Word: longshan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Longshan's residents are not given to complaining, though they inhabit one of the world's most inhospitable corners. Here, in this frozen stretch of wasteland in Heilongjiang province on the Chinese side of Siberia, the scenery is so desolate that its most notable features are heaps of coal piled so high they look like mountains. Many of the townspeople are laid-off coal miners, hopelessly cut off from the fruits of China's heralded economic boom. Still, hardship has taught them not to gripe about their lot in life. "What pleasant weather we're having," says the local bathhouse...
...Last February, 45 Longshan residents walked to Youbao's headquarters to confront its owner, Wang Jilong. Su Xiange, a 37-year-old former miner who was among them, says Wang offered to buy new houses on the other side of town for residents whose homes had been damaged. "We thought that settled it," says Su, "and we went home satisfied." In April, 50 townspeople returned to Wang's office to see what arrangements had been made for their move. "But this time," says Wang Hao, a 65-year-old retired miner, "the boss said he wouldn't help...
...chance, a national crackdown on China's infamously dangerous mines had recently gotten underway, with Beijing requiring the mines either to close or meet more-stringent operating standards. So officials from the local coal safety-inspection department arrived in Longshan in late April to check the town's six private mines. Youbao shut down for two months during the inspection, and the locals thought their problems might be coming to an end. It wasn't to be. By late June, Youbao had secured a license to operate?and Longshan's houses started to shake again...
...Since then, the Longshan townspeople have made at least six appeals to county and city authorities. Some officials offered help but never gave it; others ignored them. Hoping the provincial government might act even if local officials wouldn't, Su traveled 11 hours by bus in July to the Heilong-jiang provincial capital of Harbin and filed a complaint with the Land Natural Resources Department. The province referred the matter back to the county...
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