Tianjin catastrophe raises disturbing questions on safety, China's urbanisation

THE huge explosions that ripped through the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin last Wednesday night have not only thrown the spotlight squarely on the country's abysmal workplace safety record but also raised anew longstanding questions about aspects of China's urban transformation and pursuit of economic growth.

More broadly, there could - or should - also be implications for the Chinese government's crackdown on corruption.

The deadly blasts (which were visible from space) from a hazardous-chemical storage facility belonging to Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics were but the latest in a spate of industrial accidents across China. An explosion caused by combustible dust at a car parts factory in Jiangsu province killed some 150 people last August. In all, an average of 186 people died on the job every day in China last year; the country's annual total amounted to about 20 per cent of the 350,000 global toll from "occupational accidents" in 2014, going by International Labour Organization (ILO) figures. The direct death tolls, however, do not spell out the full impact, given that in many cases in China - including last week's Tianjin cyan…