Romney released an ad yesterday saying that he would get tough on China “on day one” of his presidency should he be elected. “President Romney stands up to China on trade and demands they play by the rules,” the ad says.

During an interview last night with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Huntsman — who has endorsed Romney for president — criticized the former Massachusetts governor and suggested he would pull back if elected:

HUNTSMAN: I think — this is a — this is a typical trajectory where during a campaign season you’re going to talk about China in ways that you’re hearing today. We’ve seen that election cycles gone by. They you get in office and I think Mitt Romney has the prospects of doing that which his most important for the U.S.-China relationship. Strengthening our own domestic economy and giving life and confidence to our creative class so we can get back on our feet.

If you want a strong U.S.-China relationship it starts right here at home and it starts with a stronger economy.

Watch the clip:

Huntsman was less diplomatic in his criticism of Romney on China last February, referring to his China policy as “wrongheaded.”

But Huntsman isn’t the only Romney-backer to differ with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee on China. Earlier this month, right-wing foreign policy don Bill Kristol called Romney’s attacks on the Obama administration’s handling of an escalating situation with a Chinese dissident “foolish.”

Even Romney’s own foreign policy advisers have praised President Obama on China. “I think he has a good policy in Asia, particularly in dealing with China,” neoconservative Brookings scholar Robert Kagan said, adding, “I think he’s strengthened our position in Asia with our allies.”

by Melanie Hart

Chinese capital is finally flowing into the U.S. clean energy market. Chinese direct investment in the U.S. clean energy economy has grown from just $4 million annually in 2006 to over $260 million in 2011. That increase is attracting attention, and not all of it is positive.

Yesterday Third Way released a report concluding that U.S. private-sector investors are losing interest in investing at home due to the fickle American policy environment, leaving Chinese companies to fill the gap. The report’s authors worry that increasing Chinese participation in the U.S. clean energy market will “dramatically hamper U.S. companies’ ability to compete” and “slow economic growth and American leadership.”

Rather than welcome Chinese direct investments as job-creating, there is a tendency here in the United States to take a zero-sum view and assume that Chinese enterprise successes in this country are not good for American competitiveness. Last month, when China’s ENN Group announced plans to build a massive solar power R&D, manufacturing, and generation complex in Clark County Nevada, some U.S. commentators suggested that the ENN facility would force solar panel prices down even further and drive U.S. firms into bankruptcy.

When it comes to the U.S. clean energy market, Chinese companies must feel like they cannot catch a break.

Over the past few months, many voices in the United States—myself included—have called for stronger U.S. trade enforcement vis-à-vis China, particularly in clean energy manufacturing. It appears that in at least some cases, Chinese manufacturing companies may be breaking global trade rules. If that is true, then U.S. policymakers have to do a better job protecting American companies and making sure WTO-illegal trade behavior does not erode U.S. competitiveness in this sector.

Playing by the rules goes both ways, however. If Chinese companies are willing to come over to the U.S. market and compete on an equal playing field, we should welcome that with open arms, not with knee-jerk protectionism.

Chinese competition is not the problem. As long as the field is level, U.S. companies can handle the competition. And if we open up new clean energy opportunities here in the U.S., ideally that will give the Chinese companies that are willing to play by the rules a pathway for opting in to our rules-based system. If those companies are successful, that success will be a positive contributor to the U.S. market, and it may also help convince Chinese leaders that heavy government subsidization is not the best pathway forward toward Chinese clean energy success.

In reality, the real problem isn’t that Chinese companies are investing too much in U.S. clean energy technologies. The real problem is that they are not investing enough.

The United States does not have a clear policy framework on foreign direct investment. That makes our market difficult to traverse, and that means that in many cases, the only Chinese firms that can succeed here are the well-connected state-owned enterprises who are much more interested in fossil fuels than clean energy.

Growth rates for Chinese clean energy investments in the United States only look impressive when viewed in isolation. When you compare those numbers to the numbers for fossil fuels, clean energy is still just a drop in the bucket. In 2011, for example, China invested just under $2 billion USD in American fossil fuel sectors. Most of those investments went toward U.S. shale gas assets. The $260 million that went toward clean energy projects pales in comparison.

If we want to accelerate the clean energy market, we need to do more to level that playing field for U.S. and Chinese investors alike.

– Melanie Hart is an Analyst with Chinese Energy and Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress.

The preliminary tariffs were issued after a lengthy investigation by the Commerce Department into whether Chinese companies are “dumping” solar panels into the U.S. market below cost. These tariffs follow a March decision to issue small countervailing duties on Chinese module producers that are getting illegal domestic subsidies, according to Commerce.

Today’s issued tariffs are as follows: Trina, 31.14 percent; Suntech, 31.22 percent; and 31.18 percent for all other Chinese producers that participated in the investigation. For companies that did not participate, Commerce has slapped a massive preliminary tariff of 249.96 percent.

The combination of these new tariffs and the countervailing duties will add substantial cost to imported Chinese solar panels. With panel prices hovering in the $1 per watt range, it could add around 30 cents a watt to each panel for leading producers, and vastly more for producers that didn’t get involved in Commerce’s investigation.

These are preliminary fines and can be negotiated and changed before Commerce makes a final decision. The solar industry’s trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, has called on the U.S. and Chinese governments to negotiate a settlement — potentially resulting in more moderate tariffs:

“The solar industry calls upon the U.S. and Chinese governments to immediately work together towards a mutually-satisfactory resolution of the growing trade conflict within the solar industry.  While trade remedy proceedings are basic principles of the rules-based global trading system, so too are collaboration and negotiations.

“Importantly, disputes within one segment of the industry affect the entire solar supply chain–and these broad implications must be recognized.  In addition, the U.S. solar manufacturing base goes well beyond solar cell and module production and includes billions of dollars of recent investments into the production of polysilicon, polymers, and solar manufacturing equipment, products which are largely destined for export.  If the U.S.-China solar trade disputes continue to escalate, it will jeopardize these U.S. investments.

“Given these broader implications, it is imperative that the U.S., China, and other players in the dynamic global marketplace work constructively to avert or resolve trade disputes that will ultimately hurt consumers and businesses throughout the solar value chain.”

The solar industry has been on edge since last October, when the manufacturer SolarWorld and six other anonymous companies issued a complaint about illegal trade practices. They argued that China’s subsidies were allowing companies to dump panels below cost, thus driving U.S.-based manufacturers out of business.

However, downstream developers have enjoyed falling panel prices — a factor that has allowed the industry to expand 109% in 2011. A group of solar companies known as the Coalition for American Solar Energy has been staunchly opposed to tariffs, saying they’ll dramatically drive up the cost of solar installations in the U.S.

by Kate Gordon

A simmering trade dispute between the U.S. and China will likely come to a head tomorrow when the U.S. Department of Commerce issues its determination on alleged trade violations by Chinese solar manufacturers.  Surprisingly, the U.S. solar industry is not in agreement on the need to hold the Chinese accountable.  It should be.

On one side are those who claim China has been illegally subsidizing and dumping its solar products in the U.S. market, forcing many American manufacturers into bankruptcy.  These companies, mostly manufacturers of solar panels and related products, claim Chinese solar companies have benefited from government largesse in the form of free land and facilities, electricity and water, and low- or no-cost loans that keep prices for Chinese-made solar products artificially low.  In addition, they claim these Chinese companies are illegally “dumping” their cheap solar panels into the American market, making it nearly impossible for U.S. manufacturers to compete.

On the other side are those, mostly solar installers, who have benefited from the ability to buy low-cost solar panels, which they claim has allowed them to do solar installations at a lower cost and therefore expand the use of solar power in America.  This group of U.S. companies argues that U.S. manufacturers can’t compete with the Chinese when it comes to solar panel production, because the Chinese are simply more efficient and can do production at a lower cost.  They also worry that pursuing a trade case will incite a “trade war” with China, which will erode their profit margins, slow U.S. industry growth across the value chain, and make it even harder for solar energy to compete with traditional fossil fuels.

Both sides have compelling arguments.  So who’s right?

One way to answer that question is to say that we’ll find out who’s right when the Department of Commerce issues its findings.  Commerce has already found that China is unfairly subsidizing its solar industry, and has imposed tariffs on Chinese solar manufacturers as a result.  The upcoming decision, on whether China is also illegally dumping those panels into the U.S. market, may bring larger tariffs if China is found to be in violation of our mutually-agreed-upon, and heavily negotiated, trade agreements.  The entire point of the trade enforcement regime is to figure out whether a country is in fact breaking the rules, and if so, to issue sanctions. It’s a system based on the rule of law, something we Americans hold dear, and for good reason.

But would a decision against China undermine America’s emerging solar energy industry? There is no question that solar energy faces an uphill battle in the U.S.  The combination of century-old subsidies to fossil fuel companies and the lack of any real national commitment to renewable energy makes it difficult for emerging energy technologies to compete here.  But that doesn’t mean that the United States needs cheap Chinese solar panels so badly that we should just roll over and let a foreign government break enforceable international trade rules.  If Commerce finds that the Chinese government has acted illegally, then the Chinese government and the industry it is subsidizing should pay a price for that behavior.

Our faith in the rule of law is too important for us to abandon our international trade obligations in favor of cheap imported solar panels.  So, too, is our need to support the U.S. manufacturing sector by protecting it from unlawful trade practices.  Manufacturing is a crucial piece of the U.S. economy. Our ability to stay innovative and competitive in a time of intense global pressures relies on manufacturing companies, which contribute fully 70 percent of all the private research and development spending in America.  And these companies are major job creators: a recent report by SEMI found that manufacturing jobs had the highest job multiplier of any segment of the American economy.

That’s why we should be supporting clean energy manufacturers in their efforts to compete with China, through programs like the Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program that President Obama recently urged Congress to extend, or through Senator Sherrod Brown’s “Security and Energy in Manufacturing Act,” rather than punishing them for trying to compete on a level playing field. Because that’s the crucial point:  every American company should be able to compete on a level playing field in the international marketplace.  That’s good for solar manufacturers in the current case, but it’s good for all American companies – and for our economy as a whole – in the long run.

Kate Gordon is vice president for energy policy at the Center for American Progress.

Related Posts:

• Commerce Department Announces Small Tariffs On Chinese Solar Panels
• 5 Myths and Realities About U.S.-China Solar Trade Competition: Our Nation Cannot Capitulate to China’s Solar Technology Ambitions

Photo: Getty Images

Moreover, seeming to concede President Obama’s dominance of national security issues this campaign season, a Romney adviser told the Times that Romney isn’t interested in talking about foreign policy. “Romney doesn’t want to really engage these issues until he is in office,” the adviser said.

And there’s good reason. Romney’s inexperience on foreign policy and national security issues has dogged his campaign with confusion, ignorance and private and public disagreements among Romney’s campaign advisers and surrogates:

AFGHANISTAN

Romney has been “all over the map” on Afghanistan. As the Washington Post reported late last year, Romney “has not explained what he thinks the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is at this point and what would constitute success.” And keeping with his adviser’s above statement, Romney said in a major foreign policy speech that he’d wait until becomes president to “order a full review of our transition to the Afghan military.”

Romney also says that the U.S. should not be negotiating with the Taliban, a position that puts him at odds with his top national security campaign surrogate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), his own advisers and even former top Bush administration officials. “Romney’s supporters and foreign policy advisers argue that after a decade at war, the only option is a political settlement,” the Times noted.

IRAN

Romney said that if Obama is re-elected, Iran will get a nuclear weapon. “If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” he said. That line “caused some of his advisers to cringe” the Times reported this weekend. But overall, again, Romney has no real policy on Iran that differs much from the current administration’s approach. Romney has proposed much of what Obama is already doing. The Times noted that “when pressed on how, exactly, his strategy would differ from Mr. Obama’s, Mr. Romney had a hard time responding.”

But Romney does occasionally ramp up bellicose rhetoric on Iran which prompted a former Israeli Mossad director to say the former Massachusetts governor “is making the situation worse” with Iran. Romney has ignored what the IAEA, U.S. and Israeli intelligence think about Iran’s nuclear program and his campaign advisers even attacked the Obama administration for public discussion of the consequences of attacking Iran.

RUSSIA

Russia “is without question, our number one geopolitical foe,” Romney said in March. The Washington Post called the remark “a bit puzzling,” given Russia’s post-Cold War global standing and less adversarial relationship with the United States. Even McCain seemed a bit wary of endorsing that point of view.

And the co-chairman of the Romney campaign’s working group Russia, Leon Aron, disagrees with Romney’s contention that, as the Times put it, “natural resources could vault Russia to a position of global influence rivaling any nation by midcentury.” Aron wrote last month that “Russia’s most serious risk stems from a near-fatal dependence on the price of oil.”

CHINA

Romney’s regularly hypes the Chinese military threat and ignores the need for engaging China diplomatically and economically. In fact, former GOP presidential candidate and U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who declared himself a Romney supporter, said that Romney’s China policy is “wrongheaded.” Even one of Romney’s top foreign policy advisers praised President Obama on China. “I think he has a good policy in Asia, particularly in dealing with China,” said Robert Kagan.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE/MIDDLE EAST

While Romney often throws out the baseless attack line that Obama has thrown Israel “under the bus,” the presumptive GOP nominee has offered no real plan to achieve peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In fact, Romney has said that the U.S. “should not play the role of leader” in the Middle East peace process. “My inclination is to follow the guidance of our ally Israel,” he said last October.

Romney criticized Newt Gingrich for saying Palestinians aren’t people, but again, he said he’d ask the Israelis what his position would be. “Before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: ‘Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?’” Former U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration Martin Indyk said that statement implied that he would “subcontract Middle East policy to Israel.”

VETERANS

The Romney campaign has attacked President Obama for not doing enough for the nation’s veterans, yet Romney has no plan to address various issues affecting the U.S. military — for example, veterans’ health care and unemployment or servicemembers’ education.

TERRORISM

In 2007 and 2008, Romney based his national security policy during his failed presidential bid on the need to fight “radical jihad” and the threat from those wanting to unite the world “under a single Islamic caliphate.” During that campaign, Romney also said he does “not concur” with then Sen. Obama’s plan to go after “high-value intelligence targets” in Pakistan with or without permission. And referring to Osama bin Laden, Romney said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”

But now, Romney barely mentions terrorism, jihadists or an Islamic caliphate and claims that “of course” he would have done what Obama did and ordered the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader last year. “Any thinking American” would have ordered the raid, Romney said. Apparently “any thinking American” does not include Vice President Biden and Robert Gates, who was Defense Secretary at the time of the raid.

The Times also reported this weekend that Romney’s foreign policy advisers — many of whom helped push for the Iraq war and are now doing the same with Iran — are themselves divided. “There are two very different worldviews in this campaign,” on adviser said. Some of the more mainstream views within the campaign have resulted from “the scar tissue they developed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Bush-era experiments in the exercise of American power.” But there also remains the more hawkish “Bolton faction,” referring to former Bush administration ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

So it’s clear why Romney doesn’t want to engage on foreign policy and national security issues in this year’s presidential campaign: his advisers don’t agree with him or each other. And Romney either doesn’t have any national security policies, they aren’t different from President Obama’s, or as recent polling has suggested, they aren’t very popular.

by Jeffrey Cavanagh

Even in the midst of an economic crisis, most European countries are staying committed to deploying renewable energy. But with demand starting to lag due to fiscal constraints, the region’s leaders are looking to large developing countries as growth markets for European companies.

A leaked version of the European Commission’s latest energy strategy shows how much importance leaders are putting on emerging markets:  “All in all, renewable energy export opportunities will strongly depend on the elimination of trade barriers in and free access to key emerging renewable energy markets such as in China, India and Brazil.”

China is a growth market with the most potential for Europe.

Last week, energy ministers from all 27 EU member countries met with Chinese ministers and energy policy counterparts in Brussels to discuss energy security, sustainable urban development, and electricity market reform. The two sides agreed to set up an energy partnership and work toward more open market access and transparency.

During EU Commission President José Manuel Durão Barroso’s speech to Chinese leaders, Barroso expressed his strong support for a cooperative energy partnership between Europe and China:

The European Union and China are two of the global economy’s main actors, indeed the EU as the largest single market with a value of 12.6 trillion euros and China as the second largest economy in the world with national income of 5.2 trillion euros, respectively…We are both global stakeholders. Although we have had very different pasts, one thing is clear: We share to a large extent a common future, a future which will be determined by the manner in which we use the resources of our planet.

Leaders from both sides stressed the importance of Sino-EU relations, a partnership that recorded a record high trade volume of $567 billion in 2011. This represented more than $1.5 billion in daily trade.

China has accelerated its renewable energy investments, investing over $45 billion in the sector in 2011. This represented a 95 percent increase over the previous five years. China’s 12^th Five Year Plan similarly calls for aggressive renewable energy spending and development, opening up the largest market for renewable energy in the world.

Barroso pressed China to give European companies more competitive access to Chinese markets. An effective energy relationship, he noted, requires “guaranteeing a ‘level playing field,’ including open and non-discriminatory access to our respective markets.” The Obama Administration has expressed similar needs to leaders in Beijing in order to give American companies easier access to Chinese consumers.

In an op-ed penned by Li prior to his trip, the Vice-Premier offered unequivocal support for European integration, and presented an optimistic outlook for future Sino-EU relations. Europe, Li writes, is a “strategic partner,” and China is ready “to work with Europe to ensure … China and Europe can progress and develop together.”

Developing together also means working through some sticky disagreements — most notably over Europe’s emissions trading scheme that would penalize Chinese airlines flying into the region. China is a vocal opponent of the EU ETS and has even threatened retaliatory measures.

Another issue is how to finance the Green Climate Fund. The planned global relief fund was launched during last year’s climate change summit in Durban, and would provide $100 billion per year in adaptation and mitigation funding by 2020. It was a key bargaining chip for China to consider future negotiations over binding carbon-reduction targets. But financial problems have left European countries unsure how they’re going to fulfill commitments to the fund after 2013.

There are a lot of moving parts to a clean energy relationship between Europe and China. But ultimately, the economic potential for both parties is too great to avoid pursuing.

Jeffrey Cavanagh is an intern on the energy team at the Center for American Progress.

The situation on the ground in Beijing remains uncertain but new reports suggest that progress is being made by the State Department in reaching an agreement with Chinese authorities to permit Chen to take up a fellowship from an American University, “where he can be accompanied by his wife and two children,” reports State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. But while Romney was quick to attack the Obama administration while sensitive negotiations were underway yesterday between U.S. diplomats and Chinese authorities, the presumptive Republican nominee has never answered questions about whether his own family has profited from Chinese surveillance of its own citizenry.

In March, The New York Times revealed that a Bain-run fund, in which a Romney family blind trust had invested between $100,000 and $250,000, purchased Uniview Technologies in December. Uniview is a Chinese company that claims to be the biggest supplier of surveillance cameras to the Chinese government and produces “infrared antiriot” cameras and software that allow police to share images in real time and provide technology for an emergency command center in Tibet “that provides a solid foundation for the maintenance of social stability and the protection of people’s peaceful life,” according to Uniview’s web site.

Security cameras played a central role in the house-arrest imposed on Chen Guangcheng’s family. After his escape to Beijing and the U.S. embassy, Chen reported that Chinese authorities installed seven video cameras and an electric fence at his house. However, it is not known whether Uniview supplied these cameras.

Yesterday, in a surprise call to a Congressional hearing, Chen told lawmakers, “I’m really afraid for my other family members’ lives” and “[n]ow those security officers in my house basically have said, ‘We want to see what else Chen Guangcheng can do.’”

With the news that Chinese authorities may permit Chen to leave China with his family, a political crisis may be averted. But Mitt Romney and his family’s investment of between $100,000 and $250,000 in Uniview Technologies should raise questions about Romney’s ties to a company that openly advertises its close ties to the Chinese government’s state security apparatus and the use of its technologies in “both peacetime and wartime.”

Photo: Reuters

Last night on Fox News, Bill Kristol advised Romney to stand down on the Chen case, calling his attacks on Obama “foolish”:

KRISTOL: I’m happy to be critical of the Obama administration as anyone is, but I think this is fast moving story. And if I were advising Governor Romney, I’d say you don’t need to get in the middle of this story. If this turns out badly, and it would be a terrible thing, it will turn out badly. People will know. … To inject yourself into the middle of this way with a fast moving target I think is foolish. [...]

There is no need to butt into a fast moving story when the secretary of state is in Beijing with delicate negotiations and say it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton is waking up right now. Let’s see if she can pull this off in the next 12 hours or so.

Watch the clip:

The State Department announced this morning that the U.S. had reached a deal with China, with Beijing saying Chen could apply to study abroad and Washington saying an American university has offered him a fellowship.

At no time did any US official speak to Chen about physical or legal threats to his wife and children. Nor did Chinese officials make any such threats to us. U.S. interlocutors did make clear that if Chen elected to stay in the Embassy, Chinese officials had indicated to us that his family would be returned to [their home in] Shandong, and they would lose their opportunity to negotiate for reunification.

by Melanie Hart and Jeffrey Cavanagh

This Earth Day is a great opportunity to take stock of the progress we are making around the world on environmental protection. Here in the United States, much can be learned by comparing our environmental progress to China, where they are just now starting down a path we took back in 1970.

Taking stock of our environmental progress is particularly important in an election year, when some politicians and political hopefuls are pointing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an example of wasteful government spending and overregulation. The reality is that our regulatory system is what separates us from the citizens in China, where air pollution and lead poising are the norm and environmental problems corrode the quality of life in ways that we have not faced in decades.

We certainly hope China manages to address its environmental problems, not only for the sake of the Chinese people but also because China’s problems harm us as well. China is now the largest contributor to global carbon dioxide pollution, and jet streams are bringing some Chinese pollution to the United States. Mercury emissions from China’s coal-fired power plants are building up in U.S. watersheds, for example, and particulate pollution from China appears to be inhibiting rain and snow production and reducing water supplies in some California cities.

At the moment, however, our environmental protection regime is far superior to China’s, which gives us a competitive edge. Our children are growing up healthier and arguably smarter (since lead and mercury poisoning impairs brain development), and we will probably live longer and face lower cancer risks. Our environmental regulations give U.S. businesses more incentives to innovate and develop cleaner, more efficient production processes that will be fueling our economy long after China’s current high-polluting factories close their doors. We fought hard to build up the system that is now bringing these benefits, and it is not something we want to give up.

Building an effective environmental protection regime

Environmental pollution is a negative byproduct of some production processes, particularly those processes that use older, less efficient technology. In a market economy, companies always have a natural profit incentive to make money—the more they make, the more executives and employees get to keep and spend on themselves—but they do not always have a natural incentive to protect the environment by switching from outdated, dirty technologies to cleaner, more sustainable versions. That is because environmental costs are born by the local community, and the local community has no say over company production decisions. One way we can ensure companies take environmental costs into account is to put a price on carbon. Another is to use government regulations. Thus far, the United States has not succeeded in rolling out a nationwide carbon pricing system, but we do have a nationwide environmental regulatory system. To be effective, that type of system needs three critical components.

First, we need standards that stipulate the amounts and types of pollutants we are willing to accept in our air, water, soil, food, and consumer products such as children’s toys. Ideally, these standards should be based on public health impacts rather than on what industry representatives claim they are willing and able to meet. The U.S. Clean Air Act gets this right. Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency set strict standards for six of the worst pollutants based on what scientific evidence tells us we need to do to protect infants, children, pregnant women, and other sensitive individuals. Congress passed amendments to the act in 1990 that called on the agency to reduce other hazardous pollutants, and in December 2011 the agency issued new standards for mercury pollution due to mounting evidence that mercury is accumulating in watersheds and fish, building up in human bodies due to fish consumption, and inhibiting brain development for children exposed to excessive mercury in the womb or at a young age.

Second, we need regulations to turn these science- and health-based environmental standards into guidelines for companies to follow. Coal-fired power plants are responsible for half of all mercury emissions in this country, so the Environmental Protection Agency’s December 2011 mercury legislation included the first-ever mercury emission reduction rules for power plants. The agency spent years developing the new emission rules, and it gives power plants four years to bring their facilities into compliance. Some power companies have already voluntarily reduced their mercury emissions, so the new rules mean that their competitors now must also do so. The agency estimates that the resultant pollution reductions could avoid up to 11,000 premature deaths annually and add up to $90 billion in health benefits every year to our economy by 2016.

Third, we need an environmental government agency that has the authority and the resources to enforce these regulations. If there is no monitoring, no enforcement, and no penalty for violations, then companies have little incentive to comply. Here in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has that authority.

Before 1970 we did not have this system. We left most environmental protection to our state governments, and that did not work well. When environmental standards and regulations vary from state to state, that creates a race to the bottom because state governments compete with one another to attract companies—and therefore tax revenue—to their states. Just as some U.S. companies build facilities with dirty production practices in developing countries with lax regulatory regimes (such as China), under our old system companies would flock to dirty states, which put pressure on the cleaner states to loosen up and sacrifice public health and environmental protection so as to bring in tax revenue. The end result was that we faced health and environmental problems similar to what China is dealing with today.

That changed because the American people demanded a better system. Ohio’s Cuyahoga River was so polluted in the 1960s that local citizens joked that “anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown … he decays.” The river carried so much oil and debris that in June 1969 it erupted into flames. That fire triggered a tidal wave of citizen pressure to fix the state-based environmental protection system, and the following year President Richard Nixon signed the 1970 Clean Air Act—our first national-level environmental protection law—and created the Environmental Protection Agency. This led to passage and enforcement of other laws that form our environmental safety net, including the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and laws governing the disposal and clean up of hazardous wastes.

Environmental protection still lacking in China

China’s current environmental protection system looks a lot like what was in place in the United States before 1970. The national government in Beijing issues fairly stringent environmental standards and regulations, but they leave all of the actual monitoring and enforcement to the local-level governments, and those government officials are engaging in a race to the bottom, just as state and local officials did in the United States decades ago.

China is further hindered by the fact that it is still an authoritarian regime. Environmental officials cannot be everywhere—in big countries such as the United States or China, environmental officials cannot monitor every factory all the time. In the United States and other democracies, people fill the gap. If local communities in our country believe local factories were polluting the environment, they could call up the Environmental Protection Agency, but that is not all they can do. They can also file lawsuits, alert the media, or alert an environmental activist organization. Here in the United States, we have an entire community of environmental lawyers, journalists, and activists that help the Environmental Protection Agency do its job.

In China, all of these citizen-led efforts are lacking because they all are a potential challenge to Communist Party authority, so the party keeps lawyers, journalists, and nongovernment organizations under tight political constraints. Unfortunately, the Chinese people pay a high price for this weak environmental governance system. Cancer rates are soaring, now the leading cause of death in China. Chinese children are also exposed to higher amounts of lead and mercury pollution than their counterparts in the west, and that means they likely have lower average IQs and more neurological and behavioral problems.

These problems are common in nondemocracies where people cannot vote and leaders can hide information. In China, for example, lead pollution information is often tightly controlled. Many Chinese citizens do not know that their children are suffering from high lead blood levels because the media generally cannot report on those issues. In some cases, local officials even forbid doctors and hospitals from providing accurate test results. Even when the citizens do find out about these pollution problems and health impacts, they have no access to effective institutions such as elections or unbiased judicial courts to sanction their government leaders, so there is not much they can do about it.

Don’t believe the hype: Environmental protection is not antibusiness

It is important to note that despite what some politicians and fossil-fuel industry interests in the United States may claim, a dirty environment is not good for business. In fact, environmental regulation actually strengthens our economy. When the air and water are cleaner, people are healthier. That means we can spend less on health care and lost productivity due to illness, and more on the products and services produced by businesses and, more broadly, on building good foundations for the future by investing in education, infrastructure, and science and technology research and development.

Most American companies are loath to admit they seek out places to manufacture based on the level of pollution they can create at the expense of nearby communities. But it is certainly true that many companies send their operations to China to take advantage of low labor costs and lax environmental regulations to increase profit margins, particularly on lower-value-added manufacturing, where margins are often slim. And yet it is also true that environmental pollution is actually threatening economic growth in China.

All of China’s key manufacturing sectors, for example, require water as a critical input. From coal mining to semiconductor manufacturing, the Chinese economy is water intensive. Problem is, global warming is causing droughts that are depleting China’s water sources, and the remaining supplies are becoming so polluted that many provinces are struggling to find enough water to keep their factories running. Chinese officials report that around 300 million rural citizens—the size of the U.S. population—do not have access to safe drinking water, that most urban groundwater is unfit for human consumption, and that 20 percent of China’s rivers are “too toxic even to touch.”

Here in the United States, flaming rivers and contaminated drinking water triggered public bipartisan pressure for change, and the result was the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and nationwide laws such as the Clean Air Act.

The Chinese public feels the same way, but in an authoritarian system, they do not have the same ability to push for change. When it comes to environmental protection, democracy is our biggest asset, and the results are good for American people and for American businesses across the board.

Melanie Hart is a Policy Analyst on China energy and climate policy at the Center for American Progress. Jeffrey Cavanagh is an Intern at the Center. This piece was originally published at the Center for American Progress as part of its Earth Day series.

Related Earth Day Posts:

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The Washington Times first raised the latest issue on Monday based on photographs from a parade in Pyongyang that appeared to show a mobile missile carrier that closely matched a Chinese design. On Tuesday, Foreign Policy reported that Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking for more information about the allegations.

Today, Panetta was asked about the equipment by Turner and dodged on specifics. He did note, though, that “there is growing concern about, you know, the mobile capabilities that were on display in the parade recently in North Korea.” While he said the U.S. needed to get better intelligence, he added:

I’m sure there’s been some help coming from China. I don’t know, you know, the exact extent of that. I think we’d have to deal with it in another context in terms of the sensitivity of that information. But clearly there’s been assistance along those lines.

Watch the video:

If the allegations are true, they would constitute a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 which prohibits arms sales to North Korea. Asked about the report, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, “China is always against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

The Nelson Report, a widely-read and well-sourced daily newsletter about Asian affairs by foreign affairs analyst Chris Nelson, reported that a source confirmed the truck was of Chinese origin:

Tonight, sources we absolutely rely on have come forward with information the carrier is new and cannot have appeared in [North Korea] without the explicit permission of [China]. As our source comments, with understatement: “The political implications of the appearance of Chinese missile transporters at the 15 April parade in Pyongyang are huge. ”

And the source’s source claims Beijing is fully aware of the implications of what it’s done, and that, the source argues, is why China approved stronger language than it’s ever before accepted, in Monday’s UNSC President’s statement.

Nelson comments that China’s embarrassment and quick accession to the Security Council’s unanimous but non-binding Presidential Statement that included a threat to ratchet up sanctions undermines criticisms of the Obama administration and the U.N. that the statement was all bark and no bite.

The Washington Post reported last week that GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney “is preparing to broaden his challenge to President Obama’s management of foreign affairs.” One issue the former Massachusetts governor has been trying to hit Obama on is China. Romney continues to attack the administration for not doing enough and not spending enough. In a recent op-ed, Romney promised to confront what he called the threat of a “Chinese century” by spending more money:

But the dawn of a Chinese century — and the end of an American one — is not inevitable. America possesses inherent strengths that grant us a competitive advantage over China and the rest of the world. We must, however, restore those strengths.

That means shoring up our fiscal and economic standing, rebuilding our military, and renewing faith in our values. We must apply these strengths in our policy toward China to make its path to regional hegemony far more costly than the alternative path of becoming a responsible partner in the international system.

But the reality is that the Obama administration should be commended for figuring out how to confront China’s military build-up while simultaneously reducing defense spending. As CAP’s Nina Hachigian and the National Security Network’s Jacob Stokes point out in their recent report, the Obama administration’s approach to China recognizes the challenges posed by China’s rise, but doe not exaggerate the possible threat for political gain. Though China’s defense budget has grown to $160 billion, this number is still about four times smaller than the U.S. defense budget.

President Obama and top military officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, are in agreement that getting our own fiscal house in order is critical to strengthening American national security.

Viewing China policy through this lens prevents a strategically and fiscally irresponsible overreaction to a perceived Chinese threat, while simultaneously keeping a watchful eye on their continuing efforts to develop militarily.

China’s military development is indeed a cause for concern, but it is still far from being a serious military challenger to the United States, even in the Pacific. Take, for instance, the newest addition to the Chinese Naval fleet, which is not really “new” at all; the aircraft carrier Shi Lang (formerly Varyag), a 25 year old refurbished Ukrainian dinosaur that has been called a “piece of junk” by military analysts. Compare that to the U.S. Navy’s 11 technologically unmatched carrier strike groups and U.S. superiority becomes obvious. Below the ocean’s surface, the Chinese navy is similarly deficient, with a recent U.S. Navy assessment concluding that modern Chinese-made submarines are more easily detected than Soviet subs during the Cold War.

Given that the U.S. maintains a force of roughly 50 ships in the western Pacific at any given time, American forces are not in imminent danger of being outmatched. Instead the U.S. should devote more time and energy to improving diplomatic relations, including military-to-military, with the goal of better managing any future conflict. By linking China with the threat posed by the Soviet Union, conservatives like Mitt Romney are moving the U.S. to a future military standoff. Progressives are working to ensure that this type of warmongering and budget busting foreign policy rhetoric doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Department of Commerce issued a preliminary decision today based upon the agency’s impartial review of Chinese subsidies to domestic solar companies.

The tariffs range from 2.9 percent to 4.73 percent — dramatically lower than the 20 percent expected by many industry analysts. It is important to note, however, that today’s decision from Commerce is the first of two key tariff rulings: subsidies and dumping. The second decision on whether Chinese companies are dumping panels into the U.S. market below cost is expected in May.

The complaint was filed in October by SolarWorld and a small group of unnamed solar manufacturers that called themselves the Coalition of American Solar Manufacturers, or CASM. It sparked a contentious debate in the solar industry between upstream panel manufacturers getting squeezed by rapidly falling prices and downstream developers benefiting from cheap equipment.

The Center for American Progress has taken a nuanced stance on the issue — understanding the value of falling solar prices and free trade, but also supporting trade enforcement mechanisms when needed. Melanie Hart, CAP’s China Energy and Climate Policy Analyst, explained the importance of the case in a statement:

Today’s Commerce Department decision to levy import tariffs on Chinese solar panels is a positive step forward in a much larger effort to level the clean energy playing field between the United States and China. I applaud SolarWorld for pursuing this case and utilizing the trade institutions designed to address these types of complaints. Too many U.S. companies avoid filing trade petitions because they fear Chinese government retaliation. When U.S. companies allow those fears to prevail, the end result is tacit accommodation to illegal trade behavior, and that can erode U.S. competitiveness and drive entire U.S. industries out of business.

This countervailing duty (subsidy) tariff is lower than many industry analysts expected. It is important to note, however, that in trade cases where subsidy and dumping petitions are filed in tandem, the dumping tariff is generally the higher import duty. The Commerce Department is expected to issue the SolarWorld dumping determination in May. At this point it is far from clear what the end result of this case will be and how it will impact manufacturers in the United States and China.

One thing that we can say based on this relatively low subsidies tariff is that the Commerce Department did not apply punitive duties in this ruling. Instead, the Commerce Department based this decision on its own review of the evidence and only levied tariffs based on what it could prove. Chinese companies and officials are watching this case very closely, and hopefully this action will serve as an example in China for how these cases can and should be handled impartially and according to law.

The United States and China are the world’s biggest energy consumers. Keeping our borders open to allow and encourage clean energy trade can stimulate competition, speed innovation, and bring down costs to speed our transition toward a clean energy economy. To be equally beneficial for both countries, however, it is critical that U.S. and Chinese companies compete on a level playing field. At present, it is clear that the field is often far from level. Allowing and encouraging U.S. companies to file trade petitions such as this one is critical for correcting that imbalance.

Representing the other side of the issue, Jigar Shah of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) issued a moderately positive response to the low tariffs. CASE has been openly critical of SolarWorld and the CASM companies, saying the alliance is potentially throwing economic roadblocks in front of the industry:

Today’s preliminary determination by the Department of Commerce imposing low tariffs on imported solar cells and modules is a relatively positive outcome for the U.S. solar industry and its 100,000 employees. However, tariffs large or small will hurt American jobs and prolong our world’s reliance on fossil fuels. Fortunately, this decision will not significantly raise solar prices in the United States as SolarWorld has sought.

This decision clearly demonstrates that the Commerce Department did not find the Chinese government engaged in massive subsidization, as SolarWorld and CASM claim.

There is more work to be done to protect the future of solar industry and power in America. There will be another decision in May when the Commerce Department announces anti-dumping duties. A recent study by the Brattle Group confirmed that placing artificially high tariffs on solar panels would severely undermine the US solar industry, resulting in the loss of up to 60,000 US jobs by 2014.

CASM countered those job loss claims with its own report earlier this month showing that America’s 2010 solar trade surplus with China turned into a gaping $1.6 billion deficit last year.

With so much at stake for both sides of the rapidly growing solar sector, the war of words between manufacturers and developers will likely continue well into the spring.

Related Post:

• The U.S. Decision on Chinese Solar Panel Imports: Why Tariffs Are Only A Partial Solution