There are extensive governmental rent-seeking activities in safety supervision of the Chinese coal industry. The rents come from industry safety barriers, low resource taxes, and privilege policies for coalmining enterprises. The rent-seeking mechanism was analyzed using a model comprising dynamic games with incomplete information. The equilibrium results indicate that the probability of national supervision is influenced by penalties and bribery: there is negative correlation with penalties and positive correlation with bribery. The rent-seeking probability of a governmental safety supervision department is influenced by several factors, and positively correlates with the cost of national supervision. The probability of bribery of coalmining enterprises is influenced by several factors, and positively correlates with wages of governmental departments and a reasonable rent-seeking range. Reversed rent-seeking reduces the probability of bribery, but it's not worth recommending. Some recommendations are proposed. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.