Executive Summary (Chinese/English) of the 1st China  Energy Outlook (中国能源展望)
Energy Research Institute (ERI) of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)
aka (国家发展和改革委员会能源研究所)

One key recommendation relating to coal imports is Recommendation 2 - which is a recommendation that China move away from its insistence upon being self-sufficient in coal.

Recommendation is that China should increase coal imports to increase balance of supply and demand from East Coast and SE with the Western part of country. Under this scenario, authors estimate a potential incremental increase in coal imports of 430MM tonnes (300MM in SE, ie, Guangzhou). This would be under a scenario where coal is kept in the West for use in regional development (huge oversimplification in paraphrasing by me).