China's job-saving coal fix may mean trouble for overseas miners

Shanghai

CHINA'S biggest coal region has a fix for the country's glut that may send shivers through miners from the United States' Appalachian Mountains to Australia's Hunter Basin.

The Chinese government wants to shut roughly 9 per cent of its production capacity to shrink its industrial sector and clean its polluted skies. That means dismissing 1.3 million coal workers, risking social unrest that Beijing wants to avoid.