When Zijin Mining Group threatened to move its headquarters some 270 kms from its home county of Shanghang to Xiamen on China’s southeast coast, a local Communist Party boss rushed to confront the company’s chairman Chen Jinghe.
“If you want to move, you’ll have to move the Zijin Mountain to Xiamen as well,” the official told Chen, referring to a vast local mine that has helped transform the firm into China’s top gold producer and second-biggest copper miner.
The exchange, recited with some pride by local residents, reflects the anxieties felt by regional governments as they consider the prospect of losing their biggest cash-cows.
It also highlights the challenges facing Beijing as it tries to take on entrenched local bureaucracies and the powerful state-owned polluters they sponsor and protect, with the central government desperate to address decades of chronic environmental damage and force growth-addicted provinces to raise standards.
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