Category: Environment

China and Pacific Island countries join together to address the challenge of climate change

In a striking practical demonstration of China’s principled stand on the equality of nations, be they big or small, Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted the Third China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Xiamen (Fujian province) on May 28-29. Wang co-chaired the meeting with President and Foreign Minister of Kiribati Taneti Maamau and it was attended by those Pacific Island countries having diplomatic relations with China – Niue, Tonga, Federated States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Nauru, Fiji and Samoa.

Wang Yi said that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Pacific Island countries (PICs). The everlasting friendship between the two sides has transcended mountains and seas. Regardless of changes in the international landscape, China has always regarded PICs as good friends, good partners, and good brothers. The development of the bilateral ties vividly demonstrates that friendship, whenever it happens, is cherishable; cooperation, whatever its size, is valuable. The “four full respects” principle put forward by President Xi Jinping, that is, China fully respects the sovereignty and independence of PICs, fully respects their will, fully respects their cultural traditions and fully respects their effort to seek strength through unity, constitutes the fundamental guideline for China’s relations with PICs.

He added that China’s cooperation with PICs follows the trend of history, responds to the call of the times, and has yielded fruitful outcomes that benefit the people of PICs. It has not only helped each other succeed but also promoted regional peace, stability and prosperity, setting a model for peaceful coexistence between countries of different sizes and serving as an example for seeking development through unity among the Global South.

Wang Yi put forward a six-point suggestion on building a community with a shared future between China and PICs:

  • Uphold mutual respect. China will firmly defend the basic norm in international relations of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, and resolutely support PICs in safeguarding their sovereignty, security, and development interests. China believes that PICs will continue to abide by the one-China principle and support China’s just position on the question of Taiwan.
  • Prioritise development. Efforts will be made to accelerate negotiations on bilateral free trade agreements, strengthen cooperation in agricultural and fishery technology demonstration and training, and expand cooperation on tourism.
  • Adopt a people-centred approach. China is ready to strengthen experience sharing with PICs in poverty alleviation and primary-level governance. Seven groups of 56 medical personnel, as well as additional Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors, will be dispatched to further contribute to the well-being of the people in PICs.
  • Promote exchange and mutual learning. Both sides should enhance people-to-people exchanges in areas such as media, youth, women, and sports, and maintain close and frequent interactions like relatives. China is ready to carry out joint archaeology and research on the Austronesian language family.
  • Safeguard fairness and justice. China is ready to work with PICs to firmly safeguard the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law.
  • Maintain solidarity in challenging times. China is ready to enhance coordination and cooperation with PICs in global climate governance, promote the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement, uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and urge developed countries to provide funding, technology, and capacity-building support to developing countries. China stays committed to assisting PICs in strengthening climate resilience within the framework of South-South cooperation.

The Chinese Foreign Minister stressed that the world today is far from tranquil, with resurfacing hegemonism and power politics as well as resurging unilateralism and protectionism. In the face of changes of the times and history, China firmly believes that peace, development, cooperation, and win-win outcomes remain the only right choice. China is committed to safeguarding world peace, contributing to global development, and upholding international order. China steadfastly stands on the side of international fairness and justice, the right side of history, and the side of the vast number of developing countries and consistently acts as a trustworthy and reliable partner for Global South countries. The vastness of the Pacific Ocean lies in its capacity to embrace all rivers without rejecting small streams, and the progress of human civilisation depends on pooling strength to overcome difficulties together. China is ready to join hands with all parties to write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future between China and PICs.

China also announced a six-point Initiative on Deepening Cooperation with Pacific Island Countries on Combating Climate Change:

  • China will work with PICs to build a global climate governance system featuring fairness, equity and win-win cooperation. Reaffirming that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement are the main channel and basic legal framework for international cooperation on climate change, China stays committed to their goals, principles and rules and guided by the principles of equity, common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities established in the Convention.
  • China will enhance coordination and cooperation with PICs in the multilateral climate response process. China will encourage the international community to fully understand the special situation and concerns of developing countries, especially PICs, on the issue of climate change. China will urge developed countries to earnestly fulfil their obligations and commitments, and provide adequate funding, technology and capacity-building support to developing countries.
  • China will firmly support PICs in addressing climate change through sustainable development.
  • China will speed up the implementation of cooperation programs on climate change response. Efforts will be made to promote the establishment of low-carbon demonstration zones, carry out capacity-building training programs to support PICs in cultivating professional personnel, and strengthen the leading role of South-South cooperation projects in enhancing PICs’ capacity to address climate change. China welcomes more PICs to join the International Zero-Carbon Island Cooperation Initiative.
  • China will deepen cooperation with PICs on disaster prevention, mitigation and response and provide disaster monitoring and early warning technology and services, post-disaster emergency supplies assistance, emergency humanitarian assistance and disaster assessment support.
  • China fully understands the importance of marine environment to PICs. China will support PICs in protecting the marine ecological environment, improving the infrastructure and capacity to respond to sea level rising, coastal erosion and marine disasters, and carrying out studies and exchanges on the impact of sea level rising on islands.

In the joint statement adopted by the meeting, China reiterated its policy on developing relations with Pacific Island Countries put forth by President Xi Jinping: fully respecting the sovereignty and independence of Pacific Island Countries, fully respecting the will of Pacific Island Countries, fully respecting the ethnic and cultural traditions of Pacific Island Countries, and fully respecting Pacific Island Countries’ efforts to seek strength through unity. China stressed that there are no political strings attached to China’s assistance, no imposing one’s will onto others, and no empty promises.

Continue reading China and Pacific Island countries join together to address the challenge of climate change

Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time

The analysis below by Lauri Myllyvirta, originally published on Carbon Brief, demonstrates that, “for the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth”. This indicates that China has almost certainly achieved its target of peaking emissions before 2030.

The article reports that China’s emissions were down 1.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, and notes that the country’s decline in fossil fuel usage resulted not from a slowdown in the economy or reduced energy demand, but from a rapid increase in the share of clean energy – solar, wind, nuclear and hydroelectric – in the power mix. “If this pattern is sustained, then it would herald a peak and sustained decline in China’s power-sector emissions.”

While noting that the possibility of a rebound in emissions later in the coming years cannot be ruled out should the government’s energy strategy significantly shift, Myllyvirta writes: “All of this suggests that there is potential for China’s emissions to continue to fall and for the country to achieve substantial absolute emissions reductions over the next five years”.

This progress is world-historic, because China’s emissions are reducing in spite of the fact that its overall energy demand continues to rise, and it continues to be a major industrial power. Thus its emissions reduction is the result not of de-industrialisation but of systematic investment and innovation in renewable energy. As such it is a model of sustainable development with important implications for other developing countries.

Lauri Myllyvirta is lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute.

For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that China’s emissions were down 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 and by 1% in the latest 12 months.

Electricity supply from new wind, solar and nuclear capacity was enough to cut coal-power output even as demand surged, whereas previous falls were due to weak growth.

The analysis, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable, or falling, for more than a year.

However, they remain only 1% below the latest peak, implying that any short-term jump could cause China’s CO2 emissions to rise to a new record.

Other key findings include:

  • Growth in clean power generation has now overtaken the current and long-term average growth in electricity demand, pushing down fossil fuel use.
  • Power-sector emissions fell 2% year-on-year in the 12 months to March 2025.
  • If this pattern is sustained, then it would herald a peak and sustained decline in China’s power-sector emissions.
  • The trade “war” initiated by US president Donald Trump has prompted renewed efforts to shift China’s economy towards domestic consumption, rather than exports.
  • A new pricing policy for renewables has caused a rush to install before it takes effect.
  • There is a growing gap that would need to be bridged if China is to meet the 2030 emissions targets it pledged under the Paris Agreement.

If sustained, the drop in power-sector CO2 as a result of clean-energy growth could presage the sort of structural decline in emissions anticipated in previous analysis for Carbon Brief.

The trend of falling power-sector emissions is likely to continue in 2025.

Continue reading Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time

Xi Jinping: China will not slow down its climate actions or reduce its support for international cooperation

In an alarming international context in which the Trump administration has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and is generally “walking away from global climate action“, China has reiterated its firm commitment to green development and global cooperation to prevent climate breakdown.

The following remarks by President Xi Jinping to the Leaders’ Meeting on Climate and the Just Transition on 23 April 2025 outline China’s vision for advancing global climate governance. Xi notes that, although “global climate governance has gone through winds and rains, green and low-carbon development has eventually become a trend of our times”.

Obviously referencing the United States, he points out that “some major country’s persistent pursuit of unilateralism and protectionism has seriously impacted international rules and the international order”. This presents a significant challenge. Nonetheless, “we will overcome the headwinds and steadily move forward global climate governance and all progressive endeavours of the world”.

China has been implementing a Green Belt and Road Initiative at an impressive pace, and is involved in renewable energy projects with countries throughout the Global South. This will continue. “As a member of the Global South, China will vigorously deepen South-South cooperation and continue to provide help for fellow developing countries to the best of its capability.”

Xi details some of China’s remarkably achievements in environmental sustainability in recent years: “Since I announced China’s goals for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality five years ago, we have built the world’s largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system as well as the largest and most complete new energy industrial chain. China also leads the world in the speed and scale of ‘greening, contributing a quarter of the world’s newly-added area of afforestation.”

He concludes by promising that “China will not slow down its climate actions” and will play its part in the building of a clean, beautiful, and sustainable world.

The text of the speech was first published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.

Your Excellency Secretary General António Guterres,
Your Excellency President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to join you virtually at the Leaders Meeting on Climate and the Just Transition.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Over the past decade, global climate governance has gone through winds and rains, but green and low-carbon development has eventually become a trend of our times. This year also marks the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. As unprecedented global changes unfold at a faster pace, humanity has come to a new crossroads. Although some major country’s persistent pursuit of unilateralism and protectionism has seriously impacted international rules and the international order, history will, as always, move forward through twists and turns. As long as we enhance confidence, solidarity and cooperation, we will overcome the headwinds and steadily move forward global climate governance and all progressive endeavors of the world. Let me share four points with you in this regard.

First, we must adhere to multilateralism. The more volatile and turbulent the international situation becomes, the greater the need for us to firmly safeguard the U.N.-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, and firmly safeguard international fairness and justice. The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement are the legal cornerstone of international climate cooperation. It is important for all countries to champion the rule of law, honor commitments, prioritize green and low-carbon development, and jointly respond to the climate crisis through multilateral governance.

Second, we must deepen international cooperation. Solidarity and cooperation are needed more than ever as the world faces multiple, compounded challenges. We should rise above estrangement and conflict with openness and inclusiveness, boost technological innovation and industrial transformation through cooperation, and facilitate the free flow of quality green technologies and products, so that they can be accessible, affordable and beneficial for all countries, especially the developing ones. As a member of the Global South, China will vigorously deepen South-South cooperation and continue to provide help for fellow developing countries to the best of its capability.

Third, we must accelerate the just transition. Clear waters and green mountains are just as valuable as gold and silver. Green transformation is not only the essential way to address climate change, but also a new engine for economic and social development. Such transformation must be people-centered and pursued in a way that advances the well-being of people and climate governance in tandem, and strike a balance between multiple goals including environmental protection, economic growth, job creation, and poverty alleviation. Developed countries are obliged to extend assistance and support to developing countries, help drive the global shift toward green and low-carbon development, and contribute to the common and long-term well-being of people of all countries.

Fourth, we must strengthen results-oriented actions. Instead of talking the talk, we must walk the walk. We must turn our goals into tangible results through systematic policies and concrete measures. All parties should do their utmost to formulate and implement their program of action for nationally determined contributions (NDCs) while coordinating economic development and energy transition. China will announce its 2035 NDCs covering all economic sectors and all greenhouse gases before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém.

Colleagues,

Harmony between man and nature is a defining feature of Chinese modernization. China is a steadfast actor and major contributor in promoting global green development. Since I announced China’s goals for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality five years ago, we have built the world’s largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system as well as the largest and most complete new energy industrial chain. China also leads the world in the speed and scale of “greening,” contributing a quarter of the world’s newly-added area of afforestation.

However the world may change, China will not slow down its climate actions, will not reduce its support for international cooperation, and will not cease its efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind. With the future of humanity and the well-being of our people in mind, let’s earnestly honor the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, do our utmost respectively and collectively, and build a clean, beautiful, and sustainable world together.

Thank you.

China’s solar space station: A game-changer in renewable energy

We are pleased to republish below an article by James Wood, a British-Australian technologist and geopolitical analyst based in China, about exciting developments being made by Chinese scientists in the realm of space-based solar power (SBSP), supplementing the article we posted several weeks ago, Science fiction or science reality: China makes impressive progress towards space-based solar power, and providing an Australian perspective.

Describing the technology in easy-to-understand terms, James writes: “Imagine a kilometre-wide solar array orbiting Earth, harvesting limitless, uninterrupted solar energy and beaming it back home, day and night, without the interference of clouds or darkness… Unlike Earth-based solar farms, which suffer from weather conditions and night-time dips, a solar station in space captures continuous, unfiltered solar radiation, potentially more efficient than anything on the ground. The energy is then converted into microwaves and beamed down to terrestrial receiving stations, where it is transformed back into electricity and integrated into the grid.”

The author notes that China’s “state-driven, centralised approach allows for massive co-ordination and rapid development, unlike the fragmented, slow-moving private sector initiatives in the US”. Meanwhile Australia, “despite its vast potential, has been lagging in both space-based technology and terrestrial renewable energy advancements”. This is attributed to inadequate infrastructure and a lack of long-term strategic planning.

In this as in many other fields, China’s socialist system is proving its superiority over capitalism in terms of moving human understanding and capacity forward.

This article originally appeared on Pearls and Irritations.

China is making the once sci-fi dream of space-based solar power a reality and leaving the West scrambling to keep up. Imagine a kilometre-wide solar array orbiting Earth, harvesting limitless, uninterrupted solar energy and beaming it back home, day and night, without the interference of clouds or darkness. The China Academy of Space Technology is spearheading this geostationary solar power station and with a 2028-2050 roadmap, Beijing is set to redefine the global energy game.

In 2028, China plans to launch a low Earth orbit test satellite generating 10 kilowatts (kW) to trial microwave power transmission. By 2030, a 1-megawatt (MW) station is expected to be deployed in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km, where it will be assembled in space before beaming power back to Earth. By 2035, the system aims to scale up to 10 MW, proving its potential for mass energy production. By 2050, the goal is to have a commercially operated solar power plant in space generating two gigawatts (GW) of electricity with an approximately one-kilometre-wide antenna and complex solar cell array assembled in space.

Unlike Earth-based solar farms, which suffer from weather conditions and night-time dips, a solar station in space captures continuous, unfiltered solar radiation, potentially more efficient than anything on the ground. The energy is then converted into microwaves and beamed down to terrestrial receiving stations, where it is transformed back into electricity and integrated into the grid. The Bishan testing facility in Chongqing, backed by $15 million in funding, is already fine-tuning the radio wave transmission technology needed to transmit solar energy from orbit to Earth.

Continue reading China’s solar space station: A game-changer in renewable energy

China’s Ecological Civilization explained

The following article by Douglas Rooney, originally published on Li Jingjing’s China Up Close blog, explores the concept of ecological civilisation in depth.

While the phrase is most often associated with President Xi Jinping – who has made it a central theme of Chinese governance – the concept has deep roots in Chinese culture, and is closely connected to the idea of harmony with nature. Doug notes: “The concept of an ‘ecological civilisation’ was first proposed by European researchers in the late 1960s. The term began to be used by Chinese academics in the 1980s and quickly gained in popularity among scientists and researchers. In the 1990s and early 2000s, prominent politicians such as Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping began to push for theories of ecological civilisation to be adopted as Chinese government policy.”

Doug explains that the concept of ecological civilisation became firmly embedded in China’s political mainstream in the 2000s, and is by now widely understood and embraced by the Chinese people. Its acceptance is partly due to its resonance with traditional culture, but also due to the way it has been linked to the country’s modernisation project and improvement of living conditions. In short, “the construction of China’s ecological civilization has created an environment in which investing in the green transition is a good way to make money… China has achieved remarkable progress on the environment by demonstrating to normal people as well as to business and community leaders that they need not choose between the environment and economic prosperity. Indeed, preserving the environment and tackling pollution can often be a route to economic prosperity.”

The results speak for themselves:

The scale of China’s green transformation in the last few decades is truly staggering. In 2023 alone, China would spend more on its green transition than the rest of the world combined and accounted for 75% of the global wind farm and the majority of solar panel installations. China’s EV batteries account for 60% of the global market. Around 40% of the world’s hydrogen refueling stations are in China, along with the world’s largest green hydrogen project and the world’s first zero-carbon factory.

Furthermore, with the Trump administration in the US pursuing a strategy of environmental recklessness, China is more critical than ever to the global green transition. “East Africa’s largest solar power plant was built by China, as was the Der Aar Wind Farm, one of South Africa’s largest. China was also behind Suriname’s hybrid microgrid solar power project, which ended rural reliance on diesel for the generation of electricity. They also helped build Brazil’s colossal Belo Monte Hydropower plant. As the United States returns to climate denial under the Trump administration, China will be the Global South’s only realistic partner in achieving a green transition that still delivers industrial development.”

Douglas Rooney is a Scottish Christian Socialist, currently working in Beijing.

In 2005, Xi Jinping, then secretary of Zhejiang Province, wrote an article in the Zhejiang Daily newspaper called “Green Mountains and Clear Waters are also Gold and Silver Mountains.” The article argued in favour of Hu Jintao’s concept of the scientific outlook of development, which emphasized the harmony between humanity and nature and underlined that while economic development was vitally important, this could not come at the expense of the environment. This would become known as the “Two Mountains Theory.”

Upon becoming president in 2012, Xi would make the “Two Mountains Theory” a cornerstone of the Chinese government’s approach to development. However, the concept underpinning his “Two Mountains Theory” – that of an ecological civilization – did not originate with Xi. Instead, his 2005 article and the green policies he has championed, first as secretary of Zhejiang and later as president of China, are part of a larger movement within Chinese society that was inspired by theories of ecological civilization coming out of the European scientific community in the 1960s and 1970s. What Xi and other leading Chinese theorists did was to fit these concepts into the Chinese context. Today, China has made the concept of an ecological civilization very much its own, and, I would argue, you cannot understand contemporary China without first understanding what China means when it talks about its ecological civilization.

Continue reading China’s Ecological Civilization explained

Video: China’s environmental strategies

Embedded below is a talk given by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez at a meeting of the South Yorkshire Morning Star Supporters Group, at the Central United Reformed Church, Sheffield, Britain, on Thursday 27 March 2025.

Carlos explains why it’s not reasonable for the West to pin the blame for the environmental crisis onto China or to portray it as a climate criminal; the remarkable progress China is making on renewable energy, electric transport, biodiversity protection and afforestation; China’s role in pushing forward the global energy transition; and the dangers of the escalating New Cold War in terms of preventing urgently-needed cooperation on environmental issues.

The presentation was followed by a lively discussion and Q&A.

China, Britain pledge to jointly address climate change

Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang met with Ed Miliband, British Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, in Beijing on Monday 17 March. According to a UK government press release, this was the first formal bilateral discussion between the two countries on climate action in nearly eight years.

At the meeting, Ding Xuexiang stated that developing stable and mutually beneficial relations between China and the UK serves the common interests of the two peoples, facilitates global economic growth, and promotes joint efforts to address global challenges.

Xinhua reports: “Miliband said the UK government sincerely hopes to enhance engagement with China, is committed to developing a long-term and constructive bilateral relationship, and stands ready to strengthen cooperation with China on energy security and addressing climate change.”

Miliband also met with Wang Hongzhi, head of China’s National Energy Administration, after which meeting the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding, outlining key areas of cooperation including power grids, battery storage, offshore wind power and green hydrogen.

As Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez commented to the Morning Star, it is a positive sign that Miliband has visited Beijing and that the British government is exploring opportunities for cooperation with China around the climate emergency.

After all, China is the world’s only renewable energy superpower, and is leading the way globally in terms of electric transport, afforestation, biodiversity protection, pollution reduction, sustainable water management, and more. A report from Yale School of the Environment notes:

Today, China has more than 80 percent of the world’s solar manufacturing capacity. The extraordinary scale of China’s renewables sector output has driven down prices worldwide, and this is a key factor in reducing the cost barrier to renewable systems for poorer countries. Today China not only holds important positions in wind and battery technologies, but a Chinese company, BYD, has become the world’s biggest EV manufacturer, and China is poised to pose a formidable global challenge in all aspects of electric transportation to established vehicle brands.

The idea that the West can solve the climate crisis while simultaneously “decoupling” from China is thus entirely unrealistic, and clearly there is a great deal Britain can learn from China.

Miliband’s visit to Beijing is a step in the right direction. Less helpful are his remarks in the Guardian on 14 March 2025, promising to “raise issues including forced labour in supply chains, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and human rights in Hong Kong”.

The slanderous accusations of forced labour in Xinjiang have been used to impose sanctions on Chinese renewable energy materials, and as such form a direct impediment to global climate action.

Meanwhile it’s Miliband’s own government which is basing its growth strategy on the expansion of the arms industry rather than pursuing a Green New Deal. This same government has actively contributed to NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, which is having a disastrous environmental impact – aside from its tragic more immediate human impact.

Furthermore, the British government’s recent cuts to its overseas aid budget will “make it more difficult for the government to deliver on a promise to increase climate finance to developing countries”. This doesn’t compare favourably with China’s construction of a Green Belt and Road, providing investment in renewable energy and green infrastructure projects across the Global South.

British politicians would do well to drop their empire nostalgia and to avoid hectoring their Chinese counterparts. When it comes to humanity’s shared project of preventing climate catastrophe, Britain has more to learn than to teach. While China has established itself as by far the global leader in renewable energy, Britain “has lost its position as a global leader on climate action”.

Miliband is correct to say that “it is simply an act of negligence to today’s and future generations not to engage China.” Parroting Washington’s anti-China Cold War propaganda will only create friction in this important relationship. It is to be hoped that Miliband’s trip to Beijing is a springboard for further cooperation.

Science fiction or science reality: China makes impressive progress towards space-based solar power

The article below, written by J Hagler for Workers World, reports on the Chinese Academy of Space Technology’s project of building a Space Solar Power Station (SSPS), expected to launch into low orbit by 2028.

The notion of space-based solar power has existed for decades, but has been considered too expensive and technically challenging to be feasible. The concept essentially consists of launching solar panels into space, where they can receive sunlight (at a far higher intensity than on Earth, and constantly rather than intermittently), and then converting the energy into microwaves, which are beamed to Earth and converted back into electricity. While this technology sounds far-fetched – and will likely not be economically competitive for some time to come – it has some significant advantages over terrestrial solar power, including the ability to generate power 24/7, and the potential to direct power to specific locations on Earth according to need.

Long Lehao, a rocket scientist and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was cited in the South China Morning Post as saying: “Imagine installing a solar array 1km wide along the 36,000km geostationary orbit… The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth.”

It’s no accident that People’s China is taking the lead in this field. As Hagler writes, “the project illustrates socialist China’s ability to do long term planning… The potential to create free clean energy is here and is being led by a country with a planned economy, actively pursuing socialist development.” A capitalist system oriented towards short-term profit is increasingly incapable of conducting such large-scale research in the public interest. “It’s easier for capitalist enterprises to make quarterly profits supplying weapons for killing women and children in Palestine than to develop an economy in a way that benefits all of society, instead of just a wealthy few.”

The article concludes:

The Communist Party of China has proven that innovations capable of seeing humanity through this storm are possible with central planning and socially directed investment, if necessary over a long term.

“The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity,” said fictional Captain Picard of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Humanity is standing on the cusp. Climate change is presenting the U.S. with the same choice nature has gifted all its species: evolve or die; change is the only constant.

As the cost of basic goods and, more importantly, energy continues to rise across the capitalist economies of Japan, Western Europe and North America, others have decided to utilize their economy to actually innovate. Instead of phallic vanity projects of the impotent super-wealthy, presented by SpaceX and Blue Origin, the “Chinese Academy of Space Technology” (CAST) has shown humanity a different way forward into the stars.

The construction of a “Space Solar Power Station” (SSPS) has already begun and is expected to launch into low orbit by 2028. Over 100 researchers and students across a multitude of disciplines are collectively leading the project for the SSPS at Xidian University.

An article in cgtn.com, website of the Chinese Global Television Network, published in June 2022 read: “SSPS is a space-based power generation system used to collect solar energy before converting it to electricity and then microwaves. Next, the energy in microwaves is to be transmitted and harvested by the receiving antenna either in space or on the Earth’s surface, which converts microwaves back into electricity.” (tinyurl.com/cgtn-ssps1)

The project illustrates socialist China’s ability to do long term planning. The same article says: “By 2035, the microwave transmitting antenna is expected to be enlarged to about 100 meters plus power generation of 10 megawatts. The goal in 2050 is to build a commercially operated solar plant that generates electricity of two gigawatts with an antenna that would be around one-kilometer and a complex solar cell array to be assembled in space.”

This project is a monumental undertaking and has the power to generate more kilowatt hours of energy in one year than all of the oil contained within the Earth. It has been called everything from the “Manhattan Project of Energy” to the “Three Gorges Dam of Space.” (tinyurl.com/scmp-ssps)

The potential to create free clean energy is here and is being led by a country with a planned economy, actively pursuing socialist development.

U.S. scientists knew it since 1968

The irony of this announcement is that scientists in the capitalist-led United States have known about this technology since 1968 when scientist and aerospace engineer Peter Glaser conceptualized the idea. U.S. corporations could have spearheaded the development of this technology decades ago. Instead, the government invested a measly $17.5 million into Northrop Grumman in 2013 so the weapons manufacturer could “research” the development of an SSPS.

Similar investment is also going into other weapons companies like Lockheed Martin. Imagine, instead of spending 1.5 trillion U.S. tax dollars on the boondoggle of all weapons systems, the F-35, the U.S. had spent that money building the groundwork of an SSPS. If the U.S. government had something akin to a “five year plan,” they could have made progress in developing this energy source.

It’s easier, however, for capitalist enterprises to make quarterly profits supplying weapons for killing women and children in Palestine than to develop an economy in a way that benefits all of society, instead of just a wealthy few.

Projects like the SSPS could not be coming online at a more crucial time. Climate change is putting into question the future of humanity and, if the worst-case scenarios are to unfold, of most other species as well. The rate of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere is unprecedented in planetary history. Humanity is truly in uncharted waters.

Running an entire economy and society based on what is most profitable is what led the U.S. into these crises. The capitalist class cannot lead the U.S. out of the crises, because the very incentives which make the gears of capitalism turn would grind to a halt if profits are even interrupted, never mind if they ceased entirely due to technologies capable of providing near limitless, scarcity-free energy.

The Communist Party of China has proven that innovations capable of seeing humanity through this storm are possible with central planning and socially directed investment, if necessary over a long term. The U.S., Western Europe, Japan and world capitalism are going through yet another economic crisis while engaged in yet more “forever” wars as the falling rates of profit continue to fall.

The working and oppressed masses of these countries do not have to continue letting their leaders take them down the primrose path of ecocide and World War III. Rosa Luxemburg’s challenge of “socialism or barbarism” is being replaced by a new one: Conjured by the physical limits of the planet itself, the challenge is now becoming “socialism or extinction.”

Grenadian PM: China’s people-centred development an inspiration for humanity

Prime Minister of Grenada Dickon Mitchell paid an official visit to China, January 11-17, becoming the first head of government to visit in 2025. The visit, which took in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang province, also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Announcing the visit at a January 9 press conference of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that Grenada is an important country in the Caribbean region and an important partner of China in the region, adding that since the resumption of diplomatic ties, China and Grenada have always respected each other and treated each other as equals, understood and supported each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests and major concerns, and maintained sound and steady development of bilateral relations.

Prime Minister Mitchell met with the senior leaders of China on January 13.

President Xi Jinping said that China is willing to provide assistance for Grenada’s economic and social development within the framework of South-South cooperation. The two countries should foster new highlights of cooperation in fields such as new energy, green and low-carbon development, and digital economy.

Xi noted that in recent years, China-Grenada relations have developed steadily, with the two sides treating each other with mutual respect and equality, consolidating political mutual trust, achieving fruitful results in practical cooperation in various fields, and deepening the friendship between the two peoples.

China supports Grenada in independently exploring a development path suited to its national conditions, and stands ready to strengthen exchanges of governance experience.

Xi added that China also supports Grenada in enhancing its capacity in climate change response and disaster prevention and mitigation, and will continue to raise international awareness of small island countries’ concerns over climate change and their demands. China has always attached great importance to its relations with Caribbean countries and will continue to provide assistance within its capacity for the economic and social development of regional countries.

Mitchell expressed appreciation for China’s timely assistance after Grenada was hit by a devastating hurricane in July last year. Over the past 20 years, the Grenada-China relations have been continuously deepened, and Grenada firmly abides by the one-China principle and believes that China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected, he added.

He said Grenada, having benefited a lot from its relations with China, will continuously strengthen cooperation with China and learn from China’s experience in governance.

Continue reading Grenadian PM: China’s people-centred development an inspiration for humanity

China’s Great Green Wall is a vision of hope for the planet

The article below, written by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez for the Morning Star, describes the recent milestone success scored in China’s Great Green Wall with the announcement that Xinjiang’s Taklimakan Desert – China’s largest desert and the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert – has been completely surrounded with a green belt composed of drought-resistant tree species. Carlos notes that this forest belt “constitutes the world’s longest green ecological barrier”.

The article goes on to discuss the dangers of desertification, which is a major environmental problem in China, and the world more broadly, as well as describing how “China has been proactively engaging with countries around the world to combat desertification, sharing its experience and helping other developing nations implement desertification control strategies”.

Comparing China’s cooperative approach with the US’s orientation towards war and hegemony, Carlos concludes:

China’s commitment to international co-operation stands in stark contrast to the hegemonism of the US and its allies, reminding humanity of the urgent choice it faces between a Global Community of Shared Future and a Project for a New American Century.

IN 1978, China launched its Three North Shelter Forest (Green Great Wall) Programme, aimed at creating a forest chain extending from Xinjiang in the far north-west to Heilongjiang in the far north-east, to prevent further expansion of the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts. This multi-generational project is scheduled for completion in 2050.

According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the programme “has greatly increased the forest coverage and effectively combated desertification in the programme area, improved the overall situation of serious wind-sand hazards and soil erosion, enhanced the resilience and adaptability to natural disasters and climate change.”

Further, “thanks to the development of forest and fruit-related industries, tens of millions of local people have been pulled out of poverty.”

The Great Green Wall scored a milestone success in November 2024 with the announcement that the Taklimakan Desert (in Xinjiang) has been completely surrounded with a green belt stretching 3,046 kilometres, composed of drought-resistant tree species like red willows, saxaul and desert poplar.

Taklimakan is China’s largest desert and the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert, meaning that its sand dunes constantly shift, causing erosion of grasslands and expansion of the desert. The forest belt now surrounding it constitutes the world’s longest green ecological barrier.

China has, for the last few decades, been the world leader in forestation. Its forest coverage in 1980 was just 12 per cent; as a result of a systematic greening campaign, coverage has now reached 24 per cent.

President Xi Jinping has often emphasised the importance of forest development: “Forests are the mainstay and an important resource for the land ecosystem. They are also an important ecological safeguard for the survival and development of mankind. It is hard to imagine what would happen to the earth and human beings without forests.”

One particularly interesting innovation developed in Xinjiang has been the use of photovoltaic sand control, whereby large solar farms are installed in arid and semi-arid regions. The solar panels act as physical barriers, reducing wind speed at ground level and thereby hindering erosion.

Further, the shade provided by the panels helps reduce surface temperature and aids moisture retention. This dew can even be used for growing grasses and herbs under the panels.

Desertification — the creeping transformation of fertile soil into arid land — poses a major threat to China, affecting over 27 per cent of the country’s land and around 400 million of its people.

A Forbes article from 2017 notes that “the Gobi is the fastest-growing desert on Earth, transforming nearly 2,250 miles of grassland per year into an inhospitable wasteland. This expansion eats away at space that was once fit for agriculture and creates unbridled sandstorms that batter cities near the edge of the desert.”

Indeed, desertification has accelerated worldwide in recent decades. A recent UN report labelled it as a “global, existential peril,” pointing out that three-quarters of Earth’s land was drier in 2020 than it was in 1990. This is, to a significant degree, a function of climate change, with rising temperatures leading to higher rates of evaporation and reduced soil moisture.

War, instability and poverty all have a mutually reinforcing effect on desertification. One of the most successful water projects of the 20th century was Libya’s Great Man-Made River (GMMR), which transported fresh water from ancient underground aquifers in the Sahara Desert to coastal cities and agricultural lands.

The largest irrigation project in the world, it helped to prevent soil degradation, reduce desert encroachment, and enable agriculture in desert regions. The GMMR was dubbed by Muammar Gadaffi as the “eighth wonder of the world,” and even Newsweek grudgingly admits that “this title is not without justification.”

Tragically, the GMMR was deliberately targeted during Nato’s regime-change war in 2011, and given the ongoing political instability in the country, it has yet to be properly restored.

Mustafa Fetouri writes: “The entire project’s infrastructure is under threat. Political instability, negligence, illegal connections to its pipelines and badly maintained water networks are among the biggest problems. In July 2011, Nato bombed the biggest pipe-making plant at Brega in eastern Libya, killing six of the facility’s security guards. In a press release, the alliance claimed it was responding to ground fire coming from the facility.”

Nichole Barger, chair of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification’s science-policy interface, insists that “by embracing innovative solutions and fostering global solidarity” humanity can meet the challenge of desertification and thereby avoid “a future marked by hunger, displacement, and economic decline.”

Thankfully, while Nato countries spread war and instability, China has been proactively engaging with countries around the world to combat desertification, sharing its experience and helping other developing nations implement desertification control strategies.

China has contributed to vast tree-planting programmes throughout Africa and Asia. It provides financial aid, equipment and technical assistance to countries struggling with desertification, as well as sharing technologies for sand fixation, water-saving agriculture, and afforestation. China is working closely with the African Union to support Africa’s own Great Green Wall initiative.

The scale of China’s Great Green Wall shows once again the importance of its people-centred, socialist governance and the country’s commitment to the long-term wellbeing of its people.

China’s commitment to international co-operation stands in stark contrast to the hegemonism of the US and its allies, reminding humanity of the urgent choice it faces between a Global Community of Shared Future and a Project for a New American Century.

“Nothing like before” — China is out-competing the West on EVs

The following article, written by Paweł Wargan for Progressive International, examines the neverending accusations by Western media and politicians regarding China’s putative ‘overcapacity’ in electric vehicles (EVs). Paweł explores the reasons for these accusations, and comprehensively refutes them.

The article observes that China’s industrial utilisation rates and inventory levels are similar to those of the US, and furthermore Chinese profit margins are soaring. These factors indicate that there is no significant overcapacity in China’s EV sector.

As for the notion that China’s rise has caused the decline of Western industry, Paweł points out that the decline of Western manufacturing predates China’s rise. “In the US, the trade balance has seen a sustained deficit since the late 1970s. As the productive structure of its economy shifted, industrial capital made way for financial capital. The number of manufacturing jobs decreased from around 20 million at their peak in 1979 to under 13 million today — a period in which the US saw its population rise by 100 million.”

Describing some of the extraordinary innovations taking place in China’s EV sector – in particular a ‘road-cloud-vehicle’ integration that improves safety and reduces energy use – Paweł comments that “this degree of integration is only possible through control over the entire EV value chain”. Particularly in the light of US-led sanctions and tariffs, “China began to move quickly towards technological sovereignty in all areas, from chips and artificial intelligence to cars and batteries”. As a result, “it competes not only with the automobile industry — historically the domain of the West. It also now competes with the tech giants of Silicon Valley”. Obviously, this speaks to the superiority of a socialist economy where decision-making lies ultimately with the people, rather than a few billionaires.

Paweł writes that the accusations of overcapacity provide a convenient pretext for the West to embark upon its own program of protectionism – exactly what it accuses China of doing – as well as “allowing the Western leadership to blame China for the structural long-term decline of the global capitalist economy”. Alarmingly, the situation also shows that the West would rather sabotage China’s economy and the global green transition than cooperate sensibly with China on the basis of mutual benefit.

Paweł Wargan is an activist, researcher and organiser. He serves as Political Coordinator at the Progressive International, an international coalition of over 100 popular movements, political parties, and unions. He contributed to our conference marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

The past year has seen a concerted effort by Western politicians, regime intellectuals, and media stenographers to accuse China of “overcapacity”. The coordinated narrative has accompanied a choreographed escalation in the West’s economic war on China. What is motivating these accusations?

In May 2024, the White House announced a series of new tariffs on Chinese products, including a 100% tax on imports of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), set to take effect later this year. The European Union followed closely behind. In July, the Commission announced duties ranging from 17.4% to 37.6% on Chinese EV manufacturers. And in August, Canada announced 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs along with 25% tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium.

The White House insisted that the measures would “protect American manufacturers from China’s unfair trade practices” and ensure that “the future of the auto industry will be made in America by American workers.” The European Commission cited China’s “unfair subsidisation” and Canada warned of the threat of China’s “intentional, state-directed policy of overcapacity”. In this narrative, now choreographed and ritualized across the West, China’s “overcapacity” is to blame for the West’s rising trade deficits and persistent inability to reindustrialize.

China has responded firmly to these accusations. In a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen in May, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that there is no such thing as “China’s overcapacity problem”, and emphasised China’s contribution to the green transition. China’s Foreign Ministry said that the “overcapacity” thesis was a “pretext” to create new restrictions on China’s energy products.

China’s “overcapacity” and the West’s industrial decline

Overcapacity can be measured in three ways. First, we can look at the “capacity utilization rate”, or the degree to which available industrial capacity is being used. Second, we can look at inventory levels; a high number of unsold goods gathering dust in warehouses might suggest that production exceeds demand. Third, we can look at profit margins, which would have to fall to help empty the brimming warehouses and make way for new goods.

As French economics commentator Arnaud Bertrand found, China does not show signs of “overcapacity” across any of these measures. On the contrary, its industrial utilization rates and inventory levels are similar to those of the United States, and Chinese profit margins are soaring.

Continue reading “Nothing like before” — China is out-competing the West on EVs

People over profit: How China is tackling climate change

The article below, written by Scott Scheffer for Struggle for Socialism, provides an overview of China’s remarkable progress in recent years in developing renewable energy and electric transport, and the role played by socialism in this process.

What China has accomplished shows how people’s ownership of the world’s productive forces, instead of a tiny clique of billionaires owning everything, will solve this planetary crisis.

Scott discusses the global impact of China’s innovation and investment in renewable energy. The production cost of wind and solar power has reduced drastically over the last decade, primarily a function of China-led economies of scale. The impact of this on the Global South is transformative: “For instance, a struggling country in Africa, Latin America, or Asia relying on coal for energy can now replace a decrepit coal-fired power plant with a solar or wind farm more cheaply than repairing or replacing that coal plant.”

Scott further notes that the Communist Party of China (CPC) has “taken the significant step of incorporating environmental protection into both its party constitution and the constitution of the People’s Republic of China”. The nature of China’s socialist system is such that, in its pursuit of an ecological civilisation, the Chinese government “does not face opposition from super-rich monopoly corporations” and can therefore direct its efforts to meeting the needs of people and planet. Scott concludes:

2024 will prove to be the hottest year on record globally. Alongside the horrors of the genocide in Gaza and the U.S. proxy war against Russia, capitalism has dished out the most punishment of the planet in recent memory. Only socialism can end imperialist war and save the planet.

It’s so fitting that just after the 75th anniversary of China’s revolution on Oct. 1, a milestone in China’s efforts to deal with greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) has emerged in the narrative surrounding global warming. What they have accomplished shows how people’s ownership of the world’s productive forces, instead of a tiny clique of billionaires owning everything, will solve this planetary crisis.

Climatologists and scientists widely recognize that China will likely reach its peak greenhouse gas emissions in 2024, although further research will be needed to confirm this with complete accuracy. If the data ultimately shows that the peak does not occur in 2024, it is almost certain to happen in 2025. Even in that case, China would still achieve peak emissions five years earlier than its official target, which President Xi Jinping announced at the 2020 UN General Assembly. This target aimed to reach peak emissions by 2030.

Other countries have reached peak emissions as well, but because China is so huge, UN figures and climatologists are buzzing with excitement over this development. It has great implications for the entire world, particularly for the Global South. 

U.S. corporate media often portray China’s crowning achievement as a problem rather than progress.

Mass production of renewables

Chinese mass production of renewable energy components — wind and solar — has driven down the prices globally. It isn’t just the solar panels on rooftops that millions are aware of; China has developed renewables on an industrial scale — wind and solar farms built at much lower costs and capable of supplying energy for cities and industry. 

What this means to the Global South cannot be overstated. For instance, a struggling country in Africa, Latin America, or Asia relying on coal for energy can now replace a decrepit coal-fired power plant with a solar or wind farm more cheaply than repairing or replacing that coal plant. 

The flaw of wind and solar power’s intermittent availability is still there. China is still running coal plants in its territory as a backup for those times when the sun goes down, or the wind stops. 

On average, Chinese coal plants run half the time or less. This simple first step provided what seems to be an outsized result, and it can be replicated where it is needed in the Global South until the intermittency problem with renewables is resolved via other methods. 

Continue reading People over profit: How China is tackling climate change

China is the indispensable country when it comes to tackling the climate crisis

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez addressed a Young Communist League of Britain educational on capitalism and the environment, held on Zoom on 14 November 2024.

In his presentation, Carlos discusses the current trend in the West for blaming China for the climate crisis, on the basis of its having become the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. He points out the various flaws in this logic, including that China’s per capita emissions are around half those of the US; that China is the “workshop of the world” and, as such, has “imported” a huge volume of emissions from the West; and that, in terms of cumulative carbon emissions (the quantity of excess carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere), North America and Western Europe are responsible for the lion’s share.

He notes that China’s environmental record is purposefully painted in a negative light in order to minimise the West’s historic responsibility and to imply that China – a developing country – should contribute at the same level as the West to the global fund for helping poorer countries with climate change adaptation and mitigation. This clearly runs counter to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities – a principle enshrined in international law.

Carlos also highlights China’s remarkable progress in the last 10-20 years in pursuing an ecological civilisation, noting that environmental protection has become integrated into all levels of policy-making and economic planning. Credible analysis indicates that it has already reached its goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030. Meanwhile, it has become by far the global leader in renewable energy, electric transport, biodiversity protection and afforestation. China’s innovations and investment in green energy have brought costs down globally by upwards of 80 percent, and, via the Belt and Road Initiative, China is helping countries of the Global South to leapfrog fossil fuel-based development.

Carlos goes on to explore the reasons that China in particular has emerged as a trailblazer in environmental protection, and concludes by pointing to the danger of a New Cold War impeding urgently-needed global cooperation around climate change.

Imperialism fails to quash China’s EV revolution

The following article by Chris Fry, a retired autoworker who worked as an assembler at Chrysler’s Lynch Road Assembly in Detroit until the company closed the plant in 1980, addresses the crisis facing the car manufacturing industry in the US and Europe, noting that many of the largest car manufacturers are shedding thousands of jobs and closing plants.

Chris notes that car manufacturers in the West have failed to invest seriously in electric vehicles, and industrial policy has been shaped to a significant degree by the interests of the fossil fuel industry. Meanwhile, “China, due in large part to its socialist economic and social system and its social ownership of much of its production and its scientific planning, has developed the infrastructure of EV production in a vast scale capable of producing emission-free vehicles of high quality at an affordable price for working class consumers”.

Rather than develop a coherent industrial policy, successive administrations in the US have turned to protectionism, imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs “designed to deny workers in the U.S. affordable emissions-free vehicles, notwithstanding all the supposed ‘concern’ from Washington over global warming”.

Chris concludes: “The accomplishments by the Chinese workers and their workers’ government represent a pathway to victory for ourselves and our families for an empowered and prosperous future.”

This article was originally published in Fighting Words.

On October 18 tens of thousands of Italian auto workers held a nationwide strike and marched through the streets of Rome. Organized by three unions, this action was led by workers from the Italian-based conglomerate Stellantis, composed also by the French company Peugeot as well as the U.S. Chrysler Corporation.

Stellantis is the world’s fourth largest automaker. It is projected to end the year with a loss of $11.2 billion.

The worker’s militant action not only targeted the company, but also was against the right-wing Italian government. The unions are demanding incentives to allow workers to be able to afford electric cars.

This was the first such militant worker action in Rome in 20 years.

UAW lines up to confront Stellantis

On October 3, the UAW, led by President Shawn Fain, held a rally and march to the Michigan Sterling Heights Stellantis Stamping plant:

Outside the UAW Local 1264, about 400 UAW members listened to speeches from UAW leadership, including UAW President Shawn Fain, and chanted, “Keep the promise” and “Fire Tavares” (Carlos Tavares is the CEO of Stellantis, the automaker that owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands). They then marched about a half mile to Stellantis’ Sterling Stamping Plant.

“Are you ready to do whatever we have to do to save American jobs,” Fain asked the crowd. “This is our generation’s defining moment. Over this last year, we moved a lot of mountains, but we’ve got more mountains to move.”

The union is demanding that the company live up to the 2023 contract and reopen the Belvidere Assembly Plant, converted to an EV battery plant in Illinois and keep Dodge Durango production in Detroit.

The week before the company had announced plans for indefinite layoffs “across its footprint” and the firing of its “supplemental workers” but refused to give specifics.

It has already laid off 1,100 workers at its Warren Assembly plant.

The UAW action comes after an announcement by the union that it would hold a company-wide strike vote by Stellantis workers demanding that the company abide by the contract won last year after a six-week strike.

Of course, the auto company executives and their government minions blame Socialist China and its so-called “over capacity” for these massive job losses and broken promises.

EV crisis at capitalist auto companies.

It’s not just Stellantis that is facing this deepening crisis.

In September, the German company Volkswagen announced plans to lay off 30,000 of its 300,000 workers. VW’s software subsidiary is laying off 2,000 workers over the next two years.

Mercedes Benz is laying off workers in Seattle, Washington and London. ZF Friedrichshafen, a major parts supplier to 55 auto brands, announced it would lay off 12,000 of its workers, while another supplier, Bosch, announced that it was cutting 1,200 jobs.

Continue reading Imperialism fails to quash China’s EV revolution

75 years of progress!

Writing in his regular blog, on September 29, Chris Nash, the Chair of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU), who has lived in China, working in the education sector, for the last 10 years, provided a snapshot of various aspects of China’s progress since the founding of the People’s Republic 75 years ago.

In economics, he notes that in 1949 China accounted for just 4% of Global GDP, whereas today it accounts for 19% and moreover is actively fuelling global growth, especially in other developing countries and emerging markets. 

He goes on to explain that “economic growth must be balanced with environmental sustainability. Drawing on deeply embedded cultural ideas of ‘harmony’, China has energetically followed policies that are healing and sustaining eco-systems across the whole country. In my travels all over the country in the last ten years I have seen none of the environmental pollution that used to be presented as the image of rural China. Instead, I have seen landscapes of profound beauty, which are loved and cared for by local populations engaged in their care and preservation.”

With concrete and vivid examples, Chris highlights some of China’s achievements in biodiversity sustainability as well as in the protection of eco-systems and vulnerable species.

On education, he recalls that, in 1949, there was 80% illiteracy in China, but now, a financial aid system covering students from pre-school to postgraduate level has been established, ensuring that no student from a disadvantaged background is forced to drop out because of financial difficulties.

He emphasises: “These are only snapshots from the remarkable journey of the last 75 years in China. What is important to note is that these 75 years of progress have made, and continue to make, international contributions, not just narrow national ones… think of the likely future benefits as China enters the next phase of its modernisation, led by a mission to ‘build a community of shared future for humankind and to achieve shared and win-win development.’”

We reprint the full text of Chris’s article below. It was originally published on the SACU website.

Starting this weekend the people of Beijing and visitors to the city will be able to experience a spectacular light show. Over 2,800 sites across the capital will be bathed in glorious illumination bringing their nocturnal beauty to full expression. This weekend also sees the opening of the National Day holiday all across China. This holiday takes place from October 1st to October 7th every year. It is often called ‘Golden Week’ and it is an annual celebration of the inauguration of New China on October 1st 1949. Those of you who are good at Maths will have worked out that 2024 is then the 75th anniversary celebration. Therefore in this article I want to talk to you about some of the progress China has made over this period, because it not only remarkable but of global importance to us all.

Let’s start with the economics. Up until the middle of the nineteenth century China had the largest and most successful economy in the world. The problems of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had a devastating effect on the lives of the Chinese people. In 1949 China only produced 4% of global GDP. Over 80% of the population worked in agriculture but the country was not self-sufficient in food. In 1949 China produced only 7.9 kwh of electricity per head of capita compared to 1144.6 kwh per capita in America, 141 times greater. In 1949, the average life expectancy in China was only 35 years. It is against baseline figures like these that the remarkable progress of China over the last 75 years can be measured.

China today accounts for almost 19 percent of the global GDP. China’s progress has brought benefits across the developing world. Until the 1990s, the developing world was dependent on the West for many things. But by 2007, large emerging economies, spearheaded by China, were driving global growth, while the advanced Western economies’ growth had slowed down. As a result, the impact of the Chinese economy on low and middle-income economies soared, with development projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative and multilateral financial institutions supported by countries including China such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank helping boost growth in many emerging and developing economies. In this way, China has been fuelling global growth.

One of the key lessons of the modern era is that economic growth must be balanced with environmental sustainability. Drawing on deeply embedded cultural ideas of ‘harmony’, China has energetically followed policies that are healing and sustaining eco-systems across the whole country. In my travels all over the country in the last ten years I have seen none of the environmental pollution that used to be presented as the image of rural China. Instead I have seen landscapes of profound beauty, which are loved and cared for by local populations engaged in their care and preservation. In Dali, Yunnan Province, a community leader, took me to the exact spot next to Lake Erhai where President Xi had stood and told local hotel owners who had started to make greater and greater profits from the growth of tourism, that they had to take down their lucrative hotels on the shoreline because they were damaging the water quality in the lake.

Over the last 75 years Chinese scientists have made significant contributions to the world in the realm of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. For example, China has increased the population of giant pandas by establishing nature reserves and succeeding in artificially breeding them. Yuan Longping, a famous rice breeding expert in China who made outstanding contributions to the world’s food security, developed the first strain of hybrid rice in 1970 by crossing the sterile plants of wild rice found in Hainan with cultivars. Tu Youyou, a Chinese female pharmacist, won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of artemisinin, a drug that that helped save millions of lives from the threat of malaria globally, especially in developing countries.

China has established a system of national parks that are making enormous contributions to protecting eco-systems and vulnerable species. The Tibetan antelope, the flagship species at the Three-River-Source National Park, has increased to over 70,000. The snow leopard population has recovered to over 1,200, and the populations of Northeast tigers and leopards in the national park have grown from the initial 27 and 42 at the pilot stage, respectively, to around 70 and 80. The wild population of the Hainan gibbon, the flagship species at the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, has increased from fewer than 10 in two groups 40 years ago to 42 in seven groups. And in a remarkable story of international co-operation, the World Wild Life Fund, the Chinese Government and local people in the Yangtze River area have worked together to rescue the Yangtze Finless Porpoise that had been declared extinct. A survey in 2023 found a 23% increase in the population. It is hoped that lessons learned from preserving this river species can now be applied globally to rescue five other river Dolphins vulnerable to extinction.

Finally, in our quick tour through 75 years of achievements in China, let’s focus on education. In 1949 astonishingly, there was an 80% illiteracy rate in China. Education became an immediate priority for the new government. In 1952, 1956 and 1958, the Chinese government repeatedly launched free literacy-education campaigns, which were responded to enthusiastically by 150 million participants. As late as 1978, only 60 per cent of primary school pupils went on to study in junior high schools. Now school completion rates are in the high 90% range. There are 9,752 secondary vocational education schools, with a total of 17.847 million students enrolled. A financial aid system covering students from pre-school to postgraduate level has been established, ensuring that no student from a disadvantaged background is forced to drop out because of financial difficulties. This national focus on education has also benefited university education. China’s universities have been edging up the world university rankings, with more making it to the top 100, and some 100 disciplines making it to the world’s top 1,000.  There are now 7 Chinese universities in the World top 100 ranking. For the first time this year, as my Chinese students are studying to gain entrance to western universities, our campus is now hosting international students studying to gain entrance to elite universities in Beijing.

These are only snapshots from the remarkable journey of the last 75 years in China. What is important to note is that these 75 years of progress have made, and continue to make, international contributions, not just narrow national ones. For example, figures from the United Nations show that China’s sustained commitment to poverty reduction over this period has resulted in an over 70% global reduction in poverty rates. It is China’s expertise in manufacturing, supplying and installing highly efficient photo-voltaic solar power technology that is enabling the world to transition to cleaner alternative energy. In the first four months of 2024 alone, 43% of China’s photo voltaic cell production was exported to Europe. History shows us long eras of peaceful co-operation between China and the world, dwarfing any periods of rivalry and competition. The next time you use something as ordinary as a wheelbarrow, remind yourself this was a Chinese invention of an earlier time, which spread to the world across ancient trade routes. And think of the likely future benefits as China enters the next phase of its modernisation, led by a mission to ‘build a community of shared futures for humankind and to achieve shared and win-win development.’

China at the forefront of the green energy revolution

The following article by Carlos Martinez, written for the journal Communist Review, describes China’s progress in the field of environmental protection and sustainable development.

The article gives a brief overview of the science around climate change, and introduces China’s long-term strategy of building an ecological civilisation. It goes on to give a detailed description of China’s remarkable trajectory in renewable energy and green transport, as well as afforestation and biodiversity protection.

Carlos notes that the fruits of China’s innovation and research are being shared at a global level, citing a Financial Times editorial saying that “when it comes to climate change, Beijing’s green advances should be seen as positive for China, and for the world”. Indeed China’s investment in wind and solar power has already brought costs down by as much as 90 percent. With the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) increasingly becoming a ‘Green Belt and Road’, China is supplying renewable energy infrastructure to countries around the world, particularly the Global South, providing an opportunity for many poorer countries to leapfrog the fossil fuel stage of development.

The article concludes by noting that China’s achievements in green energy are built on the basis of political economy:

China’s enormous investments have largely been made by state banks, and many of its key projects carried out by state-owned enterprises, according to strategic guidelines laid out by the government. This is possible because of the basic structure and planned nature of the Chinese economy. Which is to say, the fundamental reason China has emerged as the undisputed leader in the fight against climate breakdown is its socialist system.

Yet even in the capitalist West, “China’s example can be used to help create mass pressure to stop our governments and ruling classes from destroying the planet, and to encourage sensible cooperation with China on environmental issues.”

It is by now almost universally understood that humans need to transition away from fossil fuels and adopt renewable energy if we are to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change. As Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, says:

“Global temperatures are rising. Sea levels are rising; ice sheets are melting; and other species are struggling to adapt to a changing climate. Humans face an avalanche of problems from flooding and drought to wildfires and fatal heatwaves. Farmers are at risk of crop failures. Cities are at risk of being submerged. There’s one main cause: human emissions of greenhouse gases.[1]

The science is clear and widely accepted: human activity, most importantly the burning of fossil fuels, has increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to an unprecedented level. This has led to more heat being trapped within the Earth’s atmosphere (that is, less heat is being radiated back into space), resulting in a global heating effect, which leads to more frequent and severe weather events, rising sea levels, and shifts in ecosystems.

Data from the ice core record, going back around 800,000 years, shows that carbon dioxide concentration has fluctuated quite widely, between around 170 and 280 parts per million (ppm), with a previous peak at 300 ppm around 320,000 years ago. CO₂ levels have been stable at around 270 ppm for the last ten thousand years, until a significant upward curve starting in the early 1800s and accelerating sharply from the 1950s onwards.[2] At the time of writing (June 2024), carbon dioxide concentration is 424 ppm.

Greenhouse gas concentration will continue to increase, and the corresponding ecological problems will get significantly worse, unless we either reduce our consumption of energy to an extraordinary degree or we switch to non-emitting forms of energy. The idea of reducing humanity’s overall energy consumption is not plausible. For the majority of the world’s population, low energy consumption correlates to poverty; to low standards of living. Clearly, socialists hope that most people in the developing world, over the course of the coming decades, will increase rather than decrease their consumption of energy, and will experience a corresponding improvement in quality of life. As such, the only realistic option for preventing climate breakdown whilst continuing to pursue development is to undertake a massive global transition to green energy: to meet humanity’s energy needs without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and without causing permanent damage to the environment.

Continue reading China at the forefront of the green energy revolution

Canada’s unjustifiable tariffs on EVs from China

The following opinion piece, written by International Manifesto Group convenor and Friends of Socialist China advisory group member Radhika Desai for CGTN, critiques the Canadian government’s recent decision to slap 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs).

Radhika notes that the Trudeau government’s stated justification for the tariffs – that “China has an intentional state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply designed to cripple our own industry” – is pure misdirection. The real reason is to prove Canada’s loyalty to the US in the run-up to the renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. As for China’s “intentional state-directed policy”, “the most authoritative development economists will agree that there are no known instances of successful industrialisation where the state has not played a central role. This is as true of Japan or Germany or South Korea as it is of the US itself and even Canada.”

China’s government has intentionally concentrated resources on the EV industry for over 20 years, “particularly focusing research and development in making lithium iron phosphate batteries that were safer and cheaper than lithium nickel manganese cobalt batteries almost as energy dense as the latter.” The authorities provided further support by buying vast numbers of electric buses to provide low-emission public transport, and by building EV charging infrastructure throughout the country.

As for the oft-repeated trope about China’s “overcapacity”, Radhika writes that “if anything, the world needs more production of these things” – echoing the sentiments of former under-secretary-general of the United Nations and former executive director of the UN Environment Programme Erik Solheim.

Radhika observes: “What such complaints really mean is that there is a market for high-technology goods that is no longer being supplied by the US or the West, thus endangering their 200-year-old monopoly on such goods. Well, for all the crocodile tears Western politicians weep over the poverty and lack of the development in so much of the world, they do get mighty upset when one part of it, namely China, manages to develop and even push back the technological frontier.”

The article concludes by noting that the US and Canada, having followed the path of neoliberalism and financialisation for several decades, have precious little chance of success in competing with China on advanced manufacturing.

Three months after the U.S. announcement slapping 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EV), Canada has followed suit. As local observers see it, the Trudeau government faced a choice. On the one hand, it could risk retaliatory tariffs from China on Canada’s much smaller economy: The memory of those imposed on Canadian canola, pork and soybeans worth billions in trade in 2019 in retaliation for Canada’s illegal arrest of Meng Wanzhou remains fresh. On the other hand, it could risk U.S. anger should China extend even part of its EV supply chain into Canada to get the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement access to the U.S. market. Such anger would be bound to spill over into the renegotiation of that agreement in 2026.

Canada chose to avoid risking U.S. anger. But that was not how it justified the decision. Instead, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland claimed that “China has an intentional state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply designed to cripple our own industry … We simply will not allow that to happen to our EV sector, which has shown such promise.” This justification is clearly cooked up.

Let’s take all the elements of that statement in turn.

The reference to “intentional state-directed policy” is a bizarre instance of trying to tar a virtue as a vice. The most authoritative development economists will agree that there are no known instances of successful industrialization where the state has not played a central role. This is as true of Japan or Germany or South Korea as it is of the U.S. itself and even Canada.

The right to pursue industrial policy was recognized by the erstwhile General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and is recognized by its successor, the World Trade Organization. Moreover, both the U.S. and Canada are themselves talking about industrial policy and state subsidies to sectors facing competition from China. 

As a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed out, China’s success in EV development is a classic case of a successful industrial policy. It began investing in the sector as early as 2001 when it became clear that its internal combustion and hybrid car industries were too far behind major manufacturers in the U.S., Germany and Japan.

Moreover, EVs would also have beneficial effects in reducing pollution and oil imports. Chinese authorities concentrated resources on this nascent industry, particularly focusing research and development in making lithium iron phosphate batteries that were safer and cheaper than lithium nickel manganese cobalt batteries almost as energy dense as the latter. They also began providing the fledgling industry with markets by buying its vehicles for public transport.

Nor was China at all autarkic. On the contrary, it invited Tesla in, giving it the same tax and subsidy treatment as domestic producers. Tesla extended its supply chains into China while also stimulating domestic producers to compete with it.

Next, let us come to “overcapacity and oversupply.” Since when did the production of low-cost and high-quality products, particularly those that advance the world towards its critically important climate goals, become a matter of overcapacity and oversupply? If anything, the world needs more production of these things. Canada, the U.S. and the West should join in the effort to produce such goods.

What such complaints really mean is that there is a market for high-technology goods that is no longer being supplied by the U.S. or the West, thus endangering their 200-year-old monopoly on such goods. Well, for all the crocodile tears Western politicians weep over the poverty and lack of the development in so much of the world, they do get mighty upset when one part of it, namely China, manages to develop and even push back the technological frontier.

As for “crippling our (Canadian) industry,” that’s pretty ridiculous coming from countries that have been sparing no effort – sanctions, tariffs, military alliance and base building, “freedom of navigation” and other military exercises, propaganda, fear-mongering and false “development” advice – to prevent the rise of China and, one might add, that of most of the developing world.

Finally, Freeland speaks of Canada’s own EV sector “that has shown so much promise.” Undoubtedly, the thing that countries like Canada and the U.S. ought to do is find a sector or product that they have the unique strengths to develop, as China did with EVs, knowing that it could not compete internationally on conventional cars or hybrids.

However, there is a big distance between “should” and “can.” Today, notwithstanding the corporate subsidies that the U.S. and Canada are giving to their manufacturers, it is unlikely that they will be able to replicate China’s success in manufacturing, not least because, as they have gone down the road of neoliberalism and financialization, they have lost the capacity for sustained industrial policy they once had.

Chinese scientists design new cooling material for buildings to reduce carbon emissions

The following article from Xinhua reports on an exciting scientific development: Chinese researchers have created a sustainable radiative cooling material with the potential to cool buildings by up to 16 degrees Celcius without consuming any energy in the process.

The article notes that “in a world experiencing rapid warming, effectively cooling our homes during sweltering summer months with reduced energy consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions is crucial for meeting carbon reduction targets”. As such, “the novel aerogel holds promise for significantly reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption and paves the way for innovative and sustainable radiative cooling materials in the future”.

According to Victoria Bela in SCMP, “the biodegradable material can be welded together on a large scale using only water, creating planks that can act as a passive cooling material that will reduce the need for energy-hungry cooling methods such as air conditioning and refrigeration that risk undermining the fight against global warming”.

In this area as in many others, China is leading the way in scientific research towards a sustainable future for humanity.

The study is written up in Science.

In a world experiencing rapid warming, effectively cooling our homes during sweltering summer months with reduced energy consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions is crucial for meeting carbon reduction targets.

A team of Chinese researchers has crafted an innovative biomass-derived material using DNA, the genetic blueprint of life. This aerogel demonstrates a remarkable ability to reduce ambient temperatures by 16 degrees Celsius on sunny days, even under intense solar radiation.

The researchers combined DNA and gelatin into an ordered layered aerogel structure that converts absorbed ultraviolet light into visible light to surpass 100 percent solar reflectance, yielding exceptional radiative cooling.

The adoption of biopolymer-based radiative cooling material helps mitigate environmental pollution, according to the study published on Friday in the journal Science.

Moreover, these aerogels, efficiently fabricated on a large scale through water welding, demonstrate remarkable reparability, recyclability and biodegradability.

This aerogel material is poised to revolutionize the energy efficiency of urban architecture as an outer protective layer, said the paper’s corresponding author Zhao Haibo from Sichuan University.

The simulation outcomes of the study have demonstrated a substantial reduction in annual energy expenditure in cooling for buildings across all modeled cities.

The novel aerogel holds promise for significantly reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption and paves the way for innovative and sustainable radiative cooling materials in the future, Zhao said.

China has committed to the dual carbon goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.

Erik Solheim: China is the indispensable nation for the green transition

Elaborating on comments he recently made in an interview with Global Times about China’s supposed ‘overcapacity’ in green products, Erik Solheim has written a concise and powerful opinion piece on the topic for China Daily. In the article, Solheim notes:

China is now dominant in nearly all green sectors. The nation accounts for 60 percent or more of the solar, wind and hydro technologies produced today, as well as electric cars and batteries. China is the indispensible nation for the green shift.

He further points out that the level of commitment and investment that led to China’s dominance in green technology is exactly what is needed to address the climate crisis. “I may be naive, but I thought this was exactly what the world desires. Massive investments in renewable energies, bringing down the price, and scaling green energies to new heights to enable China to achieve its carbon peak target well ahead of the 2030 deadline.”

China’s investment and innovation has resulted in a dramatic fall in the price of solar and wind energy – of at least 80 percent in the last decade. “This is largely, but, for sure, not solely, thanks to China. I thought this was what we all dreamed of.”

The author calls on the countries of the West to stop complaining about China’s supposed ‘overcapacity’ and instead learn from China’s example – “Chinese ‘overcapacity’ in green sectors should be admired, not criticised”. The US and its allies should be ramping up their own efforts in green technology, competing fairly and working together with China and other countries towards a sustainable future for humanity.

Erik Solheim is vice-president of the Green Belt and Road Coalition and former executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme. He spoke at our event Building a multipolar world – Ten years of the Belt and Road Initiative in November 2023.

In March, I visited Wuwei in Gansu province. I had to keep pinching myself. There were solar panels covering the desert with only the horizon interrupting my view. China Three Gorges Corporation and the Elion Resources Group of Inner Mongolia, the companies that have established the solar farm, have also developed a lot of wind energy.

I may be naive, but I thought this was exactly what the world desires. Massive investments in renewable energies, bringing down the price, and scaling green energies to new heights to enable China to achieve its carbon peak target well ahead of the 2030 deadline.

The visit of United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Beijing around the same time, prompted me to think differently. From the US’ perspective, the massive Chinese roll out of green technologies is not an enormous service to the world, but instead a problem. In Yellen’s view, China has overcapacity in the green sector.

But how can that be a problem?

I recall vividly when we left the climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, some environmentalists were desperate, they saw almost no solution. Yes, former US president Barack Obama was there with then Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, along with German chancellor Angela Merkel, prime minister Manmohan Singh of India and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But the outcomes were meager.

What no one contemplated departing from Copenhagen was that the price of solar energy would fall almost 80 percent and that of offshore wind energy by almost 70 percent in the next decade. This is largely, but, for sure, not solely, thanks to China. I thought this was what we all dreamed of. Some governments, including the Joe Biden administration, have argued that we need a green shift in production and that it has to be innovative, at scale and cheap.

The argument about “overcapacity” is against common sense. Interestingly it is also contrary to all economic theories, starting from Adam Smith. My nation, Norway, has huge “overcapacity” in oil and in fish. We sell a lot more oil than we can consume at home and we catch a lot more cod and salmon than we can eat ourselves. That “overcapacity” makes it possible for us to buy cellular phones from the US, wine from France and electric cars from China.

No nation in modern history has benefited more from overcapacity than the US. In the middle of the 20th century, the US accounted for nearly half the global economy. The nation had overcapacity in nearly all sectors and it made the US very strong. Today Silicon Valley has an enormous overcapacity in digital products. If Silicon Valley only produced for California or for the US, no one would ever have heard of that little valley.

China is now dominant in nearly all green sectors. The nation accounts for 60 percent or more of the solar, wind and hydro technologies produced today, as well as electric cars and batteries. China is the indispensable nation for the green shift. It is possible to go green without China, but it will be a lot more expensive and thus much slower.

The West should get up early in the morning and respond to China’s lead by pursuing innovation and green competition. Protectionism is a race to the bottom. Green competition is a race to the top.

China invited Tesla to make its gigafactory in Shanghai, to bring a “catfish” into the Chinese electric vehicle market. It forced many smaller Chinese competitors to swim faster. It worked, and BYD, Geely, Xpeng, Nio and many others are now strong contenders. Tech companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi are also joining the contest.

The West should similarly invite BYD and CATL, LONGi and Tongwei, Goldwind and Envision to invest in Europe and America. That may tempt Western companies to run faster.

Last year I visited CATL. It is located in the small town of Ningde in Fujian province. It is the world’s leading electric battery maker, providing batteries to Tesla and many others. CATL was full of praise for Germany’s BMW who they repeatedly said had helped them off the ground, by being a demanding customer and sharing technology and expertise.

Such partnerships can be replicated, only with Chinese companies in the lead.

It takes two to tango. The West needs to respond constructively to the competition from China. China can also help this process, through dialogue and partnerships.

Of course all nations want jobs in their own country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched his “Make in India” strategy. French President Emmanuel Mac ron is concerned about jobs in France, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with the future of the German car industry. It is highly unlikely that China will be able just to export green products from home. Chinese companies will be called upon to create jobs in Europe and America, in Africa and Asia. It’s great to see BYD investing in Brazil, CATL in Hungary and LONGi in Vietnam. We need a lot more of this.

China should also look favorably into companies complaining about a level playing field in the Chinese market. There is for instance hardly any outside wind power equipment makers left in China. Maybe they are not able to compete? But a dialogue to assure there is fair mutual access to markets, will calm the skeptics.

China was also responsible for 38 percent of the total global clean tech spending in 2023, investing an impressive $676 billion. Last year, China invested $890 billion in clean energy sectors and it added 300 gigawatt of solar and wind energy to the grid, that is 10 times the total hydro production in Norway which keeps all its inhabitants warm in winter, with plenty of electricity available for any demand.

Chinese “overcapacity” in green sectors should be admired, not criticized. But there should be a profound dialogue to make sure all nations benefit.

Biden’s tariffs on China: a trade unionist response

What follows below is a two part article by Chris Fry – a Chrysler retiree and former United Auto Workers organiser in Detroit – about Biden’s recently-announced tariffs on China, and how the labour movement in the US should respond to them.

Chris observes that these tariffs are fundamentally detrimental to the interests of working people in the US. Tariffs on medical supplies in particular “must be considered particularly bizarre” given that Covid is resurgent and that there are concerns about a new outbreak of avian flu.

Increasing tariffs on EVs from 25 to 100 percent will double the price of these cars, “placing them out of reach for most of our class”. The author cites an article from Foreign Policy magazine pointing out that “the winner of the escalating, zero-sum green technology trade war between the United States and China may well be climate change”.

Biden has made all sorts of promises in relation to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but, as part of an electoral strategy of out-Trumping Trump, “Biden’s climate promises go right out the window”.

In terms of an appropriate trade union response to the tariffs, Chris writes that “to continue to fight for high paying jobs for workers to produce low-price EVs essential to reduce carbon emissions, the union movement should consider a different view of socialist China and its vast green energy capabilities”.

Unions of course are eager to create and protect jobs; Chris notes that Chinese company BYD already has a factory in Los Angeles producing electric buses and, “unlike their European counterparts in anti-union southern states, the BYD plant’s 700 workers are members of the Sheet Metal Air, Rail and Transportation Workers Union (SMART), Local 105”.

Inviting Chinese companies to manufacture essential environmentally-friendly products in the US “could be a huge gain for both the union and environmental movement and link the two movements together. Finally, it could convert the dangerous ruling-class spawned hostility towards China into genuine working-class solidarity.”

The two part article was originally published in Fighting Words, the journal of the Communist Workers League.

Part 1

When Biden was running for office in 2020, he said that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products increased inflation on the public and promised to reduce or eliminate them.

He did not.

Instead, on May 4, the Biden Administration announced a massive tariff increase on imported goods from the People’s Republic of China (PRC):

Tariffs on medical supplies must be considered particularly bizarre, as the population is still subject to outbreaks of the deadly Covid virus. And public health officials are increasingly alarmed by a new outbreak from the avian H5N1 flu virus which has infected dairy cows and their milk across the country. Many farmworkers who milk cows have become ill from this virus.

A June 3 Scientific American article reports:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that workers on farms where H5N1 has been detected have access to personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as N95 respirators, face masks, goggles and face shields. But it’s only a recommendation, Lakdawala says.

In order to prevent bird flu from causing more infections in humans, Lakdawala thinks dairy workers on all farms should have access to and use proper PPE—especially face shields to protect their eyes. Getting workers to wear N95 masks while working all day in hot barns is unlikely, she notes, but a face shield would provide at least some protection.

But in terms of the economic effects on workers and the oppressed communities, the most dramatic was the tariff increase was on electric vehicles (EVs), going from Trump’s 25 percent to a whopping 100 percent, doubling the price of the cars, placing them out of reach for most of our class.

And Biden tripled tariffs on Chinese-manufactured lithium batteries, going from Trump’s 8% to 25%.

The big winner from Biden’s tariffs: Global warming

A May 28th article from the Foreign Policy website describes these new tariffs from an environmental perspective:

The winner of the escalating, zero-sum green technology trade war between the United States and China may well be climate change. In the latest surge of election-year techno-nationalism, to protect and advance his green transition—and to out-Trump former U.S. President Donald Trump—President Joe Biden last week imposed a wave of new tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, and solar cells as well as other Chinese goods, in addition to retaining all of Trump’s tariffs on China.

Scientists are already predicting that 2024 will surpass 2023 as the warmest year globally:

A May 7 CNN article describes some of the catastrophic effects of this on people around the world:

The impacts have been stark. Swaths of Asia have been grappling with deadly heat: schools were closed for millions of children in Bangladesh, rice fields have shriveled in Vietnam, and people in India battled 110 degree Fahrenheit temperatures to vote in recent elections.

Global ocean heat in April was also record-breaking for the 13th consecutive month. Ocean surface temperatures reached 21.04 degrees, the highest on record for any April, and just a fraction below the overall record set in March, according to Copernicus data.

The impact on marine systems is devastating. A mass coral bleaching event occurred this spring, which scientists said at the time could be the worst on record.

As for the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has presented a grim hurricane forecast for 2024:

NOAA National Weather Service forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center predict above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year. NOAA’s outlook for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which spans from June 1 to November 30, predicts an 85% chance of an above-normal season, a 10% chance of a near-normal season and a 5% chance of a below-normal season.

NOAA is forecasting a range of 17 to 25 total named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher). Of those, 8 to 13 are forecast to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 4 to 7 major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5; with winds of 111 mph or higher). Forecasters have a 70% confidence in these ranges.

In 2021, to pass his corporate-friendly Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden promised a 50 percent to 52 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (compared to 2005 levels) by 2030, zero net emissions by 2050, and 50 percent of all new vehicles being zero-emission by 2030.

Continue reading Biden’s tariffs on China: a trade unionist response