funny how it works: the public is too hot, dry or wet

the CCP discovers global warming

I mentioned yesterday that I lectured to the Reserve Component in the District yesterday. Reservists serve this nation proudly, improving their readiness annually through National Defense University ‘refreshing’ (my term) on the state of their services, policies, and the like. For as far back as my arrival at NDU in August 1992, faculty from NDU’s components offer insights on trends on the international scene.

My lecture focused primarily on internal challenges in China. As I noted multiple times yesterday in the auditorium, I discuss those domestic problems because they are front of mind for CCP leadership in Zhongnanhai. That is not, repeat not to say foreign policy does not matter to China but the Party fears its rule more likely endangered by unhappy mobs in the streets than F/A 18s coming overhead. Put in other terms, we need be aware of all that perplexes the Middle Kingdom leadership. To not be aware of those concerns invites consequences as true anywhere else.

The Chinese are suffering the impacts of extreme weather as is everyone else. As I noted last year in a couple of columns, southwest China in 2022, followed the next year by the metro Beijing area in the northeast, suffered truly dangerous temperatures. Not only were these uncomfortable conditions but contributed to drought which undermined the goal of food sufficiency. China’s electricity grid is better than fifty years ago but still strains to meet the demand in those conditions. The medical system is not built to address this heat. As China’s increasingly aged population struggles with the costs in retirement, this is one more factor they confront—and let the CCP know they want relief.

Water has long been scarce in the Middle Kingdom. China allows use of all natural resources with reckless abandon because the primary objective for the past nearly half a century has been rapid growth to improve the standard of living rather than conservation. The central government has nevern chosen to impose water restrictions in the face of public waste. Water mismanagement in the PRC is a long-standing concern as so much of this vital resource goes to producing the coal which fuels power plants. Those plants meet increasing electricity demands while increasing the output of noxious and climate-deteriorating fumes. This actions-create-consequences problem only increased the environmental damage over the years.

Even when China passed beautiful regulations to protect the environment, businesses did a simple calculation that paying a fine for their terrible behavior with coal was cheaper than looking for different technology, much of which used to be foreign. Plus, that classic Chinese corruption danger lurked as many coal producers ignored regulations by paying off local officials to ignore evidence of bad behaviour. In short, the environment always took a back seat to almost everything else.

China’s problems with water are not merely too little as the extreme weather which climate change creates produces far too much water in the southeast. Whether it’s due to rivers flooding (and China has a boatload of rivers) or monsoonal rains from ever more power typhoons barreling across the Pacific, this huge geographic expanse seems a target for Mother Nature’s wrath. Most of the 1.4 billion residents cannot avoid this wrath, either.

Earlier this week, I saw an article that included the phrase ‘[A]fter decades of campaigning by climate activites that was largely ignored, Beijing has made adapting to bouts of extreme weather a greater policy priority’. That sounds pretty pro forma and perhaps will yield no major results.

I don’t need remind many of us that China is notorious for proclaiming they will address a policy issue when international attention demands, only to forget their commitments later. No question they did that with what they agreed to at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate meeting, which is part of why we are in the fix the planet is in at present.

The CCP does, however, have a curious ability to become laser-like in addressing concerns, however, when public demands anger rises. The Party, a relatively cautious beast of 100 million folks who don’t trust one another and have little true visibility even among themselves on senior CCP leadership decision-making, acts to stem public discontent when it becomes an important enough challenge to domestic tranquility. The point of this article, recounting five painful years of heat, water in all the wrong places, and bad publicity for a Party seeking to garner international respect, is that climate is surfacing in China as a major issue no longer to be forgotten. Xi Jinping advocates for ‘green technology’, a command which may lead towards serious remediation of climate-destroying activities within his country. The operative word is may but the size of China’s contributions to global warming, right up with the United States and India, makes it a top contributor to the problems so steps could (conditional tense again) matter.

If China were to begin seriously utilizing green technologies, it would gradually make a difference in the overall problem. No immediate solution would result but I, for one, think we should be implementing each and every tweak and grandiose change possible because things are uncomfortable now. I cannot imagine how much worse it will be for my grandchildren.

Authoritarians, oddly, do have an advantage in this instance: they have power to enforce change when they desire it. That is NOT justification for authoritarianism so please don’t misunderstand how odious the Beijing regime is; China’s government does horrible things too often to count. But regimes that brook little public debate on policy have a distinct advantage when they actually choose to change course: they can shift things without the endless legal battles that populate our lives in contemporary America. Autocrats can force change that is difficult to do in a democracy as Captain Kirk could on the USS Enterprise by saying ‘Make it so’.

One of the questions I received following my lecture yesterday was whether there were interests we share with the Chinese. I responded that climate is one, though I did not stress sufficiently that we are often having trouble identifying common ground amid such profound mutual distrust. Perhaps, as the United States and China undergo yet another year of sweltering ‘new temperature norms’, we would be well off to start seeking those commonalities or neither of our populations is going to find the future an easy one in so many ways. Populations tend to blame those who govern them for things, whether the regimes are responsible or not.

Xi certainly desires to be a leader in green (or any other) technology for the respect and political prowess it entails. As extreme climate bedevils more of the planet, undoubtedly whomever leads in solutions to the climate problem will take an enhanced position in that field. Is that a reason for us to oppose China’s actions? Is everything in our competition now binary or can there be advantages for all from such activities?

Ought we look for shared interests with Beijing over climate? Where do you put this as a national priority and why? I welcome any and all suggestions as we need as many ideas to move forward as possible.

Thank you for reading this column and any other. Please feel free to circulate to others. If you find my work useful, please consider a subscription to Actions create consequences as I thank my subscribers for their support.

We got a bit of rain last night so it was a more subdued dawn. The cooler air a most welcome reward.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Bin Gu and Jonghyuk Lee, ‘The political calculus behind Xi Jinping’s emphasis on climate leadership’, TheDiplomat.com, 6 March 2024, retrieved at https://thediplomat.com/2024/03/the-political-calculus-behind-xi-jinpings-emphasis-on-climate-leadership

Christian Shepherd and Lyric Li, ‘Repeated bouts of extreme weather awaken China to climate change’, The Washington Post, 10 July 2024: A10.