Fushun Coal Mine

The Fushun Coal Mine (撫順炭鉱) in Fushun, Liaoning Province, was one of the most strategically important industrial operations in Japan's colonial empire. Coal deposits in the Fushun area had been known for centuries, but modern exploitation began in 1901 with two Chinese-run companies, one of which soon passed under Russian control. Following Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, Japan acquired the mine along with the southern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway.

On April 1, 1907, the newly established South Manchuria Railway Company (南満洲鉄道株式会社, Mantetsu) took over operations. At the time, the mine had only three small mining operations — Qianjinzhai, Yangbaibao, and Laohu — with daily output of roughly 500 tons and 356 employees. Under Mantetsu's aggressive investment and mechanization, production expanded dramatically. By 1930, the Fushun mines accounted for approximately 75% of total coal production in Manchuria. The coal fueled not only railways and urban heating but also the Japanese military machine and Manchuria's burgeoning heavy industries.

On January 11, 1917, a devastating coal dust explosion in the underground galleries killed 917 miners — one of the worst mining disasters in world history. This catastrophe accelerated the transition from underground to open-pit mining. The resulting West Open Pit (西露天坑) eventually grew to 6.6 km in length, 2.0 km in width, and over 300 meters in depth, making it the largest open-pit coal mine in Asia and one of the largest in the world. In addition to bituminous coal, the mine yielded oil shale, which Mantetsu processed into synthetic fuels — a strategically vital resource for Japan's war effort.

The human cost of Fushun's industrial output was immense. The mine's labor system was built on the exploitation of Chinese migrant workers recruited through labor contractors (把頭), who controlled and often abused their workers. During the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, conditions deteriorated sharply as Japan imposed forced labor mobilization. Thousands of Chinese civilians were conscripted to work in the mines under conditions of near-slavery, enduring brutal discipline, starvation wages, dangerous working conditions, and punitive violence. Korean laborers were also mobilized to Fushun under Japan's wartime conscription system. Captured Chinese soldiers were similarly subjected to forced mine labor. Disease, malnutrition, and workplace accidents claimed countless lives.

After the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 and Japan's surrender, Soviet forces briefly occupied the mines before they were taken over by the Kuomintang government in 1946. Communist forces took Fushun in November 1948, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China the Fushun Mining Bureau was set up and the mines became a key industrial base. The West Open Pit was finally exhausted and closed around 2019. In recent years, the abandoned pit has been transformed into a green reclamation site, with over a million trees planted by former miners. The Fushun Coal Mine Museum, established in 2011, preserves the history of the site, though the full extent of wartime forced labor remains a subject of ongoing historical research and commemoration.