For two years now, tensions between China
and the US – over trade, Covid-19, technology and human rights – have simmered
in the pages of the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship
newspaper. Some of the choicest and most churlish barbs have been delivered by “Zhong
Sheng” (钟声), a byline reserved for official commentaries on
international affairs. Back
in June, “Zhong Sheng” – a team of writers, not an individual – responded to
US sanctions over Hong Kong by railing against certain “despicable” American
politicians who “have no international morality.”
Since last month, the war of words has had another topic of contention – national records on environmental protection. And the sparks are flying in China’s Party-state media.
The bickering was set off on September
23, as Xi Jinping sought in a video
address to the UN General Assembly to demonstrate China’s leadership on
climate change, pledging that China would reach “peak carbon” before 2030, and
would reach nearly zero emissions by 2060. Xi’s speech starkly contrasted that
of US President Donald Trump, who
savaged China not just for being the top emitter of CO2, but for destroying
“vast swaths of coral reef,” and emitting “more toxic mercury into the
atmosphere than any country anywhere in the world.”
“Those who attack America’s exceptional
environmental record while ignoring China’s rampant pollution are not
interested in the environment,” Trump said. “They only want to punish America,
and I will not stand for it.”
Xi’s pledge “stunned
climate action observers,” some suggesting
it could be a “defining moment” in tackling the global climate crisis. Others,
meanwhile, cautioned skepticism, noting a clear whiff of opportunism in China’s
latest promise. Li Shuo, of Greenpiece Asia, read Xi’s climate pledge as a
shrewd geopolitical play, a “calculated move” to capitalize on inaction from
the United States – particularly in light of the Covid-19 crisis. “It
demonstrates Xi’s consistent interest in leveraging the climate agenda for
geopolitical purposes,” Li told the BBC.
It’s an understatement to say that the US, now the only country that has not set a target to reach carbon neutrality, has failed to demonstrate leadership on the environment. Donald Trump has vowed to abandon the Paris Agreement on climate change, and an official exit would come after the November elections. China, eager to step firmly into a global leadership role it has proclaimed perhaps too zealously in the midst of Covid-19 – the latest Pew Research survey showing that unfavorable views of China have reached an historic high globally – has sought to capitalize on the US retreat in this area.
Xi’s pledges aside, the fact remains that China is the world’s biggest climate polluter – accounting for more than one quarter of total global emissions – and its largest consumer of oil and coal. Fossil fuels, including coal, currently account for 85 percent of China’s energy mix. Experts say the country would need to entirely flip its ratio of fossil fuels to renewables by 2060 (meaning 85 percent of its energy would come from renewables) to reach the goal Xi set in last month’s video address. Far from moving in this direction, however, China has continued to commit to new investments in coal, both at home and abroad, and climate experts have warned that a “new wave of coal power in China would pose clear risks for global efforts to limit climate change and could greatly complicate the country’s own energy transition.”
The poor US record on climate change under Trump notwithstanding, some have argued that China’s performance on the environment globally offers the US an opportunity to weaken Xi Jinping’s standing on a key issue internationally. “A more enlightened U.S. strategy could turn China’s environmental destruction – now being exported globally – to its advantage,” Jonathan E. Hillman wrote today for Nikkei Asia. Whatever China may pledge to do, many across Europe and North America have grown weary of its assurances, and the apparent ease with which it promises the heavens (“promise fatigue” being a commonly cited complaint of late).
The US again threw down the gauntlet on September 25, just two days after the Trump and Xi addresses at the
UN, as the Department of State released a
fact sheet on China’s “environmental abuses,” targeting not just its
environmental record at home, but also alleging that it is “exporting its
willful disregard for the environment through its One Belt One Road initiative,”
referring to Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy program. As an aside, it is
interesting to note that while the State Department fact sheet refers to the “One
Belt One Road initiative,” this abbreviation for the policy has not been used
since 2016, predating the Trump presidency. The preferred term now, of course,
is the “Belt and Road Initiative,” or “BRI.” But the State Department seems
recently to have reverted to the use of “OBOR,” as in this
recent briefing on restrictions on individuals and corporate entities, and in
this recent
testimony on countering China.
In any case,
China has been quick to register its unhappiness with the US takedown of its record
on climate change. In a commentary
on Tuesday, “Zhong Sheng” was clearly hot under the collar. “Certain
American politicians have become notorious for their ‘great regression’ on climate
and environmental issues, and this has long been known,” the commentary began.
How preposterous it is that
lately, in order to discredit China and blacken China’s name, they have with unparalleled
foolishness played the ‘environment card’— first, disregarding facts at the United
Nations, unjustifiably discrediting China’s efforts on environmental protection
in such areas as the atmosphere and the oceans, then, fabricating a so-called ‘Environmental
Abuses Fact Sheet’ that slanders China. Seeing this reversing of black and
white and weaving of lies, the international community snorts with contempt.
The commentary,
appearing on page 3 of the People’s Daily, said again that “certain
politicians in the US have tried to conceal themselves through clever actions,”
but that the world would not be fooled. “On the climate question,
when it comes to who is moving forward, and who is moving backward, who is making
contributions and who is causing trouble, the people of different countries
have a sense in their hearts,” it said.
Back in April this year, CMP Co-Director
Qian
Gang noted the use in official statements in China of the term fèngquàn
(奉劝), or “advise,” which has a strong admonishing tone,
and could be seen to mark a slightly more belligerent or insistent tone in China’s
diplomacy. “[The] ‘advisory vocabulary’ of the Chinese Communist Party is
something we should watch closely in the party-state media as an indicator of
China’s attitude and tone in its foreign relations,” Qian wrote.
Tuesday’s “Zhong Sheng” commentary again uses this more spirited form of “advise,” warning “certain American politicians” to avoid adding to their “list of lies.”
We advise certain American politicians to stop
their political manipulation and malicious slander. The “list of
lies” attributed to you by the US media and netizens is long enough already.
This so-called “Environmental Abuses Fact Sheet” you have put
together for China can only add to this “list of lies.”
A piece yesterday from the official
Xinhua News Agency, “America’s ‘Double Standard’
Farce on Climate Change,” said that “US leaders smeared China on environmental issues during the general
debate of the United Nations General Assembly, and then the US State Department
concocted and published the so-called ‘China’s Environmental Abuses Fact Sheet.’”
There is no disputing that China is the world’s largest emitter of
carbon dioxide, accounting for 28 percent of the global total, according
to Earth System Science Data. The US was the largest national emitter of CO2
only
until 2006, when China took
the top spot. But the Xinhua article dwells instead on cumulative CO2
emissions, a measure that accounts for
emissions going back to 1750 and the start of the industrial revolution. The
Xinhua article suggests that “analysts have pointed out that the United States
is the country emitting the most cumulative greenhouse gases in the world.”
The US government not only turned a blind eye to its own bad deeds,
but also discredited and attacked China, which has taken active steps in this
area and won praise from the international community. This is a political farce
played with ‘double standards.’”
Last month, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) also cited
cumulative CO2 emissions in responding to Trumps accusations at the UN. “In
contrast [to China’s conduct], the United States, as the country with the most cumulative
greenhouse gas emissions in the world, refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and
withdrew from the Paris Agreement,” Wang said. “It ignores its own binding and
quantitative emission reduction tasks, and refuses to take minimum actions to
protect the earth’s homeland.”
Wang also drew attention to other measures of environmental shame. “The
United States is the world’s largest exporter of solid waste and a major
consumer of plastic per capita,” Wang said. It is certainly true that developed
nations in North America, Europe (and Australia) are the largest exporters
of waste, heading off for disposal in developing countries. China was long a
willing recipient of these global waste flows, but that
changed in January 2018, as it banned 24 types of solid waste for import.
On September 28, Beijing Youth Daily ran a strongly-worded commentary that widely made the rounds on China’s internet, directly counter-attacking the US for the State Department fact sheet, which it said had “done its utmost to discredit China on issues of climate change and environmental protection.” The commentary said that the US would “only prove itself ridiculous again” by touting its supposed achievements in an area in which it refused to lead. But the piece could not resist returning to the litany of other disputes with the US — and relishing in its internal problems.
At present, Covid-19 continues to spread in the US, and social strife,
racist conflicts and other issues have become prominent. In order to divert the
attention of the domestic audience, certain US politicians continue frantically
to shift the blame to China, turning it into a ‘scapegoat’ for the problems arising
from their own ineffectiveness. Again and again, they display ‘[warning] cards’
on issues such as the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and so on, spreading
rumors, engaging in smear campaigns, provoking discord, and suppressing China
by all means. The drunkard’s heart is not in the cup.
Whatever measures one applies on the question of the environment, the US and China are undeniably the world’s largest polluters, and the cooperation of both is crucial to tackle what the UN has called “the defining issue of our time.” It goes without saying that the insults and empty promises volleying back and forth between the leaders of the two countries at the moment are wasted words at a time when real action is more urgent than ever.
