In the midst of a trade war with the United States and Europe, China is taking advantage of new production standards put in place by developed economies in order to respond to global warming to impose its products, and beyond that its economic hegemony. Would ecological concerns serve as a Trojan horse for Beijing to achieve its ends? The question deserves to be asked in the face of the commercial offensives of the People’s Republic as well as the political intentions which accompany them.
Thanks to unbeatable manufacturing costs, Beijing already has a virtual global monopoly on the production of solar panels. Wind turbines made in China also take the lion’s share of the global market. These two symbols of clean energy may lead one to believe that the People’s Republic is pursuing an exemplary ecological policy, while the country remains the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. The communist regime has not given up fossil energy at all, and worse, it is increasing the installation of coal-fired power stations, with four times more construction starts in recent years than from 2016 to 2020.
With the future in electric cars, the country also wants to become a leader in this niche by offering low-cost models, with the intention of once again breaking the competition. The United States and Europe are seeking to counter this danger by imposing import taxes on vehicles that benefit from massive state subsidies, in violation of the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), of which China has been a member since 2001. In order to circumvent these protectionist measures, Chinese brands are now seeking to relocate their factories to Europe, particularly Hungary and Poland.
Twenty-five years ahead in the race for resources
The real issues lie elsewhere, however. The development of new energies requires the exploitation of new types of mineral wealth, as was the case for fossil fuels that facilitated the industrial revolution of the 19th century. Lithium, graphite, nickel are among the materials essential to the manufacture of new materials, including batteries. In this area, China has already secured a dominant position. By controlling 22% of the world production of certain critical materials, the People’s Republic has become essential for tungsten, rare earths, silicon, natural graphite, germanium, antimony, among other things. If we add to this quasi-monopoly the share of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa), countries close to China, on the other raw materials essential to the ecological transition, Western dependence is certain.
The extraction of a large part of these ores is polluting. Many Western industrialists have abandoned this sector since the beginning of the 2000s. Operating sites located in Australia, South America and Africa have since been taken over by China, which does not bother with these details. In a report submitted to the French government in 2022, Philippe Varin estimated that by 2050 we will exploit as many minerals as since the beginning of humanity. In these times of ecological transition, the importance of security of supply for all consuming countries is therefore vital. China is twenty-five years ahead of the rest of the world in this race for resources.
Beijing’s industrial offensive
The deflationary phase that the Chinese economy has been going through since the end of Covid (overproduction due to the slowdown in the domestic market, high indebtedness of urban communities, bankruptcies in the real estate sector, youth unemployment, etc.) is indeed slowing down the prospects of this bright future that Beijing is working on. But speculating on this slowdown in the hope that the regime will give up its ambitions would be a mistake. For the time being, the People’s Republic wants to get rid of its stocks of electric cars by stimulating its exports, provoking protectionist reactions from Europe and the United States, anxious to preserve their own automobile industries. The precedent of photovoltaics and wind power, sectors where the Chinese authorities have managed to force most Western manufacturers into bankruptcy, serves as a warning. Thanks to its control over strategic minerals, the communist regime is preparing the next move. “Not to be dependent on the world, but to make the world dependent on China” is a slogan of Xi Jinping.
Since its opening to markets in the 1990s, China has benefited from massive Western investments which have enabled its spectacular development. At the same time, trade with the West has facilitated industrial copying and plundering to enable the development of competitive, low-cost Chinese products to capture market share. The country has thus risen in a few decades to second place on the world podium. Western industrialists, who had the eyes of Chimène for the Chinese market, have come back from their illusions: the regime has little by little hindered their access to this market by multiplying administrative standards while at the same time local manufacturers, cheaper and heavily subsidized, put in place substitute products. Nowadays, Beijing has reduced its dependence on Western technologies. On the other hand, the regime must find outlets for its industrial production which has become excessive. The drop in consumption among the population, scalded by the Covid crisis and the resulting confinement, more concerned with saving than spending, complicates the situation for those in power. It is precisely in this context that we must understand Beijing’s industrial offensive, taking advantage of the new ecological standards imposed.
Eco-authoritarian model
Climate issues require strong political measures. Democratic alternations added to the power of industrial lobbies can hinder sustainable decision-making in this area. The most radical environmentalists castigate the liberal economy, freedom of trade, the search for profits, and more profits, all of which, according to them, hinder the measures that must be taken to save the planet. Faced with the emergency, only a “benevolent and enlightened” tyranny would be effective, argued the environmentalist Hans Jonas, author of the Principle of responsibility. More recently, the British scientist James Lovelock, known for his work The Earth is a living being. The Gaia hypothesis, advocated for a “world with more authority.” “In times of crisis,” he added, “we need to turn to someone we can trust.”
After the publication of the famous Meadows report on the limits of growth, in the early 1970s, an eco-authoritarian current was born, in favor of an ecological dictatorship. Soviet-style planning appealed to these activists for a time, notwithstanding the fact that an economy based on the development of “productive forces”, according to Marxist doxa, could only be polluting since it was essentially based on heavy industries. Can the Chinese regime take over from the Soviet Union as a model of a necessary eco-authoritarian policy? Beijing is speculating on this. Xi Jinping presents the new technology sector as today’s “productive forces”, updating the good old Marxist schema. Above all, these new technologies allow increased surveillance of the Chinese population.
In a regime of this type, politics takes precedence over all other considerations. The economy, in particular, must be put at the service of the objectives that the power sets for itself. Beijing affirms its desire to put an end to Western hegemony in order to impose new values on the world, its own. In this perspective, the Chinese dictatorship 2.0 can serve as a model for saving the planet, by locking people in an electronic straitjacket intended to protect nature from their misdeeds. If we are to believe the polls, a majority of Westerners prioritize their security over the preservation of their freedoms. This opens up promising prospects for Chinese ambitions. Beyond the economic advantages already acquired thanks to strategic minerals, the communist regime wants to promote its political model as a guarantee of the future for the preservation of the planet. Developing countries are sensitive to these Beijing sirens. The Chinese Communist Party is counting on the tropism of eco-authoritarianism to embody itself as the savior of the Earth in danger. Ecology, the Trojan horse of the People’s Republic? The question deserves to be asked.
* Journalist and specialist in communism, Thierry Wolton this year published The Return of Barbarian Times (Grasset).
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