The Price of Chinese Lives

In a few stories that have happened over the past week, the rest of the world really gets to see how little the Chinese government thinks of the lives of its citizens.

The first story is of the dangerously contaminated drinking water in Heilongjiang Province, in the Chinese Northeast. This contamination has now been brought under control after a couple of weeks of cover-up. The only reason why the world found out about this very toxic spill is because the river and thus the toxins have to pass through Russia. However, the worst part of this story is that until a few days ago the only people that knew about the spill in China, were party members in the region. Thus the rest of the population drank contaminated water with untold consequences to their health.

In a second story, at least 134 people have died and 15 others are trapped after a coal mine blast in the same Heilongjiang Province. The mine blast is a very common story in China, where the mining industry is the most dangerous in the world. The annual numbers for the mine accidents are:

• Accidents killed more than 2,700 miners in the first half of this year.
• China’s worst coal mine accident this year killed 214.
• Accidents and disasters cause more than 1 million casualties annually in China.
• They also bring economic losses of $80.5 billion each year.

I just bring this up to show how if the PRC cares so little for the lives of their own citizens, you can only imagine what they are prepared to do to all the "barbarians" of the outside world in their quest for world dominance.