Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister and China scholar, writes about a new dimension of Chinese geopolitics: its environmental leadership in the world [The new geopolitics of China’s climate leadership]. The origins of this newfound desire can be traced back to the 2014 Xi-Obama’s joint announcement on climate change. This September Xi announced a new milestone: carbon neutrality by 2060. According to Rudd, ‘it has become a central priority for China irrespective of the steps taken by other countries, including the United States’, marking ‘a new era of geopolitics of China’s climate leadership’. This can mean less coal at home and less carbon-intensive infrastructure investments abroad under the BRI.
China has sought to differentiate its approach from traditional Western liberal environmentalism through the use of a new Chinese conceptual trope, ‘the ecological civilization’, which emerged under Hu Jintao but has been prioritized under Xi. One of the tenets of this ‘civilisation’ is emphasising the economic importance of environmental action. This new trope is now going side by side with the central concept of ‘Chinese dream’ in Chinese policy announcements.
The challenge for China is, Rudd argues, to meet the benchmarks it has set for itself, based on which it will be judged in the eyes of the international community. China will no longer be viewed as a developing country doing its best; nor will it be lauded for simply coming to the table. It will be judged on the same playing field as other major international actors such as Japan, the EU and the US. The latter has, through the incoming Biden team, its own ambitious environmental plan for the mid-century.
Mamad Forough
Season’s greetings, best wishes for happiness and health in 2021, and thank you for your continued readership!
The next edition of Silk Road Headlines will be published in Week 1 of January 2021.
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