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BEIJING - A Chinese journalist investigating the nation's dangerous coal mining industry was beaten to death in northern China, his paper has said, amid reports a mine boss ordered the attack.

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Lan Chengzhang, a journalist for the Beijing-based China Trade News, was beaten by unidentified assailants near a mine in Huiyuan county in Shanxi province on January 9, officials from the paper said.

"Lan Chengzhang was a just-hired journalist who was still in a trial period," Wang Jianfeng, head of the paper's news department, told AFP by phone.

"He was beaten to death by a group of mining thugs."

The paper has sent a team to investigate the incident and laid complaints with the local police and government, he said.

"We will do everything we can to protect the rights of journalists," he said.

Wang declined to give any more details, saying: "At this time it is not appropriate to comment further."

But according to the Southern Daily newspaper, Lan died in a hospital in the neighbouring city of Datong on January 10.

Several men with clubs beat Lan as a fellow reporter was being held at the office of an unnamed Huiyuan county mine boss, the paper said.

The paper said the surviving journalist, who with Lan had been sent to the area to investigate the local coal industry, had accused the Huiyuan mine boss of ordering the thugs to carry out the attack, it said.

Officials in Datong, which oversees Huiyuan county, were unavailable for comment when contacted by AFP.

But the paper said city officials had accused Lan of being a "fake journalist" who was out to extort officials in the local mining industry.

Shanxi is China's largest coal producing region and where a large portion of the nation's mining accidents take place.

A total of 4,746 people died working in China's coal mines last year -- a death toll of 13 a day, according to official figures.