I cant agree with your optimism and what you quote.
This is China we are talking about, and while they spout what the west wants to hear they continue down their own path.
There are failing in the rosy picture you paint.
Firstly the push for more coal power stations goes directly against their climate change goals.
In fact emmisions increased by 2% and 65% of the annual growth in energy consumption came from fossil fuels.
But the main fact is that to sustain Chinas growth, which has been mightily hampered by covid, they have to continue churning out products for the western world, and it doesnt matter how China dresses this up, its entire economy relies on being a cheap sub contractor at the moment, with a cheap labour force and a government that ignores human rights.
China has little intention of changing the way it makes money at the moment Climate change or not.
And who in the western world will upset the equilibrium, despite the vile way we continue to support China by buying its goods?
Can you imagine the uproar when all the lefties and wokes cant get a set of stick on acrylic nails for under fifety quid?
China will continue telling the West what it wants to hear and doing what China does best.
Looking after China..
.......
and low and betide anyone who believes what come out of the dragons mouth
I agree with you that China will do what it wants and will use its PR/propaganda internally and externally to promote its interests, quite ruthlessly. However they are vulnerable to climate change themselves, more so that we are in the north northern hemisphere. Its for this reason that I belive they are taking climate change serously. The evidence seems to support it.
Clean energy investment worldwide by major country 2019 | Statista. They are making huge investment in green energy, even the size of their economy its 15 times what the UK is doing.
Its also its in their interests to encourage and support the west in investing in climate change, as you say we are all in it together so we have a mutual interest in making these investments. Finally there is an economic gain to be a leader in a new market
. The Chinese culture and politics is to play a long game, they have done this for centuries and for the past 45 years in economics and politics, their stance over Hong Kong etc was to play the long game, wait for 1999 and treaty revision and grind their way through to where they want to go. President Xi seems unusual to me in his hurry to change things and his outward aggression and ruthlessness, we have not seen a dictator of his ilk in China since Mao, but nevertheless the Chinese culture is to play the long game, and they will more easily find the political will to invest in climate change over the long term than we will.
The Chinese government is highly technocratic, its dominated by engineers and economists that are planning for gain over the long term. Its in this context that I see optimism for climate policy in China. They are less influenced (but not immune) by short term politics and they have great power to influence internal debate in their country.
Climate change is not a zero sum game, unless the majority of industrialised nations adopt similar environmental policies no-one will see the benefit. Hence the politics behind COP26, the Kyoto and Paris protocols. China is no different to the US, EU and UK in needing to balance medium term growth with climate policy, so their approach is nuanced in that they are rapidly urbanising and industrialising but at the same time they need to improve local air and water quality and mitigate climate change for their own self interested reasons.
There is a short to medium term economic incentive. Once technology reaches a tipping point then there will be money to be made. So smart investors will chose when to switch from backing existing money earners such as oil and gas to new energy investments. The Chinese have an eye of this prize too. They are no different to other nations in looking to make an economic gain from these. Even in the USA despite Trumps ambivalence to climate change, US industry continue to invest in wind and Solar and disinvest in coal as the new industries are reaching an economic tipping point. I'm almost more concerned about this aspect of chinas prowess than I am about their seriousness in tackling climate change - after all its a chinese wind energy company that bought the Nissan giga battery factory in Sunderland, so far that is the UKs only Li-ion giga factory that is in production.
I share your concerns about Chinese economic dominance and many of their underhand approaches to competition, in fact it was a policy that Trump got right to challenge the Chinese on. They have hugely benefited from joining the WTO, but have cheated on a large scale and the WTO has been far to slow to react. I work for a tech company and we have had to install highly sophisticated software to protect us Chinese and Russian hacks. One of our sites employs ex Gurkhas to keep intruders out (its a sensitive factory and a Chinese company sprung up opposite on the business park) - the police have commented on the state intruders get handed over in. I think the UKs investments post covid and in infrastructure should have a strong policy of national resilience against unfair competition.
I'm not sure that the economic data support the view that China has suffered economically from Covid, from an initial hit last spring, they have seen record export demand (from western consumers) and the economy grew 18% last year that is a record for the past 8 years. Breakneck growth following industrialisation in late 90s to 2010 have seen more modest growth of 6% as they the economy has matured. In fact national policy was to move away from export driven growth to consumer driven growth reflecting the maturity of their economy, Covid seems to have set this back. Demand from china has been so great that it has distorted global shipping and lead to shortages of containers etc. I share your concern
concern about our reliance on Chinese manufactured goods. I'd like to see a better balance in trade. But I do see common cause with China on climate change. Hope that makes sense.
