28/3 Coal Mine Disaster has already become the hottest topic in China these days. Of 153 workers initially trapped in Wang Jialing Coal Mine, Shanxi Province on 28th March, 35 has been reported death and 3 remain missing.

While facing such a disaster, the Chinese government and its mouthpiece prefer to frame the event in a different way:

‘The most fortunate thing of the misfortune is that, 115 mining worker have survived miraculously due to rescue. They were joined by a wild mass who hurrahed, and clapped hands with unprecedented joy.'

This is an extract from the lengthy feature story issued today by Xinhua News Agency, and published in almost all the major newspapers today. The feature is entitled ‘For Life’s Calling Out: A Complete Record of Rescue in 28/3 Wang Jialing Coal Mine Flooding. To be honest, I didn’t have the heart to read the story through, for it is difficult to see such a heartbreaking disaster interpreted in such a jolly, celebrating atmosphere. There are people who died after all, and they died because other people didn’t do their jobs properly, and because the country is too obsessed with GDP growth. What can be ‘celebrated’ for, when we all know that the same kind of disaster kills on average seven mining workers each day?

What is behind ‘celebration’ is an artificial myth the CCP’s mouthpiece tries to construct. Using the search toolbar, I find the most-used word in the feature is ‘miracle’. It promptly reminds me of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake which was also represented on the media as a miracle, a miracle made by ‘the public and the military working together under the leadership of the Party and the government’. This time, it is a miracle of life by the same party, the same government, just a different rescuing team. Like a floating ghost, miracles always haunts in our country’s official discourse. From ‘People are destined to Win Nature’ proposed by the deceased Chairman Mao Zedong to the Miracles in 28/3 Disaster, CCP has been keen on constructing itself as a maker of miracle.

Given its authoritative status in Chinese media discourse, Xinhua news agency’s feature story sets the reporting tone for the disaster, and implicitly demands the other media to either stay in line with this tone or to be silent. Actually, it is told by anonymous reporters that the Central Propaganda Department issued an order immediately after the outbreak of the Disaster, requiring the media: 1) to report ‘positively’, 2) to avoid criticising the owner of the coal mine and the local industrial security administration, 3) to highlight the rescuing endeavor of the government, and 4) to take Xinhua news as standard. Moreover, all the other local media’s reporters were asked to be withdrawn from the scene.

What’s more, this is not the only source of disappointment. It also comes from the society and its conscience. Coal mine disasters as a phenomenon have become so popular in China today that some editors are reported to tell their reporters not to pay serious attention to those with death toll fewer than 20. This is because disasters with ‘small’ death figures, say, less than 20, would not interest Chinese readers!

As to the issue of responsibility, in my view, there are always some local officials to be punished or dismissed every time a coal mine disaster happens in their responsible region. But no officials have ever been reported to have been penalised for malpractice in the 28/3 Disaster up to now.

It is supposed that the Xinhua feature and no officials yet being dismissed are a result of the official background of the Wang Jialing Coal Mine. Wang Jialing Coal Mine as a key project of both the state and the province is invested and explored by Huajin Coking Coal Corporation Ltd. and is built by China Coal Energy Company Ltd., both being state-owned. Very different from the small coal pits dominating the past coal mine disasters, the protagonists in 28/3 Disaster have deep official background. That partly explains why the issue of responsibility has been depicted ambiguously, referring to nobody in particular.

Yet, all these unresolved problems are resolved in a feature story of the CCP’s mouthpiece. This is a conclusive piece, marking the victory of the CCP in winning the narrative competition. This is the end of the 28/3 disaster in Chinese media? Unbelievable but most probably true!