the relative reviews are in the end of this passage.
The book’s entry point is exceptionally sophisticated. By analyzing the developmental history of a coal mine spanning nearly a century, it explores how the historical regimes that managed this mine attempted to leverage it to solve their own problems. These regimes range from the feudal Qing Dynasty to imperialist Japan, the Kuomintang (KMT) Republic whose sovereignty was precarious, and the brief Soviet occupation, culminating in socialist China. In this problem-solving process, the “Carbon Technocracy” consistently played a significant role. (Li Xingmin translates “technocracy” as jìzhì zhǔyì [技治主义]).
Regimes, the carbon technocracy, the coal mine, and the workers—these four actors undertook different responsibilities in different periods. The carbon technocracy is defined as a political apparatus that, through organized, precise, and mechanized management, attempts to achieve ever-increasing coal production quotas. Simultaneously, it seeks to maintain its own existence and continuously enhance its importance through a planned economy system and meticulous projections. In this process, it not only precipitated its own collapse but even contributed to the collapse of the broader regime.
The author chooses to engage in a dialogue with Timothy Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy, seeking to argue that the extraction of coal and oil does not inevitably lead to democracy; in East Asia, it trended towards imperialism and dictatorship. This is the most brilliant part of the book’s argument, its most meaningful content, and its most academically valuable contribution. Mitchell posits that coal excavation requires a vast labor force working in perilous conditions, which naturally generates a democratic atmosphere of resistance against capital to demand better treatment, further promoting democratic development. To reduce reliance on laborers, capitalists and industrialists are more inclined to shift the carbon dependency towards petroleum. This is because the fluidity of oil naturally relies more on technology and equipment, thereby reducing dependence on labor and, consequently, eliminating democratic resistance. However, the author, Victor, argues—by analyzing the role of the carbon technocracy in the coal extraction process—that coal mining does not necessarily lead to democracy, at least, not in East Asia.
Coal extraction evolved from primitive mining to shaft mining, and subsequently to open-pit mining. The requirements for technology, mechanization, and energy dependence progressively increased, leading to the birth of the carbon technocrat cohort. Starting with Japan after the Meiji Restoration, they dispatched outstanding Imperial University students to Europe and the United States to study technology, bringing these techniques back to Japan and “Manchukuo.” To resolve the Japanese Empire’s increasingly severe energy shortage, they had to meet the rulers’ escalating production demands. Consequently, they adopted extensive, advanced mechanized methods at the Fushun mine and efficiently organized a massive labor force. Before the “918 Incident” (Mukden Incident), they attracted a large number of “Chuang Guandong” (闯关东) migrants to work in Fushun by promising generous compensation. To enhance their work efficiency, the Japanese carbon technocracy gradually improved their conditions from backward and filthy environments to better working conditions, including safety, dormitories, and recreational facilities. It must be noted that these improvements, including safety, were not proactively provided for employee welfare; rather, safety accidents would impede the achievement of targets. Therefore, safety facilities were provided passively.
The exploitation of “Manchukuo’s” coal resources largely solved Japan’s domestic energy problems, providing a stable energy source for its fleet, domestic electricity consumption, and household energy use. However, it did not bring about corresponding democracy. As imperialist aggression came to dominate Japanese politics, the demands for energy to facilitate the invasion of East and Southeast Asia intensified. Japan began resorting to forced labor to meet these steeply increasing requirements.
Fun Fact: In the late 19th century, a viewpoint began to circulate widely in Japan: God is benevolent and has bestowed different endowments upon various nations. Humanity has a responsibility to utilize these God-given resources well. Therefore, Japan needed to “help” those nations that had not properly utilized their resources, assisting them in better exploitation. If they did not know how to extract, Japan would help them extract. It was precisely under this ideology that they felt obligated to help the Qing or China excavate the Fushun coal mine.
The global economic crisis of the 1920s caused an increase in conservatism worldwide. Japan chose to launch external wars to solve its internal economic problems; however, the economic issues stemming from these wars exacerbated the contradictions. The invasion of Southeast Asia was to solve its demand for rubber; the invasion of the Northeast (Manchuria) was partly due to the demand for coal. Yet, war itself does not require raw resources so much as it requires finished industrial products. The level of industrialization in the invaded regions was extremely rudimentary, insufficient to rapidly supply these products, and could only provide primary raw materials. Industrialization itself requires massive injections of initial capital. This demand for capital further aggravated Japan’s economic difficulties during wartime, accelerating a downward spiral of escalating external aggression. (In contrast, the US war machine expanded rapidly because its own raw materials were abundant and its industrial base was comprehensive. The capital required for accelerated industrialization was not high, and it was sufficiently met through wartime mobilization and bonds.) Japan proactively chose to board a chariot that was continuously hurtling towards the precipice of collapse.
After WWII, the Soviet Union occupied the Northeast (Manchuria) and dismantled and transported all removable equipment back to the USSR, leaving the KMT Republic with a landscape in a state of devastation.
After the founding of the PRC, the goal of coal mine growth under the planned economy was further intensified. The author places additional emphasis on the “Great Steel Smelting” (part of the Great Leap Forward) campaign, initiated to meet steel production targets, which also triggered massive waste of coal energy and related resources. The carbon technocracy played an even more critical role during this phase. Whether in maximizing the utilization of the Fushun mine’s resources or developing more large-scale state-owned mines, there was an increasing reliance on this group—or perhaps “class” (jieji) is a more appropriate term to describe them.
During this stage, one of the most important methods for increasing coal output was the establishment of “production honor” titles. Through mutual competition, labor workers were motivated to increase output. The book dedicates considerable space to discussing how the establishment of titles like “Roving Red Banner” (流动红旗) and “Standard-Bearer” (旗手) was used to stimulate a bottom-up consciousness for production increases among the workers. (However, in this narrative, I personally believe it is necessary to add a comparison between the working class and the peasant class to reflect the enormous class disparities of the time. That is, the significant political and economic inequality between workers and peasants, which would show that this competition was built upon pre-existing class advantages—especially for those who had been “promoted” from the peasantry to the working class.)
Interestingly, the extreme pursuit of output also led to the negligence of safety, which subsequently resulted in frequent accidents. Criticism for this was concentrated on management issues—that is, the bureaucracy. In contrast, imperialist Japan always attributed safety accidents to the “ignorance” of the workers. When the author critiques the former viewpoint (the management-focused critique), their articulation is not very clear, or the expression is ambiguous.
The author’s prose is superb, but beneath the elegant writing, there seems to be a hidden problem common in modern history research: the materials of modern history are vast and complex, with various viewpoints and perspectives coexisting. Identifying the underlying patterns within them is difficult, and there are always perspectives that cannot be comprehensively addressed.
The author employs a compassionate perspective (悲悯的视角) when discussing how, under every system, the workers were in an extremely dangerous and exploited state, particularly emphasizing the actions of imperialist Japan towards prisoners of war and captives. This is undoubtedly moving. However, when discussing carbon emissions in the conclusion, a critical viewpoint is overlooked: all people worldwide have the right to use energy, including the most common workers.
Many parts of the book emphasize that the ruling powers attempted to “emotionally appease” (or buy the sentiment of) the local populace by promising “cheap energy” to gain support for their regime and the mine. This is indeed the case; the most ordinary people also have the right to use energy. In the course of historical development, when humanity must inevitably use fossil fuels to obtain energy, it implies that all nations have the “right to emit carbon” (碳排放权. This is just as Academician Ding Zhongli responded in the interview with Chai Jing. While the book provides a compelling micro-history of East Asian extraction, a global environmental justice perspective might interrogate the “invisibility” of Western industrial powers in this narrative. How does focusing on the “periphery” (East Asia) complicate our understanding of the “core’s” historical carbon debt?
Of course, the environmental catastrophe brought by global warming is a common problem facing all humanity. This raises a question of Environmental Justice: how to balance the historical carbon debt of the core with the developmental necessities of the periphery. This also relates to the final issue: While the book is a masterpiece of vertical history (deep dive into one site), a future direction for the field could be a horizontal comparison with the history of coal mine development in other regions of the world during the same period. This constitutes an inherent shortcoming, but the flaws do not obscure the virtues.
In the book’s conclusion, besides discussing humanity’s waste of energy, the author also introduces Cara New Daggett’s work, The Birth of Energy, to respond to the question of whether humanity can achieve economic growth “decoupled” from carbon emissions to realize energy freedom. In reality, however, it does not discuss the core contemporary issue of the “right to emit carbon”—though, admittedly, this part is distant from the book’s main theme.
Overall, it is brilliant and dazzling, leaving the reader captivated.