The bridge is yours.
-Game of Thrones Valentines, for all your medieval romantic needs.
-I would like Michael Bay a lot more if he was making the Transformers movies as a way to fund a whole bunch of wacky passion projects.
-How are people feeling about Smash? James Poniewozick sums up some of my concerns.
-This Chinese sci-fi novel sounds fantastic.
-And because it’s that kind of day, George R.R. Martin reads nursery rhymes:
China's Vice President Xi Jinping. Source: AP
We can’t solve the climate crisis without China’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and deploying more clean energy. But the geopolitical stakes are so high and so complicated, building enough trust to get swift, meaningful action from an emerging powerhouse like China isn’t easy.
As China undergoes another major political transition this year, it’s important for us to understand how national security, energy and economic issues all influence the American-Chinese relationship — and how that may impact action on climate change.
Below, a few China experts at the Center for American Progress flesh out how those issues may evolve. While the piece does not explicitly deal with climate negotiations, one can see how changes to the country’s manufacturing sector, military standing, and information flow could impact how China chooses to address climate. — S Lacey
by Rudy deLeon, Melanie Hart, Ali Fisher
This week, President Barack Obama is meeting the man who will steer China forward over the next decade. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping is clearly a man that Americans need to get to know.
Vice President Xi will almost certainly become the next General Secretary of the Communist Party of China—China’s top leadership position—in November 2012. His visit will offer a taste of how the United States will interact with the next generation of Communist party leaders.
Xi Jinping will hold China’s highest political position, but he will not rule the country alone. Back in Beijing China’s current leaders are negotiating furiously among themselves to select a crop of seven to nine cadres that will serve as the country’s next “board of directors” on the Politburo Standing Committee. The candidates for those positions are a fascinating group. They include a well-known finance guru, an apparent reformist who recently made press for his delicate handling of land protests in Guangdong, and a red-flag-waving nationalist who is making a movie about his mafia-busting campaigns in the Chinese west even as his chief lieutenant disappears under a cloud of controversy.
As this intriguing group is preparing to take the helm in Beijing, the United States is realizing that the China we are dealing with today is not the China we have grown accustomed to over the past few decades. U.S. policymakers are waking up from a long post-September 11 war in the Middle East and realizing that, while our attentions were focused elsewhere, China has grown and changed dramatically. To keep up, our foreign and economic policy approaches to China will have to change as well.
Politics
Pete Hoekstra
Hoekstra’s ad, which aired during the Super Bowl last weekend, featured an Asian woman in a rice paddy in China — the scene was actually shot in California — speaking broken English and thanking Stabenow because “we take your jobs.” Hoesktra is currently running for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat. Watch the ad here.
ThinkProgress spoke with Anuzis at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday about the ad. Anuzis spared few punches, calling the ad “dumb” and in “bad taste.”
KEYES: There’s been a bit of a controversy this week with this new ad. What’s your take? Do you think it was in poor taste?
ANUZIS: I’m not too worried about the poor taste, I just think it was a dumb ad. Pete Hoekstra voted to raise taxes, Pete Hoekstra voted for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” Pete Hoekstra voted five times to increase the debt ceiling, and then he goes out and leads with his chin by saying, “I’m against Debbie Stabenow because she sold all of our debt to China.” Well, he voted for that debt. [...]
KEYES: A lot of people have said this borderlines on racial insensitivity. Do you think you would agree with that?
ANUZIS: At best it was in bad taste. It’s not something I would have done. But I’m not too worried about that as much as the issues that are behind that. I think the beauty of this ad is the hypocrisy that Pete Hoekstra is trying to go after Debbie Stabenow for spending when he voted the same way.
Anuzis also called out Hoekstra for his “hypocrisy” in voting for many of the proposals that increased the very debt discussed in the ‘China’ ad.
Though Hoekstra originally unveiled the ad on the website www.debbiespenditnow.com, a major backlash ensued and he took down the site yesterday, now redirecting visitors to his campaign website. The ad itself is still live on Youtube, however.
His Republican primary opponent, Clark Durant, released a response ad this week, criticizing Hoekstra’s ad as “demeaning.”
Violence in Syria continues to rage as security forces killed more than 50 protesters in the city of Hom today. With the death toll for the past six days totaling over 400, Arab League ministers are exploring a new proposal to send a joint U.N-Arab League mission to Syria.
“There is a proposal from the secretary-general of the Arab League to form a joint mission for Syria in coordination with the United Nations, and it will be presented before the planned Arab foreign ministers’ meeting on Sunday in Cairo,” the Arab League’s deputy head, Ahmed Ben Helli, told reporters today.
The upcoming ministerial meeting in Cairo may also issue a statement on China and Russia’s veto of a U.N. Security Council Resolution last Saturday, reports Reuters. The resolution was based on an Arab peace plan that had the support of the rest of the Security Council but China and Russia’s veto brought criticism from both Western and Arab nations.
The ongoing artillery bombardment of Homs, a recently leaked report detailing the failures of an Arab League observer mission, and the Russian and Chinese veto have left the Arab League and the United Nations looking for new strategies to halt the bloodshed.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby announced this week that a new mission would need international backing, better equipment and more observers than the Arab League mission. Yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon confirmed that Elaraby had proposed a joint mission.
Consultations will be held with the Arab League and Security Council members “before fleshing out the details,” said the U.N. chief. But Western powers offered a lukewarm response to the proposal. Agence France-Presse reports that France said there would have to be “guarantees” for the mission and Germany called it a “very serious” idea but emphasized that conditions would have to be met before such an effort could be launched.
While diplomats discuss what steps to take next, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Syrian government to stop shelling residential areas of Homs. “Those responsible for such horrific attacks will have to answer for them,” HRW’s Anna Neistat in a statement earlier today.
Rights groups estimate that more than 6,000 people have died since protests began eleven months ago.
NEWS FLASH
China Holds Meetings With Syrian Opposition Group | Despite joining Russia last weekend in vetoing a U.N. resolution calling on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down amid growing violence, the Financial Times reports that the Chinese have held talks with Syrian opposition representatives “in a sign that it has begun hedging its bets on the latest Arab country shaken by unrest.” Western and Arab countries sharply criticized Russia and China for the veto and as the FT notes, “Beijing has been struggling since last weekend to justify its role” in blocking the resolution. Delegates from the Syrian National Committee for Democratic Change just wrapped meetings in Beijing with Chinese deputy foreign minister Zhai Jun and other senior diplomats.
NEWS FLASH
Arab League Chief: Russian And Chinese Veto Of Syrian Resolution Is ‘Unacceptable’ | Russia and China lost diplomatic credit in the Arab world following their “unacceptable” veto on Saturday of a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria said Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby. The vetoed resolution backed an Arab initiative calling for Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to step aside but Elaraby acknowledged that the Arab League would still work with Moscow and Beijing “because we need them.” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will present an initiative to Assad when he visits Damascus on Tuesday but Elaraby declined to offer details of the plan. The U.N. reports that the 11 month Syrian uprising has taken more than 5,000 lives.
NEWS FLASH
U.S. ‘Disgusted’ As Russia And China Veto U.N. Resolution On Syria | Amid brutal violence in Syria, Russia and China vetoed a resolution before the 15-member body to support an Arab League plan to end the crisis. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave dueling speeches in Munich, Germany. “As a tyrant in Damascus brutalizes his own people, the U.S. and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder…alongside the Arab League, in demanding an end to the bloodshed and a democratic future for Syria,” Clinton said. President Obama also threw his support behind the resolution and, going even farther, ended his statement by saying: “The suffering citizens of Syria must know: we are with you, and the Assad regime must come to an end.” But Russia and China blocked the resolution. U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who tweeted that she was “disgusted” by the veto, said on the Council floor: “This intransigence is even more shameful when you consider that at least one of these members” — Russia — “is still delivering weapons to Syria.”
Apple, Inc. is undoubtedly one of the most powerful and profitable companies worldwide. Last quarter, Apple made $13.1 billion, it’s highest profits yet and a 117 percent jump from last year. Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook has increased his salary by six-fold and could very well be the highest paid CEO of 2011.
But as TP Economy editor Pat Garofalo notes, that profit is earned on the backs of Chinese workers who “continue to toil in tough conditions.” Apple contracts with companies in China to ensure swift and cheap production of a new product. But rather than put a percentage of those billions into improving working conditions for the people who make the iPad and iPhone, the company sits by and allows its manufacturers to maintain disastrous working conditions.
In fact, as the New York Times reported, according to employees, advocates, and Apple itself, these suppliers force workers — including child laborers — to toil in hazardous working environments:
Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.
More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers’ disregard for workers’ health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning.
One of these suppliers, Foxconn, saw so many workers committing suicide at its factories that it instituted a no-suicide pact for employment and installed nets on factory roofs to prevent workers from jumping to their death. A former management employee at this company said, “Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost.” “Workers’ welfare has nothing to do with their interests,” he added.
“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said a former Apple executive who spoke to the New York Times on the condition of anonymity. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”
With total cash holdings of $97.6 billion, Apple could cover Greece’s debt repayments for two years or buy 2,000 tons of gold. Or, Apple could simply put a portion of that profit towards enforcing its supplier code of conduct or finding manufacturers that will abide by it. Instead, Apple allows suppliers to subordinate their workers’ welfare for the sake of a cheaper iPad.
The Chinese government’s latest five-year roadmap for renewable energy shows continued growth in the wind sector, with 100 GW of projects likely to be developed through 2015 — the amount of capacity developed world-wide in 2008.
And that’s during a “slowdown.” Compared to the breathtaking growth in installations between 2007 and 2009 in China, the 38% growth in 2010 was a noticeable change. With Project developers in the country still facing quality control problems and grid interconnection roadblocks, and manufacturers seeing declining profits in a crowded market, there are plenty of on-the-ground challenges in China.
But strong government targets and a hunger for any energy sources available are pushing a steady increase in installations, making China a continued leader in the global wind market. The Chinese government projects that by 2050, the market will reach 1,000 GW of installed capacity and be worth $1.9 trillion. That would meet roughly 20% of electricity demand in the country.
That’s a staggering amount of wind development. China and the U.S., the number one and number two wind markets in the world respectively, both have installed capacity in the mid 40-GW range. But while the U.S. has only state-level targets that run through the mid-2020′s, China is looking 25 years further and projecting an installation of more than 20 times that amount.
And by 2020, Chinese officials say wind will be competitive with coal there — an economic cross-over of absolute necessity, considering the baffling amount of coal being consumed in China.
In addition to wind, China may see up to 5 GW of solar-photovoltaic installations through 2015, and 20 GW of installs through 2020.
Related posts:
Want to see just how much coal consumption in Asia has grown in the last 30 years? These new animated info-graphics from the Energy Information Administration tell a powerful and scary story.
As expected, much of the recent growth in Asia — particularly since 2003 — has come from China. That country’s use of coal has increased 500% since 1980, made up almost three quarters of Asian consumption, and half of global consumption last year.
Clicking on the graphic below will re-direct you to the EIA’s website, where you can watch the animation.
Back in September, the EIA published its International Energy Outlook, which we described as a “denier’s fantasy world.” Under a do-nothing, business-as-usual scenario, the agency predicts China’s continued use of coal will increase carbon emissions so dramatically, the country’s climate pollution levels will double the U.S. in the next 15 years.
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