Furthermore, the effects of air pollution are more evident there so it's easier to sell the tradeoff, IMO(I know almost nothing about China, TBH).
The CCP central leadership often responds to public opinion when local leaders are shown to be corrupt/incompetent (or scapegoated for other reasons).
There is enough to be worried about.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/rates-for-each-energy-so...
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
Even the old, poorly maintained, shitshow reactor park we have been stuck with has evidently been safer than everything else.
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.
More up to date:
I've seen that summary. I'm sceptical:
Their references (2007,2016) do exclude some significant accidents and do not account well for total accumulated deaths.
I have not researched any better sources myself, however.