Yang Haiming’s work life in Datong has shifted, but not entirely disappeared. After retiring from the coal mines at age 60, he found a new path: he now runs a restaurant selling lamb skewers to visitors coming to see the Yungang Grottoes, a Buddhist site with carvings dating to the 6th century that draws millions of tourists each year. In an area long shaped by underground coal production, his move reflects the pressure facing miners across Shanxi as China accelerates renewable energy and grows tourism.
Datong sits in Shanxi province, which the Associated Press described as a coal powerhouse. The story said Shanxi would be the world’s larger coal producer if it were a separate country, with about 800,000 miners extracting 1.3 billion tons in 2025—roughly one-third of China’s coal. It also described a wider workforce dependent on coal, from logistics to restaurants, as the province tries to add renewable energy rapidly and also uses tourism as a major development goal.
The coal industry’s footprint remains visible in the company-built neighborhood around a state-linked operation known as No. 9 mine. The AP reported that the coal company built Yang’s village next to the mine and that the area once had thousands of workers and families, including a school, a day care center, and a sports center, with an elevated rail line carrying coal to the rest of China. In more recent years, the AP said the No. 9 mine has been mostly turned into a museum and that the school has emptied and locked gates, while many apartment blocks are only partially filled.
For Yang, the economic change is not abstract. He recalled prosperous years, describing “so many people, especially during the New Year,” when “it was crowded everywhere,” and he said the bustling atmosphere has faded along with “the feeling.” While some people left, others have tried to shift toward visitor spending, and the AP described him speaking with tourists as part of a broader attempt by former miners to capture customers near the grottoes.
The AP also described how difficult the switch can be for workers who do not already have a clear alternative. It said Yang was in the minority of miners who have managed to transition. Tom Wang, a Shanxi native environmental activist and founder of People of Asia for Climate Solutions, said many workers do not know what to do, do not feel they have the right skills for other jobs, and view coal mining as either their only option or the easiest fallback back to farming.
Zhou Hongfei, a coal miner, described the financial and practical stakes of changing careers. The AP reported that Zhou said, “It doesn’t feel like money’s coming into this industry,” and it also reported his concerns about switching jobs without knowing whether he could succeed. The story said Zhou worries about supporting his wife and 8-year-old daughter, and it quoted him as saying, “To really be able to make contact with and then switch into a new industry is very hard, and the truth is, I don’t dare,” adding that he fears leaving coal because “you don’t know if it’ll work out.”
Part of the challenge is that mining income rises and falls with demand. The AP reported that before Zhou retired eight years ago, Yang earned up to 10,000 renminbi (about $1,450) in a good month, and Yang said he now earns more from his restaurant. The province has also tried to develop alternatives, ranging from investments in coal-to-hydrogen projects to promoting “youmai,” a local oat used to make a specific type of noodles—but the AP said tourism has been Shanxi’s biggest success story for life after coal.
Tourism growth has been tied to popular culture as well as local policy. The AP reported that Hang Kan, who directs the Yungang Research Institute overseeing the grottoes and is also a representative in China’s National People’s Congress, called last year for accelerating development of culture and tourism into “a strategic pillar” that “promotes people’s welfare” in Shanxi. The story linked that push to a spike in visitors after the blockbuster video game Black Myth: Wukong featured the grottoes and nearby sites, and it said state media reported the number of visitors reached 4.5 million in 2024, up from 3 million the year before.
Even with more tourists, the AP said translating visitor demand into stable jobs can require credentials and training. It reported that Yan Jiali, a tour guide in the region, said rising interest in jobs like hers has increased because the work requires a government test to become licensed, quoting her as saying, “Even my mom’s friends would come ask me about taking this test.” Wang, the activist, said he hopes high-tech industries that China prioritizes nationally could help the transition by providing new jobs, referencing companies such as DeepSeek and Baidu and saying, “What if DeepSeek comes over to Shanxi and says, OK, we will start a data center here? What if Baidu comes over to Shanxi?”
Despite the push for renewables and tourism, the AP reported that coal still plays a major role in China’s planning, particularly around security and supply disruptions. It said experts view coal as a critical safety net for China’s security needs and noted that the Iran war has highlighted vulnerabilities in energy supply chains. It also reported that China recently declined to cap how much coal can be used, reversing a commitment to gradually reduce coal consumption, citing analysts at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
Qi Qin, an analyst at CREA, described limits to the renewable shift. The AP quoted him as saying, “The confidence hasn’t grown to the point where they can entirely depend on renewable energy.” In parallel, the AP said China continued building coal power plants at a massive scale, reporting that it brought online 78 gigawatts in 2025, more than India did in a whole decade, and that one gigawatt can power about 320,000 Chinese households for a year.
For workers in mines approaching the end of their operating lives, the transition is also constrained by geography and reassignments. The AP reported that even if coal demand does not fall, miners still have to worry about their mines playing out, and it said some older mines in Datong are near the end of their lives. When that happens, workers may be reassigned to other mines that can be far away and pay less, while some take second jobs to bridge gaps—such as one worker, Xu, who the AP reported as working as a ride-share driver for about 5 hours a day after his day job ends and who declined to give his full name for fear of repercussions from the state-owned mine.
Xu’s comments underscored a central concern: whether the benefits of replacement industries will be distributed broadly. The AP reported that Xu doubted that tourism or renewable energy would spread gains evenly, and it quoted him asking, “This tourism industry, how do I get in there?” He added that for Datong, tourism benefits appeared to flow mainly to big hotels and some restaurants and noodle shops, and he questioned what regular people could access.