GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
#1 US/CHINA AND CLIMATE CHANGE –
NEW YORK TIMES
#2 XI JIN PING PROMISES USD50 BILLION TO AFRICA
NIKKEI ASIA
# 3 CHINA HONOURS US WORLD WAR II “FLYING TIGER” AIRCREWS
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
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#1 US/CHINA AND CLIMATE CHANGE
NEW YORK TIMES
“John Podesta, President Biden’s top climate diplomat, is traveling to Beijing on Tuesday where he is expected to press Chinese leaders to make more ambitious plans to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.
The three-day trip, confirmed by the State Department, is widely viewed as one of the last opportunities before the November election for the Biden administration to exert pressure on China to act more aggressively on global warming.
Mr. Podesta plans to talk with his counterpart, Liu Zhenmin, as well as with ministers who oversee China’s coal development and renewable energy production. He is also expected to meet with Xie Zhenhua, a retired senior climate envoy who remains involved in diplomacy.
China is the biggest source of greenhouse gasses, generating nearly one-third of global emissions. It also is responsible for about 90 percent of the growth in climate pollution since the Paris Agreement.
As part of the Paris Agreement, China promised that its emissions would peak by 2030 and then eventually come down. China’s emissions may have already peaked
“China will meet its original Paris goals ahead of schedule,” said Joanna Lewis, a China specialist at Georgetown University. Therefore, she said, “it is going to be really important for China to demonstrate a more ambitious set of goals this time around.”
Other agenda items in Beijing will most likely include the energy and strengthening China’s plans to cut potent, noncarbon greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS
China is portrayed as the Big Bad Bully of the World’s Climate. Certainly they are late in the queue for economic development and the West, without any contrition, blames China as Number One Carbon Creator overlooking the damage to climates generally from the British Industrial Revolution from 1760 onwards and the surge in railway development in the US at the end of the Civil War.
China is committed to climate control and in this regard the comments of Joanna Lewis, the Georgetown University Professor China that “China will meet its original Paris goals ahead of schedule”, are encouraging and not surprising. China has a history of doing what it says it will do as a recent article in the Guardian has made clear – reproduced in China Post # 526.
There is another aspect. The exchanges between the US and China are not only important for their contribution to climate control but also evidence of what can be achieved between the two countries when they adopt jaw-jaw and not war-war. The World is approaching a significant crunch. The US/UK/Australian AUKUS military initiative points to war not peace. China will meet the challenge head on. It has to. But it will continue to look for more opportunities for jaw-jaw co-operation and in this respect climate control exchanges are important.
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#2 XI JIN PING PROMISES USD50 BILLION TO AFRICA
NIKKEI ASIA
“Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday promised 360 billion yuan ($50 billion) in financial support to African countries over the next three years, part of a diplomatic blitz that also included an offer to train thousands of military and police personnel.
Speaking at the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, Xi made a slew of pledges covering trade, industrial supply chains, infrastructure connectivity, health, people-to-people exchanges and security. The outreach to the continent comes as China seeks to exert greater influence in the emerging economies of the so-called Global South, but the scope is likely to attract scrutiny amid rising concerns over recipient countries’ ability to repay debts.
“After nearly 70 years of hard work, China-Africa relations are now at the best period in history,” Xi told delegations from over 50 African countries attending the triennial meeting, which has been held since 2000 and alternates between China and an African host.
As the African Union’s Agenda 2063 development blueprint echoes China’s long-term development path, Xi said both sides’ approach will “surely lead the trend of modernization in the Global South.”
Of the 360 billion yuan in financing, 210 billion yuan will come in the form of lending, with the balance coming through various assistance, including 70 billion yuan to promote investment by Chinese companies in Africa. The lending works out to an average of around $10 billion annually over the next three years, similar to the annual commitments pledged through the Belt Road Initiative about a decade ago.
For comparison, Chinese lenders provided $4.61 billion in loans to eight African countries in 2023, according to a recent study by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. While the amount represented the first increase since 2016, the report’s authors said China was unlikely to raise its outlays due to debt sustainability concerns.
China’s financial offers will likely be welcome as many less-developed countries in Africa need funding and investment to achieve development goals — but there could be challenges.
“The lack of regulatory capacity on Africa’s side can make it difficult to effectively engage with these actors, especially if there’s a lack of coordination,” said Kluiver.
On Thursday, Xi also vowed to support the issuance of yuan-denominated bonds by African countries to underpin bilateral cooperation.
Apart from credit loans, Xi said China will provide free aid worth 1 billion yuan to Africa to train 6,000 military personnel and 1,000 police under Beijing’s Global Security Initiative, which includes joint military exercises.
“China is willing to help Africa enhance its ability to maintain peace and stability independently,” Xi said. The target countries are unclear, but some Chinese workers at a gold mine in the Central African Republic were killed last year by armed groups.
To 33 less-developed nations in Africa, China will offer greater market access by removing tariffs on unspecified products.
Other forms of support include construction of vocational facilities for 60,000 students, 30 infrastructure projects under the BRI to enhance land and sea connectivity, 1 billion yuan in emergency food aid, and assistance with the development of small and medium enterprises.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Prof Fukiyama, a prominent US historian and author of The End of History has written “China has lent more than $1 trillion to more than 100 countries through the scheme, dwarfing Western spending in the developing world and stoking anxieties about the spread of Beijing’s power and influence.” It is a gigantic undertaking and the West, worried by the size and significance of the Belt and Road Initiative, struggles to come to terms with it. Unlike US Third World funding when trade follows the flag and military bases spring up across the globe, China despite being the biggest source of funding to the Third World has just one overseas base. The US has 800+. This is an eloquent fact. It says much. China’s military stays in China. The US military is all round the world.
The West dismissed BRI as asset seizure arguing that China was ensnaring vulnerable countries into debt resulting in China taking ownership of assets in satisfaction of unpaid debts. The US John Hopkins University – which has monitored China’s BRI development – dismisses the debt trap diplomacy argument. Fukiyama, too, sees no evidence of asset seizure and, recently, even the IMF has dismissed the assertion.
The former Australian Prime Minister Keating has noted that Chinese loans come without demands from China for political compliance or the adoption of Chinese political requirements.
China’s approach is quite different from that of the old imperialist powers. No bases. No military. No political demands. No political interference. So why does China invest this enormous sum overseas? What is the rationale. It is this – “Win-Win. The transaction has to be good for the recipient – it also has to be good for China. China seeks, not imperialism or control or domination. It seeks world prosperity. If it is good for the World it is good for China. Naive? No. BRI works. Across the globe countries are building ports, roads, railways, and general infrastructure development.
Are there problems? Yes. Projects of such size run into difficulties. There have been occasions when the use of Chinese labour has stirred local resentment. Some countries have behaved poorly and secreted funds away for personal use of their negotiators. That is life. It is bound to happen and of course some countries have struggled to repay their loans. But none of this undermines the significance of the Initiative. China has blazed a new path to break the cycle of underdevelopment and the West struggles to dismiss it, to deride it.
And the reason for this analysis? – China is going to advance a further USD50bn.
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#3 CHINA HONOURS AMERICAN WORLD WAR II “FLYING TIGER” AIRCREWS
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
“China has paid tribute to American “Flying Tiger Aircrew” members in a ceremony commemorating the end of World War II, in the latest push to foster people-to-people relations between the two nations.
For the first time, the names of more than 2,500 personnel who died fighting the Japanese on behalf of China have been published.
At a ceremony in Nanjing, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, on Tuesday, Chinese ambassador to the United States Xie Feng said the Flying Tiger spirit “will forever be a great treasure”.
He said the aircrews represented the keeping of justice and peace, as well as friendship.
“During China’s greatest hour of need in the war against Japanese aggression, a batch of US air personnel travelled thousands of miles without regard for their own lives … to fight with the Chinese army and people, to fight for peace,” he said.
The Flying Tigers were founded in 1941 as the First American Volunteer Group and became part of the newly activated 14th Air Force in 1943.
They not only engaged in air combat against Japanese forces but also ensured transport across the Himalayas from what was then British India to China’s southwestern provinces, the base of the resistance government.
According to state broadcaster CCTV, more than 2,000 American volunteer air personnel died in such missions during the war.
Xie said the aircrews shot down more than 2,600 Japanese planes during their time. The Chinese people returned the favour by helping in rescue missions, saving more than 200 personnel and building temporary runaways.
He said that to this day, many museums and monuments remained standing in the cities in which they fought, telling the story of how the US and China worked together to maintain peace.
On Monday, Jeffrey Greene, chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation, and representatives of the pilots’ descendants visited schools in Nanjing. Greene said that in the past, the foundation had brought American students to China as well as invited Chinese students to the US.
“The students are ‘grass-roots diplomats’, they are the future of China and the US,” he said.
In recent years, China has repeatedly saluted the Flying Tigers, as Beijing seeks to promote people-to-people exchanges with the US despite tensions with Washington. Last year, Vice-President Han Zheng received a group of visiting veterans in Beijing, stressing again that “the Chinese people always remember the heroic deeds of the Flying Tigers, and we will never forget our old friends”, a sentiment echoed by ambassador Xie on Tuesday.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
People-to-People diplomacy is much misunderstood in the UK. It started with Ping-Pong diplomacy in 1970/71 when the Chinese Government used fledgling table-tennis contacts between China and US players to initiate a Kissinger-Zhou Enlai diplomatic relationship that led to the very significant Nixon visit to China in 1972 and his meeting with Mao Tsetung. China had come in from the Cold and eventually assumed its rightful position at the United Nations as the true representative of the 1billion Chinese people. The US also recognised Taiwan as a part of China. People-to-people contacts were the trigger.
Such relationships continue beneath the glare of media attention but large numbers of Chinese students and Chinese tourists are making regular visits to the US. It is a two way street and US students and tourists visit China. People-to-People matters. It is an important part of China’s strategy to deepen relationships with the US.
And as diplomatic relations cool and the US expands its military presence in the Far East and talk of confrontation and War increases, the more informal but still substantial people-to-people links as a balancing factor. There is War and there is Peace. China, like the US prefers Peace to War – jaw-jaw to war-war. But China boosts the People link with the US just as top US diplomat visits Foreign Minister Wang Yi with both sides focusing on the build up of military force.
A much under appreciated People contact is the repeated gratitude China shows to the US for the assistance the US provided to China during World War II. Chinese ambassador to the United States Xie Feng said at a ceremony last week in Nanjing; “During China’s greatest hour of need in the war against Japanese aggression, a batch of US air personnel travelled thousands of miles without regard for their own lives … to fight with the Chinese army and people, to fight for peace,” he said.
China’s state broadcaster – CCTV – stated last week that more than 2,000 American volunteer air personnel died in such missions during the war.
This is a two-way street. On Monday, Jeffrey Greene, chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation, and representatives of the pilots’ descendants visited schools in Nanjing. Greene said that in the past, the foundation had brought American students to China as well as invited Chinese students to the US. “The students are ‘grass-roots diplomats’, they are the future of China and the US,” he said.
This is not just a tactic or a ruse to ensnare American citizens into China-US diplomacy. Chinese politics always walks on two legs – the State and the People. Chinese citizens do worry about the AUKUS US/UK/Australia nuclear submarine deal and what it perceives as US intention to bring Chinea to heel. But they are not so myopic that they fail to see that there is another side to US-China relations. As State-to-State relations deteriorate, China will continue to boost People-to People relations.
GRAHAM PERRY
