From Above and Below
China, according to the political scientist Thea Riofrancos, occupies “an in-between space” in industrial climate policy: after emerging as the world’s major manufacturing hub—and a global capital of industrial pollution—its latest phase of commercial evolution has made China both culprit and hero in the global transition to a decarbonized energy system. A recent and dramatic boom in the country’s renewable energy production, driven by vast state investment alongside a hyper-competitive green industrial policy and international development agenda, has for many demonstrated that some environmental goals are now fully compatible with global capitalism, even without political democracy or economic redistribution. This poses a challenge to environmental advocates, who have long seen social justice as an imperative for resolving the climate crisis. Whatever the ethical implications of China’s industrial advancement, it’s clear that both rich and poor societies around the world are increasingly dependent on its eco-capitalism. There is much in this for climate justice advocates to grapple with, not least the fundamental question of our present moment: will a vast green supply chain driven by an authoritarian-capitalist state draw us toward, or away from, the path to environmental justice?
While countries across the world fall short of their modest emissions-reduction targets, China seems to be pushing ahead full throttle. Its latest five-year plan, set in July this year, contains the ambitious goal of having 50 per cent of its total energy capacity coming from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2030, with additional regulations to accelerate decarbonization in its most polluting industries like steelmaking. Globally, meanwhile, and on top of its own energy transition, China now leads the world with its clean tech production.
Yet the good news coming out of China is often shadowed by rather more troubling stories. Fossil fuels and dirty corporate practices continue to taint China’s “clean” technology supply chain. In late May this year in the Rust Belt of Shanxi province an explosion at a coal mining site killed more than 80 workers in a deadly reminder of how dependent the country remains on one of the dirtiest and deadliest forms of fossil fuel. Meanwhile in Xinjiang, where the ethnic Uyghur population faces heavy repression, human rights watchdogs have uncovered evidence of coerced and forced labour being used in both the transition minerals and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing sectors, implicating the supply chains of Western brands like Volvo and General Motors. Nor is this confined within China’s borders: in the copper belt of Zambia, mining communities have been struggling for more than a year with the aftermath of a massive flood of toxins from a ruptured tailings dam at a mining site run by the Chinese firm Sino-Metals.
For Jia Ching Chen, professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, “China is basically the hatchet man for the global green economy.” China, he said, is “the one that’s on the frontiers and is able to navigate the risks of precious metals mining in artisanal industrial forms in forests in Africa.” By undercutting its competition on cost and efficiency, he added, “China is able to make these industrial ecological processes happen. And the global market has depended on that for decades now.”
A constrained movement
In making renewable energy technology and infrastructure more accessible and affordable, China is now changing the dynamics of development across the world. Poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are particularly impacted. Instead of relying on fossil fuels to power industrial development as they once had to, many have been able to modernize and boost growth without ramping up their carbon emissions. As Riofrancos told me, for much of the Global South this is a boon. “A solar panel can provide reliable, cheap and clean electricity to power a whole range of economic activities in creative services, other manufacturing [and] education.”
But what are the consequences of the Global South’s ballooning green energy sector being fuelled by, and concentrated within, the commercial ambitions of one nation—a country that also happens to be an authoritarian-capitalist state? And does the prospect of ultra-cheap green growth in the Global South change the political calculus for the climate justice movement?