What can China do about climate change?

A Greenpeace report has now revealed, to the surprise of no one, that the awakened industrial giant of China is a colossal creator of carbon emissions. China’s three biggest power firms (Huaneng, Datang and Guodian) allegedly produced more greenhouse gas emissions last year than the whole of Britain.

Greenpeace have warned that inefficient plants and the country’s heavy reliance on coal are hindering efforts to tackle climate change. Well, this can hardly be disputed. The question is what can realistically be done about it.

The “developmental” arguments are well known: China has such an enormous population that per capita emissions are still comparatively low, even if the country as a whole is king of the toxic fumes. And China came late to the party: much of the problem was caused by Western countries who are now enjoying the fruits of the prosperity which brought the pollution, and why should China be responsible for taking out the garbage when she didn’t even get any cream cakes?

It is not the case that China simply doesn’t care. Since 1990 China has been taking environmental issues increasingly seriously. The problem is integrating them with the developmental imperative. When you have 1.5 billion people to feed and keep employed, you can hardly be blamed for making that your first objective. When Greenpeace say that China should introduce green taxes on coal and carbon emissions, they aren’t responsible for the unintended economic consequences. The Chinese are. These things are devilish difficult to predict.

Renewables are everybody’s favourite baby, and on the face of it China should be well positioned; hydroelectric power is already a big thing in the South, and anyone who’s stood in a Beijing street in the spring with half the Gobi Desert blowing into their face will see prospects for wind power. And of course nuclear energy is potentially the biggest renewable of all (there is no political penalty for saying these words in China, unlike, say, in Germany).

Here the problem is that, when Greenpeace talk about inefficient plants, they aren’t joking. And mining accidents claim several thousand lives a year in China. Things are not always done properly, and when a safety inspector calls he is likely to be greeted with a brown envelope and a bottle of Johnnie Walker rather than a proper account of procedures strictly adhered to. Now extrapolate that to an expanding nuclear industry…

Yes, China needs to reduce its dependence on coal. But please, Greenpeace, don’t be too prescriptive on which levers to pull – it won’t do any good. China has excellent economists, who have nobly resisted the temptation to throw their hands up in despair at the extraordinary complex of problems facing the country. They’ll work that out for themselves. The answer to climate change is the same in China as it is anywhere else; technological development, and the structuring of incentives so that prosperity and environmental concerns can be combined. I drive a low-emission car, not because I’m a green hero, but because it saves me money. Take it from there.

China puts a Uighur Christian on trial. Will that keep Al-Qa'eda happy?

I referred a few days back to the reports that Al-Qaeda and similar groups might be targeting China as a result of the murderous ethnic riots in Xinjiang, and wondering how the Chinese Government might respond. Well, now we know.

A trial begins tomorrow. Predictably, a Uighur stands before the court. His name is Alimujiang Yimiti. Is he accused of running amok and slaughtering Han Chinese in the turmoil earlier this month? No – not even the Chinese can pin that on him. He has been in custody for the last 18 months. And he’s not even a Muslim – he’s a Christian. As usual, his wife and mother have been told by authorities that they will not be allowed to attend.

Although the general assumption is that his crime is bearing Christian witness among the Uighurs, he will be charged with “revealing State secrets”. Well, we are invited to reflect, that’s pretty serious. It’s hardly a sign of tyranny – you get prosecuted for that over here. The problem is that, under Chinese law, any information which has not been specifically released by the government’s information office is a state secret. The great dissident Wei Jingsheng got 15 years in 1979 for revealing that China was fighting a war with Vietnam, although many Chinese families had already found this out the hard way.

Chinese law is useful like that: most of the really severe laws from the Mao era have never been specifically repealed, only selectively applied. Until recently (and I would guess it’s still the case) it was illegal to have sex outside marriage, which has frequently come in useful when persecuting off-message Chinese or blackmailing their lovers.

But back to Mr Yimiti. Heaven knows what he might have revealed – probably that it’s hot in Xinjiang in summer – but the timing of his trial comes in very useful. The Chinese leadership can make it clear that they’re not against Muslims – “honest, Osama, we’re not ” – but just against Uighur troublemakers, who, it is implied, are quite likely to be Christians – and Christians who try to convert Muslims! “Come on, Osama, you can’t blame us for that!”.

Maybe that might keep Al-Qaeda off their backs in North Africa. Either way, it’s nice to be able to sock it to those who oppose the national religion: “There is no god but Mao, and Hu Jintao is his prophet…”

(Hat tip: Christian Solidarity Worldwide)

What to do about North Korea?

So the US is getting its knickers in a twist about potential nuclear cooperation between North Korea and “Myanmar”, whatever that is. I’m not sure we need to be worrying just yet. The idea of Burma developing an independent nuclear deterrent, whatever help they may get, will remain ludicrous for the foreseeable future. The nation that ought to be worrying is not the USA but China.

The official Chinese position has always been that no country should interfere in the internal affairs of another, and should always deal with the government in power as a genuine representative of the nation. (Taiwan always excepted.) And thus however madly regimes like the North Korean or the Burmese behave, they will always find principled support in Beijing.

But for some time now North Korea has been stretching China’s tolerance to the limit. Their horrible regime causes endless tension on the peninsula and a permanent refugee problem in North-East China; and the nuclear games might at some point release a deeply undesirable genie in the form of Japanese nuclear defence. So far the Burmese dictators have retained Chinese goodwill by standing for stability; but they had better not rock the boat too far. There are plenty of Chinese thinkers who realise that a free Burma and a united Korea are ultimately a better bet in terms of stability, as both would be dependent on good relations with China.

And the future of North Korea is clearly China’s call, if only for geographical reasons. Sooner or later they will have to grasp the nettle: a responsible world power can no longer maintain this “all governments have equal rights” position. They will have to abandon all that and put an end to this ghastly regime, if it doesn’t collapse first on the death of the Dear Leader. And let’s hope that the Rangoon junta comes down with them.

Three rather different anniversaries

Not unnaturally, the press today has been full of the 40th anniversary of the moon landings. I remember them well; the geeky nine-year-old Collard hoovering up every detail and simply taking over the lesson from the elderly primary teacher when she tried to raise the subject. And then so much disappointment, when all that heroic effort didn’t seem to be leading anywhere except to more and spiffier military technology (though I do remember that non-stick pans came into it somewhere, and I don’t mind those).

Hardly a mention (outside Germany) of the concurrent 65th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944. Under the circumstances that was hardly less heroic, although it failed. (I don’t normally have much time for suicide bombers: but if Stauffenberg had stayed in the bunker and made sure no one moved his briefcase, he’d have slotted Hitler while only shortening his own life by twelve hours.)

I respect the Germans’ desire to celebrate a Resistance hero whom all can agree upon, though I can’t help reflecting that there were others who didn’t need eleven and a half years to discover that the Führer was a nasty piece of work. As one of Tiberius’ victims in I, Claudius said, “You remind me that mankind needs its sense of smell”. One of my favourite German authors, Jochen Klepper, tried as a loyal German to play along, stay in Germany and sit it out, until he realised that he was not going to succeed in saving his Jewish wife and stepdaughter from the gas chambers: and so all three committed suicide. It is a fatal weakness of conservatism, which is not of course to deny that some on the Left have behaved no better.

And lastly: 75 years since we last beat the Aussies at Lord’s. Now that performance by the injury-ravaged Freddie Flintoff is a piece of heroism we can all identify with.

China in Africa: maybe it's only money

I was speculating what the Chinese were up to in Africa the other day. It seems like the answer might be quite mundane: filling the pockets of the nomenklatura.

Unfortunately, wicked post-colonialist ideas of press freedom may have tripped them up, as the Namibians have arrested three people over a corruption scam involving a company managed by Hu Haifeng, the son of President Hu Jintao, and it has got all over the local media (as well as The Daily Telegraph). It seems that Chinese government finance for airport security scanners has been diverted to a dodgy company offering “consultancy services”, whose three leading figures, two Namibians and a Chinese, are now in the slammer.

I had assumed that the Chinese could work well in Africa because both sides understand the culture of the well-hidden kickback. It seems not.

President Hu’s son’s role in all this is unclear. We should not necessarily read anything into the widespread belief that many large Chinese companies function as invisible money-funnels for the children of the leadership – the “princelings’ faction” as they are known. But corruption is increasingly a cause of resentment and social unrest within China, and so outsourcing it to Africa might appear a clever idea. So long as you don’t get caught; perhaps Namibia could use some Chinese advice on controlling the press.

The director of Namibia’s Anti-Corruption Commission, Paulus Noah, says he would like to question Nuctech’s management, including Mr Hu – though the latter is “not a suspect at this stage”. I would advise him not to hold his breath.

“I would like to know how they do business in China,” Noah says. Much the same as presidents’ sons do it anywhere else, I would imagine.

Satellite TV is turning cricket from a national sport into a minority interest

Another Ashes series, and cricket acquires the highest profile it can achieve in this country. No one with the slightest interest in cricket is ignorant of who holds the Ashes. And yet the sport’s profile is worryingly low. Yes, these one-day competitions can raise a momentary thrill, but we’ve forgotten who won them within five minutes.

The decision to sell coverage of home Tests to the highest bidder in 2006 has been predictably disastrous. Yes, Sky coverage and commentary are generally top-notch, but the lack of cricket on terrestrial TV has allowed it to fall out of the national discourse. It simply hasn’t been possible to bring my sons up in the reverent faith with which my father imbued me. And the economics of satellite TV have made things worse. Twenty years ago, wherever one went in a town centre there were little knots of blokes enjoying a brief respite from shopping misery in front of a window-display TV. Now, as I found on a recent visit to London, one can’t find the cricket anywhere. If you’re on your own patch, you might know a pub which shows it. But on your travels, you find that most pubs don’t bother, as the satellite rights are expensive, and cricket no longer figures sufficiently in the national discourse to make it worth acquiring them. No terrestrial coverage leads to no satellite coverage either.

Not really worth a major whinge. Just one more harmless pleasure buggered up. Thank you, 21st century.

China and Islam: this could get ugly

The internal ructions in Xinjiang, where Han Chinese and Muslim Uighurs have been at each others’ throats, have attracted the attention of the brave boys of Al-Qaeda. For their crimes against Muslims, the cavemen say, China can expect direct retaliation.

A few years ago this wouldn’t have mattered, as China could be pretty confident of keeping its local Muslims under control. No Abu Hamzas there – they wouldn’t last five minutes. But now there are groups of Chinese officials, specialists and workers all over Africa on the aid trail, and Al-Qaeda’s presence in the north of the continent is palpable.

Al-Qaeda, of course, are a bunch of obnoxious blowhards. But there are plenty of dangerous people who might have been given ideas by this new call to arms. And Chinese in Africa are a high-visibility target. This could get ugly. And the people for whom it will get ugliest are the poor old Uighurs of Xinjiang, who will get the blame simply for being the nearest Muslims the PRC can get its hands on.

A Chinese newspaper for Africa

With the Chinese presence in Africa expanding all the time, it is nice to know that the chaps aren’t short of reading material. Chinese entrepreneur Miles Nan, who has been beavering away in Botswana for ten years, has just started a Chinese newspaper for his exiled compatriots. It is called Chinese Expats’ Weekly, or, in more mellifluous English, the Oriental Post. It ensures that they are kept acquainted with the official view from home, and not flummoxed by confusingly diverse opinions on the issues of the day.

Though the Chinese Embassy deny any involvement on the editorial side, Mr Nan knows which side his bread is buttered: “Concerning Chinese politics, we shouldn’t, and we don’t, publish anything and everything. It’s just like that.” It is indeed.

So what are the Chinese up to in Africa?

So what are the Chinese up to in Africa?

Not trying to imply that their actions are necessarily sinister. But, at a time when the Prez has just been down there pondering the West’s next moves, it may be as well to look closely at the burgeoning Chinese operation. We might learn something.

Chinese presence in Africa isn’t new; they were there frustrating the Soviets in the Sixties. And, on my own first visit to darkest Africa in 1993, I visited the in-house casino at my hotel in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. It was chock full of Chinese, who all over the world will gravitate towards gambling-hells like moths to a lamp. Is Africa still to be China’s casino?

One’s first reflection on Chinese aid to Africa is that its motivation must be cynical, that the Chinese can’t possibly really care about poverty in Africa, that they’re just sucking up to Third World governments by offering aid without political strings attached. This is not quite true, incidentally – following the PRC line on Taiwan is de rigueur for recipients. But the kind of “good governance” criteria we try to apply are, of course, totally ignored by the Chinese.

But perhaps there is no need to be so negative. The Chinese are, after all, pretty good at large infrastructural projects; like other dictatorships, they can build autobahns. They can be much more hands-on than Western agencies, as they can provide their own labour at rock-bottom cost.

At first they made mistakes, treating Africans with a rather high hand (there is no political correctness in China and their view of African capacities is not high). But they are now more circumspect, and of course they understand the culture of the kickback as well as anyone, whereas we have to pretend not to.

And as for good governance, yes we know that bad governance is the single biggest cause of Third World poverty, but how much have we really achieved with all our efforts in that direction?

So perhaps we should look more kindly on China, while not forgetting that their main foreign policy objective is to create a solid bloc of sovereignty-obsessed non-interventionist dictatorships (”Tyranny International”) with the aim of thwarting any drive towards global democracy.