…[Thousands of angry] demonstrators had denounced the official, Lu Hao, the governor of Heilongjiang Province, after he said miners working down shafts there had been paid on time…in Beijing, where officials have gathered for the annual meeting of the legislature, the National People’s Congress…

The state-owned Longmay Mining Group, which Mr. Lu had held up days before as an example of progress in restructuring…A thousand or more miners and their supporters at a subsidiary in Shuangyashan City, Heilongjiang, took to the streets last week…

In comments that appeared late on Saturday, Mr. Lu acknowledged that Longmay workers’ wages were overdue and obliquely blamed subordinates for his earlier misleading statement, according to a report on a Heilongjiang government website.

 “I had known that aboveground workers had wages in arrears, but it’s also true that workers down shafts are also in arrears, and I spoke wrongly about that,” Mr. Lu said in follow-up comments on Sunday reported... “Mistakes must be fixed, and after they are, you have to work hard to solve the problems and thoroughly absorb the lessons.”…Mr. Lu did not mention the protests, and the Chinese state-run news media has not reported on them…