhythm has continued unabated, including 171 who died last month at the state-owned Dongfeng Coal Mine in Heilongjiang province.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 24, 2005 8:57 AM