Likely true (I don’t know the source you’re referencing) given cancer risk associated with coal etc. But single nuclear events and fears associated with them stand out to voters, long term health implications of coal or other adverse effects of other power alternatives likely do not.
There are absolutely voters in China. True, the candidates for elections are vetted by the party but the cynical might say there is little difference between that and the primary/convention process in US politics.
The CCP central leadership often responds to public opinion when local leaders are shown to be corrupt/incompetent (or scapegoated for other reasons).
China has a lot of polling stations, they can crawl social media to get what is annoying citizens. They also have a long and rich workers uprising and rebellion.
I've not checked your sources, but the most recent data I've seen suggest that solar and wind have passed nuclear now in terms of safety.
And this was predictable for a while since the deployment was just starting (e.g. most of the deaths are in the construction phase and then the panels generate for decades afterwards.) and the stat is in deaths per TWh.
Note that similar applies to carbon intensity, both pay up front in carbon terms and then work off that debt. Comparing old solar Vs newly installed solar is a similar fudge to nuclear vs solar, and gives misleading conclusions.
Nuclear is much better than coal, but it's hard to find a positive comparison to modern renewables without really cherry picking old data.
Clicked one link, 2012 data, another has 2012 in the URL. A third, published in 2018 is using the 2012 data, I think I've made my point.
