China
China has plans to create a 25-square-mile photovoltaic solar farm. The array would have a two-gigawatt capacity; this could power three million homes, ABC News reports.
Of course, China has announced a lot of sustainability projects that haven’t quite panned out. Still, ABC notes that China is the world’s largest producer of solar panels, and is about to be the world’s largest wind turbine maker.
The first marker for this solar project will be whether the 30 megawatt demo is completed in the next couple of years. The full-scale project’s target for completion is 2019.
Twenty-five square miles is ambitious at the moment, but may come to be seen as just a start. The current National Geographic asserts that the entire US electricity supply could be powered by a solar farm occupying a 100-mile-by-100-mile square (10,000 sq miles). (George Johnson, “Plugging into the Sun,” National Geographic, September 2009, 39) This might seem like a lot, but, by comparison, it is less than a tenth of the acreage planted in corn alone each year.
(PV panel image copyright FutureAtlas.com — usable with attribution and link)
A Chinese research group reports that 338 million Chinese are now using the Internet — some 26% of the population.
Despite its restricted state in China, the Internet is still an important driver of expanding freedom. Information circulates much more freely than in the past, and sensitive stories often travel widely before the government clamps down. And those who are determined to get around the so-called Great Firewall can do so.
Though 26% is much lower than rates in developed countries, it still means that the Internet is now well beyond the upper-middle class. The report indicates that usage is spreading in the rural population, driven by rising mobile Internet use.
(Image courtesy openDemocracy — Creative Commons license)
At a USAID seminar today, Dr. Deborah Brautigam of American University said that Chinese companies are beginning to be interested in conditionality standards — benchmarks such as the Equator Principles that are meant to guide global companies toward better handling of social and environment issues in emerging markets.
Chinese companies are often seen as unconcerned with such environmental and social matters in their operations in Africa, potentially undercutting progress toward getting other actors to operate responsibly.
Brautigam said that Chinese companies are beginning to study such principles; publicly traded companies are aware of the reputational risk of being seen as bad actors, and of their potential vulnerability to activism.
Meanwhile, today’s news suggests how far Chinese business has to go. A graft query in Namibia has brought up the name of the son of China’s president, Hu Jintao. The Chinese government has reportedly responded by blocking access to news coverage of the affair — directly contradicting the kind of openness and transparency which global markets will ultimately demand from Chinese business, and which Chinese companies will themselves need to be fully competitive.
(Image courtesy Social Technologies)
Speaking to the Washington Post, Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uighur leader, declined to be labeled a “separatist.”
“What my people want is what I want, and they want freedom,” she told the Post, which observed that she “speaks carefully around the question of full independence for Uighurs” — this is also the position of the World Uyghur Congress, though Uighur demonstrations sometimes have a more direct message.
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Resentment and hostility toward Han Chinese seem to be common among the largely Muslim, Turkic Uighurs, who make up a diminishing percentage of Xinjiang’s population as Han move in in growing numbers, with the encouragement of the Chinese government. Whether a majority of Uighurs favor independence is not known.
In any case, China is not going to willingly consider any kind of real autonomy for the Uighurs anytime soon, both on general principle and due to Xinjiang’s immense size and strategic location. With the Uighurs unable to compel any Chinese action, little is likely to change for years to come.
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International system
Pei suggested that there will not be an “Asian century” in the same way that the 20th century was the American century: Asia will lack the capabilities and skills to remake the world in the way the United States did. Moreover, the region is too divided, and intraregional rivalries will cancel the individual powers out, for no net effect.
Martinez agreed that, in the short term, the narrative of American decline due to the financial crisis was overblown. He emphasized that the US and China are now in a position of mutual dependence, a relationship could actually help the US perpetuate the American century. He does not see any innovative ideological worldview motivating China: no great ideological challenge is coming out of Asia.
Japan does not want to be second to China in Asia, Pei noted.
Asian economies
Continued growth in the 7-9% range should not be assumed, Pei asserted, given the challenges countries face in as little as 10-15 years. He suggested that Asia lacks an ecosystem for innovation, and that such a system is obstructed by the entire Asian “way of life.”
China’s domestic evolution
China will become a democracy at some point, Pei said. It will come from the top down, when members of the political elite choose to use popular discontent to further their personal goals. This could actually undercut its economic performance, he added.
He said that the Communist Party has successfully whitewashed history, and Chinese know little of the repressions from the 1950s to Tiananmen. As a result, the Party’s legitimacy could be threatened when it all comes out, as happened to the Party in Russia during glasnost.
Martinez forecast that, if economic growth falters, the Party would need an alternative rationale for its continued dominance, and might turn to nationalism, for instance on the Taiwan issue. He noted that even young, educated, cosmopolitan Chinese are in full agreement with the government on nationalistic issues such as Tibet and Taiwan.
Pei said that the financial crisis has not disillusioned Chinese about Western capitalism, but it has provided an “aha” moment, as they have watched the US make serious mistakes.
The discussion is at the NAF site on video.
Image copyright FutureAtlas.com — usable with attribution and link.
The Somali pirates have managed to invoke the multipolar 21st century:
- The European Union is sending a force of 20 warships to patrol around the Horn of Africa, including countries such as Spain and Sweden, an unusual display of military power by the organization.
- China is also sending three warships, a striking extension of its global reach. This is likely the first time a Chinese flotilla has operated in these waters since the great fleets of Admiral Zheng He, in the early 15th century.
Image: Ben Walther (Flickr)
Reports–such as this AP article–suggest that the Tibetan self-determination movement may be nearing a crossroads.
The reporter summarizes the feelings at a meeting of 600 Tibetan exile leaders thusly:
Many young leaders – some of whom have only seen their homeland from across the Himalayas in India – are pushing for a declaration of independence from China. However, much of the older guard, who witnessed firsthand China’s military might, are standing by the Dalai Lama’s path of compromise.
Younger factions have grown more dissatisfied with the Dalai Lama’s compromise approach, and more now advocate violence against Tibet’s Chinese rulers.
Such a strategy would be perilous.
- China has vastly more raw power than Tibetans can ever muster.
- The Chinese government and general populace are likely ready to use that power.
- China’s political culture is still in a stage that demonstrations of Tibetan dissatisfaction with Chinese rule–whether violent or nonviolent–are unlikely to meet with much sympathy, except from small groups of liberal Chinese.
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Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New World Order, offers some tips for a new US president in the October issue of Wired, in an article by Daniel Pink.
- The United States can avoid decline by “tightening trade and energy ties to the rest of the hemisphere, pursuing economic innovation at home, and establishing a ‘diplomatic-industrial complex.’”
- The US should create “an energy partnership with Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil,” reducing dependence on oil from the Middle East.
- The US should treat Mexico as the EU does Turkey, “integrating, elevating, and partnering with it.”
- Egypt is “ripe for revolt. We should make friends quickly with other power centers in the country, including the Muslim Brotherhood.”
- The US should offer Iranians a deal: oust President Ahmadinejad, and they will get “everything they want in terms of of Western investment in energy, freer trade, diplomatic recognition, and increased cultural and student exchanges.”
- Uzbekistan merits attention, as the most populous and industrialized country in Central Asia, and the only state that shares borders with all the other “stans.”
- “India will never rival China . . . It’s not a superpower.”
- China’s rise will not be hindered by “demands for such niceties as transparency or free expression,” as “the Chinese people have a preference for stability over another revolution.”
- Russia has more problems than potential: it is “in demographic free fall” and “Chinese immigration is blurring the border.”
Taiwanese voters yesterday backed the opposition, effectively retreating from the more stridently pro-independence ruling party.
This may help reduce the risk of conflict between China and Taiwan, a war that could easily draw in the United States.
At the same time, Taiwanese are not ready to merge with China: polling finds that 63% consider the island sovereign and independent, 31% say its status is undetermined, and only 5% agree with China’s position that it is part of the mainland.