中國經濟進入了一個動蕩的時期。人民幣開始緩慢走低，政府正盡其所能，以每個月數十億美元儲備金的代價支撐貨幣。當下，中國政府正嘗試著讓中國的投資拉動型經濟轉型為消費拉動型經濟，不過究竟能否取得成功還遠未可知。在這種不確定的情況下，中國的煤礦將遭遇艱難的困境。

中國國企效率的低下盡人皆知。實際上，作為中國核心機制的這種命令與控制模式，無法催生出高效的公司。為了解決這一問題，中國正在著手整合許多行業，試圖從規模經濟中獲得效益。此外，中國糟糕的環境和空氣質量，也讓問題顯得迫在眉睫，但政府的解決方法對煤炭行業而言，注定將帶來劇痛。

近日，中國宣布將在未來三年中斥資46億美元關閉小型煤礦，讓100萬礦工再就業。此舉是中國政府減少煤炭使用量、緩解讓政府尷尬不已的空氣問題的舉措之一。政府認為，煤炭行業已經供給過度，希望減少該行業內公司，實現供需平衡。

按照計劃，中國將關閉4300座煤礦，在未來三年中減少7億噸煤炭產出。這期間政府也將不再批準新煤礦的開采。這一政策看起來很美，不過實踐時可能會碰到預想不到的困難。

首先，許多煤礦規模很小，關閉它們無法實現供需平衡。中國國內的煤炭需求在2014年降低了2.9%，由于經濟增速的減緩，在2015年恐怕還有4%的下滑。在過去五年中，中國已經關閉了7250座煤礦，減少了5.6億噸煤炭產出，但現在中國仍有1.1萬座煤礦。

中國每年供給過度的煤炭量高達20億噸，隨著國內對煤炭需求的減少，供需差距還會進一步拉大。因此，中國的措施只是稍微削弱了整體供需不平衡的狀況。

不幸的是，關閉小型煤礦對中國的空氣質量也沒有太大作用。世界衛生組織表示，北京的空氣質量依舊處于危險狀態，致癌的顆粒物已經污染了空氣。

這一問題很難通過簡單手段解決。中國生產了大量鋼鐵，使用了大量煤炭，而這些煉鋼廠防止污染的手段十分陳舊，有的甚至根本沒有污染防護措施。此外，由于空氣已經被污染，中國政府在短期內幾乎做不了什么，只能等待大自然的自動凈化——即便所有的空氣污染問題立刻得到解決，凈化過程也需數年時間。

所以，從整體上看，中國政府控制煤炭業規模的舉措只是很小的一步。方向是正確的，但想要在一個三分之二的能源需求都來自煤炭的國家控制污染，只是關閉一些小煤礦還遠遠不夠。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

It’s a tumultuous time for the Chinese economy. The yuan is sinking slowly and the Chinese government is doing everything it can to prop up the currency at a cost of billions of dollars per month in reserves. The current government is trying to efficiently engineer a shift from an investment-led economy to a consumption-led economy, but success on that front is far from certain. Amid this uncertainty, it is a particularly rough time to be a coal mine in China.

Chinese state companies are widely regarded asextremely inefficient. The reality is that the command and control model, which is the backbone of the Chinese state, does not produce effective or efficient companies. To deal with this problem, China is consolidating many industries and trying to gain from economies of scale. Add to this China’s problem with a truly noxious atmosphere and abysmal air quality, and you have a recipe for significant pain in coal mining sector.

China recently announced that it will spend almost $4.6 billion over the next three years to shutter small coal mines and redeploy about 1 million workers that work those mines. The scheme is part of the Chinese government’s efforts to reduce its use of coal in an effort to quell problems with air quality that have embarrassed the central government. The government sees the coal sector as oversupplied and wants to cut down on the number of firms in that industry in an effort to bring supply and demand into balance.

China’s plan will close 4,300 mines resulting in production falling by 700 million tonnes over the next three years. The government is also banning the approval of new mines during that period. The scheme sounds good on paper, but the reality is likely to be more difficult that than the government hopes.

To begin with, many of these mines are small and shuttering them will not fix the supply demand imbalance. Domestic coal demand in China dropped by 2.9 percent annually in 2014 and it probably dropped a further 4 percent in 2015 thanks to the economic slowdown there. China still has 11,000 mines even after shuttering 7,250 of them in the last five years and cutting output by 560 million tonnes.

China likely has an oversupply of around 2 billion tonnes annually in coal produced and that oversupply grows larger as domestic demand drops. Thus China’s efforts are only going to make a small dent in the overall supply-demand imbalance.

Unfortunately, the plan to shutter coal mines will also have only a marginal effect on the air quality in China as well. The air quality in Beijing continues to be dangerous and contaminated by cancer causing particulate matter according the World Health Organization.

This problem cannot be fixed simply. China’s economy produces massive amounts of steel using large amounts of coal and those steel plants have antiquated pollution protection measures, if they have any such measures at all. Moreover, having already polluted their air, there is little the Chinese government can do in the short-term to reduce the damage other than wait for nature to take care of the problem on its own – a process that could take years even if all pollution issues were fixed imminently.

On the whole then, Beijing’s small steps towards right sizing its coal sector are just that; small steps. The movement is in the right direction, but the reality is that killing coal and pollution in a country that still uses the black rock for two-thirds of its energy needs will take a lot more than closing the country’s smallest mines.