CHINAwatch

China-Africa Summit 2024 - What are the implications

Backchat  on RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) on 6 September,  

Xi Thinks China Can Slow Climate Change. What if He’s Right?

So asks Jacob Dreyer in a New york Times Guest Essay dated 19 April 2024. Dreyer is a Shanghai-based  American editor and writer focused on the intersection of the Chinese political economy and science.

Dreyer's essay ticks all the right boxes on China;s green energy surge. These include China's powerful state-directed model in achieving all-of-society outcomes to combat Climate Change, its unbeatable cost-competitiveness for green energy businesses including EVs (electric vehicles), and its imperatives of achieving energy security through reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels through hostile transit "choke points" (e.g. the Malacca Strait controlled by America's Seventh Fleet). 

To these should be added China's possession of comprehensive and globally-oriented green-energy supply-and-value-chains, includng rare-earths and other materials, a  manufacturing powerhouse covering all aspects of production and utilization, and external connectivity through global Belt and Road linkages. 

China's current global green energy dominance is well documented in the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s Renewables 2023 Report (released Janury 2024). See its Executive Summary and a Reuters report of 11 January 2024. 

According to the IEA report, China will account for 56% of renewable energy capacity additions in the 2023-28 period. China is expected to increase renewable capacity by 2,060 gigawatts (GW) compared with the rest of the world's 1,574 GW addition. China accounts for almost 90% of the global upward forecast revision, consisting mainly of solar photovoltaic (PV). 

The IEA report flags up China's 80‑95% share of global green energy supply chains. Its solar PV manufacturing capabilities have almost doubled since last year, "creating a global supply glut," says the IEA.

Nevetheless, the IEA points out that China already accounts for 53% of the world's 2,095 GW of operating coal-fired generating capacity, a share likely to increase in coming years as more coal plants are retired in the developed world. So China is likely to achieve its declared goal of net zero carbon emission (carbon neutrality) by 2060 only during the final years before the target.  

China's mediating role in the Israel-Hamas conflict

My thoughts in reponse to the following media questions - 

How do you think China perceives and responds to the current Israel-Hamas conflict within the broader context of its foreign policy and global diplomatic engagements?

China cannot avoid condemning terrorism to innocent civilians of any country, Israel included, as China had itself suffered from acts of terrorism in Xinjiang. However, condemning any side will not achieve sustainable peace. Hence Bejing is adopting a multi-pronged approach: sending a special envoy to consolidate
positions in the Arab world and Iran; maintaining dialogue with the US and Israel; leading a motion for humanitarian ceasefire in the UN Security Council, where it's China's turn for chairmanship; and supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority has almost lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the Palestinian people, who have continued to suffer marginalization and de-humanization under the Israeli occupiers, including continued confiscation of their land, monopolizing their water resources, and regular harassment by the Israeli military.

Hence Hamas' plot to trigger the current Gaza crisis, to rally support of the entire Arab and Muslim world for their long-standing fight for respectable statehood.This explains President's Xi Jinping's urge for resuscitating the Two-State Solution, which is slowing gaining international traction.

The Gaza conundrum, however, has wider game-changing implications globally. While the Biden administration is embroiled over Gaza, it has become increasingly hard pressed to supply enough ammunition to Ukraine. Political appetite is fast waning for throwing billions more money into the Ukrainian blackhole without any significant turn-around in routing out Russian occupations. The situation is becoming more critical with ever-higher Israeli demand for supply of similar ammunitions over Gaza.

When push comes to shove, it is becoming clear that Capitol Hill's priority is Israel instead of Ukraine. A possible new Trump presidency is very likely to throw Ukraine under the bus, as he was reported as saying that as President, he could end the Ukraine war in one day.

The Europeans, meanwhile, are already strapped in grave economic difficulties. Their populations are becoming tired and worried about this seemingly endless war of attrition. In these circumstances, it is questionable whether Ukraine could sustain the war through 2024, even before a new-term US President enters the White House. If so, this would mean Russia would be able to dictate terms of any ceasefire and claim victory in the eyes of the world. That's why Putin is now confident enough to start preparations for his bid for two more 6-year terms as President.

What is likely to follow is perhaps a fatal blow to America's claim for global leadership. A more assertive Middle East is seeing its energy exports more in tune with China as the world's largest energy customer, not to mention China's centrality in the global supply and value chain as the world's largest trader and manufacturer, Western "de-risking" notwithstanding.

At the same time, US hostilities are pushing Russia and Iran even closer to China, forming what the late Brzezinski called a mighty "anti-hegemonic coalition" (The Grand Chessboard, Basic Books, New York, 2016 (p.55)), which is set to upend America’s self-proclaimed leadership of the global order.

China has no appetite (nor capabilities) to replicate US global leadership. What it wants is hopefully a more multipolar world, where countries with diverse ideologies and stages of development can coexist peacefully, cooperating where they can on bilateral or regional socio-economic development as well as global
challenges like Climate Change, pandemics, nuclear non-proliferation, terrorism, drug trafficking etc.

2. In your assessment, could China effectively contribute to mediating and facilitating a resolution to the Israel-Hamas conflict? What are the potential challenges and opportunities in this regard?

As a relatively friendly and more balanced party towards both sides of the conflict, China is well placed to play the role of an effective mediator. For any peace to be sustainable, President Xi has proffered the Two-State Solution right from the start of his intervention.

Taking advantage of China’s term to chair the UN Security Council, China has brokered a UN resolution calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire over Gaza. The vote in the 15-member council was 13 for the Resolution and one (US) veto, with the UK abstaining.

Given Israel's overwhelming armament and aerial bombardment in crowded quarters in Gaza, destroying already stretched civilian hospitals and shelters, most global public opinions, those in Western nations included, are outraged by the continuing inhuman civilian carnage and suffering, including many women and
children.

Popular resentment has been restraining some of the excesses of the Israeli military, but fails to stop the Israeli insistence, regardless of the United States, that a precondition for peace must be the total eradication of Hamas.

However, the crux of the matter is NOT Hamas, which has resorted to terrorism on the Israelis only to gather momentum for the realization of Palestinian people’s long-suffering claim for respectful statehood, including their ancestral land and water rights in Palestine. Hence, the imperative for a permanent and sustainable Two-State Solution. But Israel, undeterred by any moderation of allies, remains recalcitrant.

3. What unique diplomatic approaches or strategies could China bring to the table in supporting peace efforts and de-escalation in the region?

What China wants is a peaceful Middle East, which is a key conduit for its Belt and Road Initiative linking China more closely with the Global South and beyond.

Beijing is likely to double-down on coordinating humanitarian responses with all stakeholder countries on both sides, not only Israel, the United States, and Europe, but also Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other countries in the Arab League, along with the UN Secretary General, with a view possibly to convening a global forum for sustainable peace in Palestine.

China is also likely to continue playing an ever more proactive role in the United Nations in support of the UN Charter of respecting each country’s sovereignty, the bedrock of China’s foreign policy.

The recent callous US veto to an almost unanimous UN resolution calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire over Gaza begs the question of United States constructive leading role in global governance. It also flags up the long-demanded reform of the United Nations Security Council. Click here

US-China De-Risking Policy - Risks and Opportunities for Hong Kong

A Hong Kong business lunheon presentation on 11 November 2023. Download US-China De-Risking Policy - Risks and Opportunities for HK

Deciphering the Xi-Putin meet in Moscow

Exclusive live interview with RT on 21 March 2023

20th Party Congress - Common Prosperity

Backchat with RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) on 24 October 2022.

China's ruling party approves sweeping reshuffle at end of week-long gathering in Beijing

Exclusive live TV interview on 22 October with PressTV on the 20th Party Congress and its global implications 

Building China 3.0 - Final Sprint toward the China Dream

The above named is a full lecture for the Ljubljana Confucius Institute, Slovenia, including Q & A, open to worldwide participation. The lecture (free of charge) was  simultaneously promoted by the World Strategic Insights based in Rome.

The Zoom lecture took place on Thursday, 17 February, 2022 at 0900 hours European time (1600 hours Beijing/Hong Kong time). The lecture attracted 135 applicants with 76 physically present, pandemics and other obstacles notwithstanding. 

Full details of the lecture's contents are here. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation in PDF format is as follows. Download Building China 3.0. A voice-over video recording of the PowerPoint lecture is here. Also re-published on World Strategic Insights based in Rome. 

Owing to time constraints, one question not given time to answer was on China's hukou (household registration) problem, which created a massive underclass of rural migrants. A podcast Caste aside: The future of China's peasants captures the conundrum. 

The ongoing hukou reform remains a huge, moving challenge. You can't flood the big cities with migrant, poorly-educated villagers. You can't leave them in limbo. Covered in the PowerPoint presentation is China's massive high-speed rail network expansion (doubling to 70,000 km), to connect ALL cities with a population of over 500,000 people, with modern motorways connecting ALL towns with population over 200,000 inhabitants, however remote, by 2035. Many fourth-tier cities and towns are in a largely rural region, including millions of villages. A great many are formed into inter-connected "urban clusters".(Slide 109 of 114) Along with the vibrant digital economy, this hopefully will provide many opportunities for the "rural" population. 

China's Sixth Party Plenum, the New Cold War, and the Contest for new Global Order

PowerPoint presentation to the EGN Founding Chairmen’ Group on 9 December, 2021. 

Download Sixth Party Plenum New Cold War and Contest for new Global Order

 

 

To avert mutual destruction with China, President Biden should move from "maximum confrontation" to "constructive re-engagement"

Relations between the United States and China have undergone many twists and turns since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

At first, America did not recognize the communist regime of Chairman Mao, preferring the defeated, self-exiled Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) in Taiwan. At the height of the US-USSR Cold War, President Nixon took advantage of the Sino-Soviet split to woo China to the American camp by recognizing the PRC as the One China in the United Nations, ditching Taiwan.

As China had been opening up under Deng Xiaoping, the United States helped bring the PRC into the World Trade Organization (WTO), in the hope that in due course, China could become a "Responsible Stakeholder" of the US-led global liberal order. US-China relations during his period is commonly regarded as "Engagement". 

As China continued to grow much stronger and more confident as the "Factory of the World", threatening America's dominance in some quarters, President Obama's administration launched the "Pivot to Asia', vaulting to redeploy some 60% of US military assets to the Asia-Pacific, with a view to America's Pacific Century  This represented a period of doubling down on an earlier "anti-Communism" strategy of "Containment", which took the form of encircling China militarily with a "First Island Chain" anchored in Okinawa and a "Second Island Chain" anchored in Guam. 

China overtook the United States as the world's largest economy in "purchasing power parity" (PPP) terms in 2017. Since then, not only has China not become more liberal, it is perceived to have turned more authoritarian under President Xi. Moreover, no longer a Factory of the World for cheap consumer goods, China is perceived to be eating America's lunch in e-commerce and high technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence. Its massive Belt and Road Initiative smacks of ambitions challenging America's global primacy. 

Fanned by such tomes as Michael Pillsbury's The Hundred Year Marathon - China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as The Global Superpower, a bipartisan consensus of a "China Threat" has festered, framing a rising China as "a dangerous juggernaut" of "illicit trade practices", bent on imposing its authoritarian ideology on the rest of the world and trying to usurp America's role as world leader. This has resulted in an era of Great Power competition without boundaries, a period of Maximum Confrontation and Maximum Competition, dramatized by President Trump but in some ways intensified under President Biden. 

The Biden-Xi virtual summit did not bridge the abyss between the two rivalling Great Powers. The vast chasm is calibrated in the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's 539-page Report to Congress on 17 November . See Executive Summary

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is depicted throughout as "deepening its embrace of aggression and coercion" in realizing its global ambitions. These include alleged "problematic" trade practices, "assertiveness" in the South China Sea, "military threats" over Taiwan, "human rights violations" in Xinjiang, "rolling back freedoms" in Hong Kong (a whole stand-alone chapter in the Report) , "state control" of private businesses, China's "military-industrial complex", and its growing nuclear arsenal. 

The Review flags up ten out of 32 recommendations, including prohibition or vigorous screening of China's Variable Interest Entities (VIEs) and affiliates, beefing up the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), reinforcing anti-ship and ballistic missile deterrence over Taiwan, creating a Technology Transfer Review Group (TTRG) to screen out harmful Chinese investments or technology transfers, measures to better protect key supply chains, tightened reporting of US companies in China, and strengthening the whole panoply of anti-China sanctions, including on Xinjiang products. 

Imbued with the "China Threat, the Review seems reminiscent of the Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington's 1996 grand thesis of post-Cold War conflict. The Review intones: "At stake in this clash of identities and sovereignty is the safety and security of the United States and its partners, friends, and allies. The CCP is a long-term, consequential, menacing adversary determined to end the economic and political freedoms that have served as the foundation for security and prosperity for billions of people."

The Review sees nothing less than a global combat between "democracy" and "authoritarianism". To "China hawks", the threat is more pressing as China would grow to become the world's largest economy by the early 2030s, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. 

With mid-term Elections looming next year, Biden cannot afford being seen to be weak on China. Softer rhetoric and limited cooperation on Climate Change aside, he looked anxious to find out how a "mortal combat" against China on all fronts could carry on without spiraling into a hot war. The three-and-a-half-hour Washington late-night team meeting, the room setting, and Biden's body language were tale-telling.

Meanwhile, a US-led virtual Summit for Democracy taking place in December signals a thinly-disguised US-led global anti-China coalition, as 100 democratic leaders and other "democratic wannabes" are being invited, excluding some democracies deemed friendly towards China.  Along with the United Kingdom and Canada, a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics appears on the cards. To counter China's Belt and Road Initiative, on 1st December, a politically-regrouped European Union announced a 300-billion-Euro Global Gateway package of infrastructural projects for the developing world (quickly dismissed as "bullshit" in The Economist ).  

Amidst the West's heated contest with China, the obvious flash point is Taiwan, Beijing's top-most "redline". 

At the just-concluded Sixth Plenum of the CCP's Central Committee, President Xi reiterated the national goal of becoming a "strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country" by 2049, the centenary of the founding of the PRC. He made it plain that the China Dream would not be complete without Taiwan's unification, by peaceful means if at all possible. 

Taking note of China's expanded nuclear arsenal and hypersonic missile capabilities, the Review is apprehensive of Beijing's possible precipitous actions to recover Taiwan, notwithstanding Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley's recent Congressional testimony that China lacks full capability (or absolute confidence) to prevail over Taiwan by force before 2027. 

The overarching "China Threat", while understandable, needs more balanced assessment. . 

First, as the Review recaptures, China faces "a set of structural problems, including growing debt, income inequality, demographic decline, and technological dependence on the United States and other advanced democracies" as well as an increasingly hostile international environment. China's eventual advancement is by no means assured. 

Second, Beijing would be up against almost impossible odds if it tries to recover Taiwan by force. In a 2018 Cornell University book, "Unrivalled, Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower", Michael Beckley, Fellow in the International Security Program at Harvard University, points out that only 10% of Taiwan's coastline is suitable for an amphibious invasion, which, of itself, remains the most difficult mission type in warfare history. Thanks to separation of waters, Taiwan's armies with missile and air defenses could easily degrade, outnumber, and overcome landing invaders, let alone US superior naval, submarine, air, and ballistic missile interventions.

This assessment may have emboldened both the Trump and Biden administrations to continue pushing the envelop, using "salami-slicing" tactics, to push Taiwan towards de facto full independence, while paying lip service to the "One China Policy". In this calculation, Taiwan is an unsinkable anti-Beijing aircraft carrier. 

However, now with the world's largest navy, much-enhanced "anti-access, area-denial" (A2/AD) capabilities, and state-of-the-art hypersonic weaponry, China's current military capabilities are a far cry from 2018. Moreover, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) won battles before against overwhelming odds, as in the case of its Anti-American Korean War. So the Review's apprehension is in order. Nevertheless, President Xi has repeatedly emphasized that China has strategic patience. Beijing is unlikely to invade unprovoked, let alone risking a nuclear conflict derailing the China Dream. 

Third, as Beckley argues, America has unsurpassed wealth, including high GDP per capita, unique geography, abundance of natural resources, positive demographics, advanced productivity, global military supremacy and the privileged dollar.  Albeit no longer able to call all the shots, the United States would remain pre-eminent and much richer than China for the next 50 years or more. Click here 

Fourth, the CCP's pervasive role is part and parcel of China's state-led model. It may be anathema to the West's "democratic" DNA, but it has proven its legitimacy by miraculously transforming the lives of the Chinese people, a fifth of humanity. Its support by the people is over 95%, amongst the world's highest, according to a July 2020 Harvard Kennedy School Study. As a regime, it deserves to be treated at least on an equal footing. 

Fifth, in many ways, China's perceived assertiveness in the South China Sea is to protect sea lanes of communication against US encirclement by the First and Second Island Chains. Perceived transgressions over Xinjiang are compelled responses to rampant ethnic terrorism and separatism; recent measures over Hong Kong were to avert rising subversive separatism; and those over Taiwan against deliberate attempts to test Beijing's "red lines". The Review Commission chair Carolyn Bartholomew seems not entirely fair in blaming China for putting the onus of improving relationships on the other side. Click here

The recent CCP's Sixth Plenum unveiled the blueprint for a new PRC 3.0. with President Xi as its architect. A "modern socialist nation" is being realized by 2035, a nation that is more innovative, self-reliant, fairer, greener, and more open to the world, supported by the New Development Concept, the Dual Circulation Strategy, Common Prosperity and the 14th Five Year Plan.

To find the right way for both countries to get along, President Xi suggested to President Biden a three-pronged approach: mutual respect, co-existence, and seeking a win-win outcome. 

With diametrically-opposed ideologies, the deep chasm between a rising China and the West implies a grave lack of mutual understanding and mutual trust. Each side seems unable to put itself in the other's shoes before resorting to precipitous action or rhetoric. To cross the divide, more bridges need to be built rather than destroyed by a maximalist confrontational mindset. After all, at the cost of moving both sides closer to the brink, maximum confrontation hasn't yielded any meaningful outcome. 

Examples of trust-building could include pandemic vaccine development, research, testing, production and distribution; renewal-energy smart grids, embracing The Future of Hydrogen, deployment of American technologies to exploit China's vast but geologically-challenged shale gas reserves; joint naval patrols in uncontested waters of the South China Sea; partnership in selected Belt and Road Initiative projects with US inputs in technologies, financing and corporate social responsibility; cooperative space missions with the nascent Tiangong Space Station, similar to space cooperation with the former USSR; academic, scientific, cultural and archeological exchanges; and more joint China-Hollywood film co-productions and distribution. 

I call these cooperative overtures "Constructive Re-engagement", as they could subtly help shape China's behavior for the better, while maintaining America's maximum competition in key areas. 

At the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on 17 November, in a video conversation Dr. Henry Kissinger warned that while the Biden -Xi virtual summit was a good start, US-China relations have moved from "foothills of a Cold War"" to "a precipice from which it depends which direction is chosen." Both sides need to seek coexistence, which is not only desirable, but essential.

It is instructive that during the Cold War, the Johnson administration embraced Khrushchev's post-Stalin plan of peaceful coexistence in a joint campaign to successfully eradicate small pox, as Fareed Zakaria highlights in his 2021 book Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (p.241) 

Right after the 1989 Tiananmen Square upheaval, I was invited to visit the United States in the summer of 1990 to share my thoughts about China's future as a US State Department sponsored "International Visitor". I was privileged to talk to Fortune 50 top corporate leaders including a one-on-one with Steve Forbes. I was reasonably optimistic about China's future then. I am much more optimistic about China's future now, including its ability to manage its Great Power rivalry with the United States. I am, however, conscious of a provoked traumatic transition with potentially-disastrous black swans.

A more benign outcome is possible if the United States is able to shift from "Maximum Confrontation" to "Constructive Re-engagement".