Analysis
Coal is at the center of modern Chinese history. Without it, China's industrialization and massive economic growth over the past three decades -- which relied heavily on nearly unlimited access to cheap, domestically sourced coal -- would have been much smaller. Changes in the geography and structure of coal production, from the decentralization of the 1980s and 1990s to the current increase in centralization, reflect and shape changes in the Chinese political system. Over the past decade, as coal reserves in China's traditional mining hubs in the northeast and the central plains began declining, the bulk of new coal production and exploration has shifted westward to the sparsely populated provinces of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang. But as coal production moves away from traditional mining centers in provinces such as Henan, Shandong and Hebei, the construction of extensive new rail systems -- the chief means of long-distance overland coal transportation -- has become critical to mining companies and to China's energy security.Coal in China
If legendary investor 
