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TODAY Thursday 1 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Thursday 1 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: China
On this May Day we are drawn to the lonely giant of proletarian internationalism, China. It is interesting that we have not yet coined a term that expresses the central idealized form of Chinese social organization: sound-bite labels like agrarian theocracy, state socialism, or liberal democracy. China seems to embody Stalinist authoritarianism, Confucianist mandarinism, peasant conservatism, and global-economy consumerism. All tendencies flow together into a great stream of Chinese consensus on the most important shared goal of the society: Let's get really really rich and buy lots of neat things.
They're certainly busy. Gross Domestic Product is 9.4% higher than a year ago, industrial production is up 13.5%, and over the last year they've amassed a favorable trade balance of $20.5 billion. In the next twenty-five years, it's said, the number of private cars in China will increase more than 600%.
Savor that last one: the number of private cars will increase 600%. And calculate how many units will have to be manufactured to achieve the national goal of one refrigerator per household: 300 million, more or less. And then figure out how much soft Chinese coal will be burned to power the 300 million refrigerators (with what kind of heat-exchange gas inside) and how much petroleum will have to burned and how much carbon dioxide will have to be emitted to propel the 100 million new cars.
Our policy-wonk President sees the issue, and has spoken at length to Americans and Chinese alike on the great potential of China to transform the global commons in the next century. The president probably glimpses what was so deftly conjured by James Pinkerton in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs:
"Asia, which now produces just a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, will account for a third by 2025 and for half by the end of the 21st century. The next 'yellow peril' the West fears may be off-color clouds of lung-searing, globe-warming, ozone-depleting molecules. So is it possible that nations will return to gunboat diplomacy in seeking to persuade the Chinese, for example, not to build the Three Gorges Dam or use CFCs in their refrigerators?"
A good question. What should we do now, we Americans with 260 million automobiles, 150 million refrigerators, and walk-in closets spacious enough for a Chinese family of four? Basically, it seems to me, the question is whether -- in the period before gunboat diplomacy -- we urge the Chinese to conserve natural resources or we demonstrate to the Chinese and everybody else that modernity and coolness and consumer fulfillment are best achieved through smart and self-interested resource-conservation strategies?
We, which is to say you, will have to drive a car that doesn't change the weather, or just walk more; will have to supply needs through clever technologies that squeeze efficiency out of energy and materials, or just do without; and will have to harness renewable sources of fuels for our appetites and comforts, or just leave Houston to its fate.
TODAY ON THE SITE
These questions of the interlocked destinies of China and America are explicitly and implicitly treated in the extremely valuable Climate Change feature of our In The Trenches section. There you'll find that Leonie Haimson has put together a collection of data, references, and analysis that helps us understand the issues at stake in the upcoming global climate negotiations, in which China and the US are the pivotal delegations. Of particular interest is her "On the Other Hand..." feature, where you'll find an exchange of views about the wisdom of allowing rich nations to meet their greenhouse-gas-reduction goals through activities carried out on the soil of (and in the air over) the nations that want to get rich.
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway