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Cities around exhausted mines have emptied as residents leave for better work opportunities elsewhere.

Fushun's industrial output shrank by more than a third between 2010 and 2018, according to official data.

The neighbourhood around the abandoned Shengli mine, whose name means “victory” in Chinese.

Of Fushun’s four main mines, Shengli was the first to shut, followed by the Longfeng mine. Last year, the city’s coal production fell to 5.29 million tonnes, a fraction of what was produced in its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s. Industrial output also shrank by more than a third between 2010 and 2018, while its urban population declined as inhabitants left for other cities in search of better livelihoods.

But with viable reserves exhausted and a lack of technology and money to safely operate deeper underground, its mines have been closing down one by one over the past two decades, leading to the neglect and eventual abandonment of the neighbourhoods around them.

For more than a century, coal was the centre of life for the residents of Fushun, 50km from the Liaoning provincial capital of Shenyang, earning the city the nickname “capital of coal”.

Fushun’s fate is representative of many other cities in China’s northeast, which is made up of the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. China’s rust belt regions Boasting a rich concentration of natural resources, including coal, oil and iron ore, the region was the birthplace of China’s industrialisation, and drove growth in the early years of the People’s Republic. Now the region has earned the unenviable title of rust belt as its heavy industries fell into decline. In part this is due to a resistance to change engendered by a deep-rooted state planning mindset that dates back to the 40-year period of Japanese dominance after the end of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. More than half of the 85 cities in the three provinces have seen their populations shrink, and the outflow of people is being compounded by low birth rates and the ageing of the population that remains behind. Cities whose populations shrank by more than 10 per cent between 2010 and 2017 Hover over a chinese city to see the change Cities whose populations shrank by more than 10 per cent between 2010 and 2017

Dandong Fengcheng Fushun Anshan Fuxin Haicheng Dashiqiao Beipiao Beizhen Liaoyang Tieling Kaiyuan Siping Liaoyuan Tonghua Shuangliao Dehui Shulan Wafangdian Benxi Dengta Huadian Panshi Jian Baishan Tumen Dunhua Helong Baicheng Nehe Beian Hailun Zhaodong Wudalianchi Jixi Mudanjiang Suifenhe Ningan Hulin Mishan Hegang Jiamusi Tongjiang Tieli Taonan Gongzuling Yingkou

Birth and death rates in the three northeastern provinces (1950 - 2018)



China’s Northeastern rust belt struggling to retain population as economic slowdown speeds up exodus In addition, long-standing bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption, coupled with political meddling, have hindered efforts to revitalise these cities. Meanwhile, these cities' reliance on a single or a few core industries — around the immediate needs of which they were built — has deprived them of the proper urban and economic development planning critical to ensuring sustainable growth.

Piles of coal at an opencast mine in Fuxin, Liaoning province. With extractable coal exhausted and a lack of technology and capital to safely mine deeper underground, mines are shutting down. Disused railway tracks near the abandoned Shengli mine.

Their focus on churning out raw materials and low value-added commodities for industries meant little attention was paid to producing competitive high-value added products.The consequences of this became more pronounced when the global commodities boom ended earlier this decade, pushing down prices and affecting the profits of the giant state companies that dominated the region.

Fushun workers meet after work to discuss production in 1957. Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson Labourers filter coal out of cinder at the Xilutian mine in Fushun in 2009. Photo: Reuters Coal mining in Fushun in 1903. Photo: Weibo Fushun workers meet after work to discuss production in 1957. Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson Labourers filter coal out of cinder at the Xilutian mine in Fushun in 2009. Photo: Reuters Coal mining in Fushun in 1903. Photo: Weibo

What has been harder to measure has been the damage to the region’s environment. Decades of mining have caused pollution and degradation of the land. Little effort has been put into reversing the loss of biodiversity, erosion, the contamination of surface water, groundwater and soil and the problem of sinkholes in areas around abandoned mines.

A man walks across a frozen river in Benxi, Liaoning province. An industrial site in the city of Benxi in Liaoning province. Debris left behind near the abandoned Shengli mine.



China’s shrinking cities are still addicted to building despite population slump But there are signs the authorities are taking note. Academics at the Unirule Institute of Economics, an independent Beijing-based non-profit think tank, have suggested that local governments in the northeast need to learn from China’s southern and coastal regions, redraw the administrative jurisdictions to help prune overcapacity and the overlapping of industries, and innovate to create new engines for economic growth.

Beijing is also pushing mixed public-private ownership reform to bring in private capital to revive the region’s declining state-owned companies (SOEs). Some 52 northeastern SOEs with total assets of 200 billion yuan (US$29 billion) and a combined total workforce of 80,000 have been placed in the scheme, including Benxi Steel Group, around which the iron ore-rich city of Benxi in Liaoning province was built. Employment in the northeastern regions by industry

(million persons)





0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2003 2017 2003 2017 2003 2017 Financial Mining Manufacturing 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2003 2017 2003 2017 2003 2017 Financial Mining Manufacturing

Meanwhile, in March last year the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) paired the northeastern provinces with three of their richer eastern and southern counterparts to boost cooperation and share resources. Liaoning will work with Jiangsu province, Zhejiang province will partner with Jilin and Guangdong will provide support to Heilongjiang. Companies are also pitching in. Fushun Mining Group is turning to deep excavation techniques to mine for oil shale, while simultaneously looking at the recycling sector to develop an industry value-chain business.

The West Open Mine in Fushun, Asia’s largest open pit mine, could be shut down by 2030.

Whether such changes can reverse the fortunes of the neighbourhood around the Shengli mine, which was closed 20 years ago, remains to be seen. Sinking Surfaces

Subsidence at coal mines is the downward movement of the ground surface due to gravity after the loss of support at the underground level. The surface of the land and everything that is built on it is supported by a structural system that includes the layers of rock in the ground between the surface and the level of the mine.