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China’s Ukraine crisis mediator Li Hui wrapped up his two-day visit to Kyiv yesterday. He is now headed to Poland, France, Germany and Russia. What should we expect? With Poland, he will likely make the case that Poland’s serving as the primary conduit for NATO arms into Ukraine hurts prospects for peace and that Poland should emulate China’s “restraint” in not supplying arms to either side. In France, Li will repeat the Macron’s refrain — music to the Chinese Communist Party’s ears — that France aligns with China in seeking a cessation of violence in Ukraine and doesn’t think that Taiwan figures prominently in Europe’s “strategic autonomy” calculations (a tune which was widely repudiated throughout the EU shortly after Macron riffed on it in Beijing last month). In Germany, the message will be stern Chinese disapproval and “hurt feelings” over the US $2.97 billion (€2.7 billion) military aid package just announced by Germany’s Ministry of Defense late last week. The final stop in Russia will be to debrief Foreign Minister Lavrov (and possibly Putin himself?) over what Li learned from this diplomatic circuit.
When Beijing announced its twelve-point PRC Position on the Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis last February, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I was immediately skeptical. In 1% Words, 99% Work and in a subsequent Q&A post, I laid out the reasons for my skepticism. I have been often asked since then if I remain equally dismissive and, if so, why. On the first point: Yes, with a single qualification (see below), I remain dismissive. As to why, the question is where to begin?
While China is presenting itself on the global stage as a potential mediator, it is definitional that a mediator needs credibility on both sides to play a meaningful role. Notwithstanding Zelensky’s eagerness to talk with Xi and SecState Blinken’s recent suggestion that China could have some useful role to play in an eventual cessation of hostilities, China has zero credibility as a mediator:
- Its twelve-point plan is entirely contradictory with respect to Ukraine’s sovereignty and, by freezing in place territorial gains by Russia over the past year, would reward Russia for its invasion
- China has consistently propped up Russia over the past fifteen months by every means available short of supplying lethal military armaments (and, with its export of dual-use drones, has leaned over that line)
- Xi’s appointed “mediator” to help resolve the conflict, Li Hui, previously served for six years as China’s ambassador to Russia
- I could go on at length but, since a picture can be worth 1,000 words, let me simply share one graphic depicting China’s G7 voting record on Ukraine-related measures over the past year and a quarter. It speaks for itself:
So what about the caveat I mentioned above? Since it’s clear that China can’t be a good faith mediator, Xi has a different gambit disguised under his pose as a potential mediator. He is positioning China in Putin’s corner so that, at some future point, he can come to the center of the ring as counterpart and interlocutor with the U.S. and most of Europe coming out from Ukraine’s corner. In Xi’s worldview, China and the U.S. should bargain — as equal powers — over the heads of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. For Xi, this positioning serves China either way — if it happens, it confirms China’s role on the world stage as a counterweight and as an equal to the U.S. If it doesn’t happen, the U.S. remains mired in its Ukraine engagement, freeing up China to advance its interests in the Mid-East and elsewhere with reduced U.S. pushback.
What eludes Xi’s vision and grasp is the ultimate strength and source of legitimacy of democratic authority. What he is failing to understand is that the U.S. and the community of European nations will not barter away Zelensky’s and the Ukrainian people’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The end result will be no meaningful mediation and no cessation of hostilities short of a decisive military resolution on the ground. Seen in this light, China’s role is hardly that of a mediator. Xi will advance China’s interest in keeping the U.S. tied up in Europe by confusing the global picture, continuing to prop up Russia by all available means and prolonging the conflict with little concern for the welfare of the Ukrainian people.
My March 30th post (Taiwan’s Historic Split Screen) was written as President Tsai Ing-wen arrived in New York in transit on her diplomatic visit to Central America. That piece promised a follow-up on the occasion of her return transit to Los Angeles — and meeting with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy — en route back to Taiwan. The Tsai-McCarthy meeting took place 6 days ago on April 5th but I delayed following up until today because my interview with Forbes on this topic was in the works.
That Forbes interview was published yesterday and can be found here (including 12 minute audio version). I am also reproducing that interview below to capture it in the Assessing China blog. It begins with several scene-setting paragraphs by Forbes Editor at Large Russell Flannery. The interview itself begins below the photograph of Micron headquarters in Shanghai.
(Begin article)
Micron Probe May Hurt China’s Efforts To Attract Foreign Investment
Beijing today wound down its latest large-scale military exercises in the waters around Taiwan but overall tension between the U.S. and China remains high. China’s moves followed a high-profile meeting last week between U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in Los Angeles criticized by mainland leaders who claim sovereignty over self-governing Taiwan.
On the commercial front, the semiconductor industry remains an elevated point of stress. Beijing earlier this month announced a cybersecurity review of U.S. chipmaker Micron aimed, it said, at protecting the country’s information infrastructure and national security. The probe comes at a time when China has been seeking to boost foreign investment to accelerate its economic recovery from “zero-Covid” policies that slowed growth.
What’s next for U.S.-China ties and also for the CHIPS Act, the U.S. law enacted last year aimed at reversing the declining American share of global semiconductor production?
To learn more, I spoke on Saturday in the Philadelphia area with Terry Cooke, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank focused on U.S. national security and foreign policy. Cooke, a former career U.S. senior foreign commercial service officer with postings in Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo and Berlin, currently leads ReGen250, a non-profit that focuses on U.S.-China green energy collaboration as well as environmental regeneration initiatives in the tri-state Greater Philadelphia region.
Cooke believes China’s move against Micron will have “a chilling effect for potential foreign investors — definitely on the U.S. business community” at a time when China is trying to win new foreign investments following the end of “zero-Covid” policies at the end of last year that had harmed economic growth. Beijing high-profile efforts to pressure Taiwan militarily may also be counterproductive if Taipei successful builds itself up as “an important force” in a larger, more influential network of democracies. Edited excerpts follow.
© 2023 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP
Flannery: What do you make of the military exercises around Taiwan this month?
Cooke: There are two ways of looking it. One is that going into the Tsai-McCarthy meeting, the decision had already been made (in Beijing) that this is the new normal, that whenever there is an uncomfortably high-level contact between the U.S. government and the Taiwanese government, we (the Chinese government) are just going to keep demonstrating our ability to militarily squeeze Taiwan through maneuvers of this sort.
There is, however, another way of thinking about it: the way the McCarthy-Tsai meeting was conducted may, in fact, have been the determinant of the maneuvers. Beijing may have been in a wait-and-see mode. They of course issued their standard and predictable verbal denunciations in advance of Tsai’s transit stops.
I think they were waiting to see how low-key the meeting in L.A. with McCarthy would prove to be. The entry through New York was very low-key. The State Department utterances for most of the trip also kept things low-key. And there was ample precedent for this given Tsai’s previous six transit visits to the U.S. so the State Department position was that there was no reason for Beijing to make an issue out of it.
But the optics of McCarthy meeting – with all the diplomatic trappings of a government-to-government meeting save for flags set up on the table – made it look very much like an official meeting. And I don’t think that went over well in Beijing. That could have triggered the decision to trot out the military.
Flannery: So what’s next?
Cooke: Just as the U.S. is maybe on its back foot with the new realities in the Middle East, I think China may be on its back foot in terms of the game of diplomatic recognition when it comes to Taiwan. Yes, Taiwan just lost Honduras on the eve of Tsai’s U.S. trip. Now, Taiwan is down from 14 to 13 countries that it has diplomatic recognition with.
But I think there’s really a more important game in town now than adding up the number of formal diplomatic allies. This new game in town probably started around February 2021 with the Biden administration moving into the White House. To many people’s and particularly Beijing’s surprise, Biden kept Trump’s tough China policy. He also introduced into his speeches and policies a clear and consistent autocracy-vs-democracy contrast.
Within the context of this U.S.-led “reframing” of the global picture, Taiwan now has the opportunity to reposition itself within the team democracy global network of supporters in a way that it’s not strictly about formal recognition and UN membership. It’s about being recognized, and in some ways, held up as an important force in this network of democracies.
Flannery: How will Taiwan’s presidential elections next year affect these three-way ties?
Cooke: From the U.S. governmental standpoint, the outcome – whether it is a victory for Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party or the opposition KMT party – will change hardly at all. This is because the U.S. government’s official position – whether it involves the outcome of an election in Taiwan or changes to the cross-strait status quo initiated by China – is that what the 24 million people of Taiwan choose for themselves is what the U.S. government will support. I don’t think our basic diplomatic posture and our support for Taiwan would change unless there was some evidence — which I would not expect at all — of some malfeasance happening with the election.
Flannery: What do you make of China’s probe into Micron?
Cooke: We can dissect it into several elements. One is a desire for reciprocity and being seen on an equal plane. And so with Biden’s CHIPS Act, and the singling out of TikTok and a lot of different Chinese companies in U.S. security investigations, it’s to be expected that there is going to be some reciprocal action that China is going to want to take to be seen as a peer power demanding reciprocity.
That diplomatic posturing is understandable but it does have a chilling effect for potential foreign investors — definitely on the U.S. business community. Close allies in Europe and elsewhere notice it, and it doesn’t help China’s post-pandemic effort to show a welcoming face to foreign investment.
I think there is also a third element of it that is interesting: perhaps as another data-point showing a lack of coordination in Chinese policy and messaging that we see from time to time. And we’re living in a world where nobody is a paragon and the U.S. has its own challenges with coordinating its message. But in China, as we saw recently with ‘wolf-diplomacy’ and the balloon incident, people lower in the governmental hierarchy vie to please their superiors, and end up getting out in front of the intended policy and in front of what would be an optimal coordinated policy for China. And I’m wondering personally whether Micron might be an instance of that.
Flannery: Speaking about both semiconductors and Taiwan, does the U.S. rely on Taiwan too much for chips?
Cooke: It’s actually in almost everyone’s interest at this point to have a greater degree of global diversification. It’s outright dangerous to have close to 90% of production of the world’s most advanced semiconductors taking place only 90 miles away from the Chinese mainland.
Flannery: Does the CHIPS Act go far enough in striking a new balance?
Cooke: Before the CHIPS Act, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was already taking steps (to diversify from Taiwan). There are currently moves afoot in Germany for automotive chip production — not the most advanced chips in the world — but also with Japan for consumer electronics and with Arizona for an advanced generation of chips. (See related post here.) For the foreseeable future, production of ultra-advanced chips will stay in Taiwan. But I think a lot of production capacity for quite advanced chips is being pushed out of Taiwan to these other global nodes.
The CHIPS Act is to my mind pretty fascinating. As a response to China’s Made-In-China-2025 ambitions and its military upgrading, it’s a bulls-eye in my view. But, as a policy undertaking in the U.S. domestic context, it is something of a potential third rail in the sense that, as a country, we’ve never been comfortable or particularly skilled at industrial policy. And it is clearly industrial policy.
Interestingly, I think there is enough bipartisan support right now that the industrial policy-political debate on Capitol Hill is not the traditional debate of “no industrial policy” versus, let’s say, the Clinton era’s “auto industrial policy for Japan.” Nobody at this point seems to be openly challenging the need for an industrial policy response to China’s advanced technology challenge.
So the debate currently is one about “clean” industrial policy versus industrial policy with social agenda items folded into it, like childcare support for workers. (Either way) it is important as a signal to the market about U.S. government resolve.
Flannery: Is it enough? And if it’s not enough, what’s the next step?
Cooke: If, in version one, the sum had been significantly higher than $52 billion, it would have been almost setting itself up for failure, because there are so many things that can go wrong in operationalizing and implementing something like this.
By analogy in the military sphere, we have put in a very robust sanctions regime against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. But it was kind of uncharted territory. There’s been a lot of analysis about what’s been working and what hasn’t been working. We’re groping our way forward and want to keep some powder dry.
The CHIPS Act is similar in the commercial sphere — kind of uncharted territory. One of the things it has going for is that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is an astute leader of the process. In the current political environment, any sign of dropping the ball would be pounced on. What is actually more important than the amount of money is the fact that it has happened in an initial iteration. There can be subsequent iterations, but it’s important to operationalize the first iteration as well as possible and to learn from that process to inform a potential second iteration.
Flannery: There is controversy about social goals being attached to it.
Cooke: The Act was passed by Congress last year, and it went into a kind of holding period where no one knew what the process was going to be for a company to apply. When the guidelines were only recently announced, it became clear that there was quite a lot of conditionality put on the ability of a company to apply. One set of conditions has to do with an applicant limiting its China business for a 10-year period. Another quite different set has to do with an awarded company providing childcare for its employees.
I think the criticism about these conditions is a fairly predictable output from the Washington DC political meat grinder. Because these are tax-payer dollars, the back-and-forth is highly political. Placing limitations on future China business for awardees makes sense to the average American voter. However, those limitations raise serious concerns for the CEO of a sizable company that doesn’t want to decouple from the China market but does want to access CHIPS Act support. On the separate issue of childcare, this requirement is meant as an incentive to help overcome the problem of a shortage of chip production workers in the U.S but it obviously becomes a red meat talking point for politicians who position themselves as anti-woke in U.S. culture wars skirmishing.
This goes back to what we were talking about before with Micron. China is currently unable to respond in a meaningfully reciprocal way when the U.S. does things like put Chinese billionaires onto an entities list. They just don’t have a global finance tool that is anywhere near as sharp and strong as is found in the U.S. Treasury toolkit. For the U.S., putting companies on an entities list works— it catches the attention of targeted individuals and there is an important and broad public messaging dimension to it as well. Of course, to make sanctions really bite, there’s a lot of operationalization that needs to happen but doesn’t always happen.
What I personally believe is: China’s main effort now is to try to knock the dollar off its post-World War II throne. Others have tried and failed and it will be a hard thing for China to pull off. But I believe that’s this the main thrust of their effort and the primary aim of a long-term, patient strategy.
See related posts:
U.S. Businesses Look To De-Risk, Not Decouple, Their China Ties
U.S.-China Collaboration Could Cut Development Time, Cost For New Cancer Treatments
TSMC Will Triple Arizona Investment To $40 Billion, Among Largest Foreign Outlays
Taiwan’s Biggest Silicon Wafer Maker Eyes U.S. Solar Industry Investment
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I join Russell in inviting you to leave your thoughts or questions in the Comment section below. (Because of netizen ire in China, I have not always kept the Comments section open in Assessing China but it is open for this post. I would love to hear from you).
Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow yesterday for the start of a three-day state visit, his first trip overseas since securing his unprecedented third-five year term as head of the party and president of the country. Yesterday’s meeting was heavy with symbolism — the two leaders exchanged greetings and expression of friendship seated together intimately in front of a fireplace — but devoid of substance. The first solid indication of the substantive direction their talks are taking will happen in a few hours during a press event scheduled to take place prior to their formal dinner. That direction will be further mapped out at the conclusion of the state visit tomorrow immediately prior to the departure from Moscow of Xi Jinping and his delegation.
These meetings are being closely watched because they will reveal which of three starkly different paths the two leaders will choose.
Behind Door Number 1 is the possibility that Xi will show determination to be the peace-broker he postured as with the release of his PRC Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis 12-point plan late last month. This would mean exerting real pressure to overcome the mutually-incompatible public positions of Russia (i.e., that no negotiations are possible until Ukraine formally cedes those territories in eastern Ukraine which Russia currently occupies) and of Ukraine (i.e., that no negotiations are possible until Russia completely relinquishes all territories it has occupied since Russia’s 2022 invasion and possibly also the Crimean territories seized in 2014 though there is not clarity on that latter point). There is no question that Xi has the means to move Putin in this direction if he should choose to. It would suffice for Xi to threaten to drastically reduce purchase of Russian oil, to limit export of Chinese microchips and other vital but non-lethal supplies which prop up Putin’s war effort, and to distance himself from Putin on the world stage. The reason this door will stay closed, though, is two-fold. First, Xi has no means available to bring Kyiv along in this direction. Xi’s platitudes about the cessation of hostilities and entering into talks is an absolute non-starter for Zelensky and his committed backers in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. It would simply freeze Russian gains in place and allow Moscow’s forces time to regroup. Nor does Xi have any realistic standing to leverage world opinion to pressure Zelensky to move in a direction he’s dead-set against. Even for Brazil, Hungary, India, Indonesia and the other influential fence-sitters, what Beijing has been doing over the past year (supporting Russia in myriad ways right up to the red-line of supplying lethal equipment) outweighs what it has recently been saying about weighing in as a mediator and potential peace-broker. Beijing had not yet even opened up a channel of communication with Kyiv until a few days ago and that only at the Foreign Minister level. Yes, the U.S. and its allies have been loudly supportive of Xi reaching out to Zelensky but that is not because they see that as a step toward a PRC-brokered ceasefire. They’re advocating this because they know how passionately persuasive Zelensky can be about Ukraine’s position on the right side of history and hope that direct communication with Zelensky would give Xi further pause in any consideration of supplying Russia with lethal armaments.
Behind Door Number 2 is the possibility that Xi and Putin will use their time behind closed doors to hammer out an agreement through which China bolsters Moscow’s faltering war effort with a meaningful level, either quantitatively or qualitatively, of lethal munitions. This represents the ‘red line’ which SecState Blinken has been publicly warning Xi to back off from in recent weeks. It would represent a watershed development for two reasons. First, it would prove beyond argument the hollowness of Beijing’s posture of neutrality. Short of such military supply, Beijing has already deployed all the tools at its disposal to help Moscow — using its manufacturing strength to supply the Russian military with dual-use technologies, using its economy to shore up the vital Russian energy sector, using its currency to help prop up the ruble, using its propaganda organs to parrot Moscow’s line on the causes of the war and even its Special Military Operation terminology, using its diplomacy to provide Putin (fresh from the International Criminal Court in the Hague issuing an arrest warrant for him) with ‘diplomatic cover.’ Second, Russia’s supply of military-use drones, ammunition, and artillery has the potential to significantly change the battlefield. Perhaps not to the degree to allow the poorly-performing Russian military to realize its maximalist territorial objectives; but definitely enough to prolong the military see-saw and reenergize Putin’s strategy of outlasting the fractious democracies supporting Ukraine. Should Xi accede to this course of action behind closed doors, it would not remain a secret for any length of time. Beyond the ability of the U.S. intelligence community to pick up on this new move through monitoring communications — both PRC internal communications and government-to-industry communications — the appearance of Chinese armaments on the battlefield would be instantly recognized and highlighted by the Ukrainian military. The consequences would be immediate and disastrous for China’s wobbly economic recovery. Sanctions from the U.S. and Europe — China’s two largest trading markets — could conceivably be enough to knock 1-2% off China’s economic growth in 2023. Under that scenario, China’s GDP growth would fall to 3% or under for three of the last four years. Such a prolonged period of low growth could well mean that China never manages the leap which Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have previously managed from being a manufacturing labor-led economy to being an innovation-led developed economy. Being consigned to this so-called “middle income trap” while simultaneously being trapped in demographic collapse would, quite simply, mean the end of Xi’s vision of national rejuvenation. More precariously for Xi, it would mean an end to the 100 Years Long March which Xi’s predecessors and compatriots in the Chinese Communist Party have been journeying on since 1949 (and even before). Xi understands this and Door 2 will not be flung open.
That leaves Door 3. This is the path of steady-as-she-goes with all of its inherent contradictions and all of its incremental pluses-and-minuses. Xi is determined to strike certain poses on the world stage and those may now be spotlighted and amplified: the posture of exaggerated friendship and increasing fraternization with a former Communist super-power is essential to the realization of the ‘Big Power’ role which Xi has set for China in his third term as well as for the ballast which it provides Xi in projecting himself as leader of an alternative to the liberal, U.S.-led, post-WW2 order. At a symbolic level, Xi can continue to ratchet up this image for a global audience, as he is doing currently with this visit to Moscow. At the level of practice, however, Xi cannot afford to risk further blows to China’s economy. He will refrain from taking any decisive step towards arming Moscow. In so doing, he will doubtless look for additional ways to support Putin’s war effort at the margins while forestalling any large-scale economic retaliation from the U.S. and other global Ukraine coalition countries.. This symbolism-heavy, practical-action-light approach follows the game-plan which Xi successfully ran with the militarization of the islands and reefs in the South and East China Seas. Taking a series of small steps, each of which was just below the threshold of triggering a forceful reaction from the U.S. and its allies, but which cumulatively over time secured the strategic objective he was seeking. The “boil a frog slowly’ strategy. Just as importantly, it is strongly in Xi’s interest that Russia not suffer sudden defeat and “disappear” from the global stage. Xi’s interest is for Russia’s to remain on stage but moving gradually away from center-stage to make room for China’s more prominent presence there. This shift is already well underway as China, on a daily basis, gains increasing control over Russia’s energy market, its financial sector, its diplomacy and its geopolitical positioning vis-a-vis Siberia and the Russian East.
My prediction for what will unfold later today and tomorrow — and then subsequently in the aftermath of Xi’s visit — is the gradual opening of Door Number Three. That is not to say that Xi could not ultimately surprise us. He has proven himself to be a risk-taker — and has gotten off lightly — with both the South & East China Seas militarization and with the Basic Security Law takeover of Hong Kong. Could he open Door Number 2? Yes, possibly. Alternatively, he possibly has something up his sleeve to entice Zelensky into talks with. Is Door Number 1 locked, bolted and sealed shut? No. But there’s no reason to believe that Xi wants to put in the hard work to open that door. Whatever ultimately transpires, though, the prize for Xi lies behind Door Number 3. He is shrewd enough to know that and act on it.
Guest Article by Edward DeMarco, CQ Researcher
The following is the Introduction and Overview to an in-depth article by Edward DeMarco published today in CQ Researcher. CQ Researcher, a division of CQ Press, provides “in-depth reports on today’s issues.” The full article contains, in addition to the Introduction and Overview replicated here, the following setions: Background, Current Situation, Outlook, Pro/Con, Discussion Questions, Chronology and Short Features. I was invited to write the Pro perspective for the Pro/Con section and I will follow this post up with a separate post replicating that section. Please note that the full article (hyperlinked above) is freely accessible for one week from today but will go behind a paywall starting Friday, November 24th.
Introduction
The postwar, U.S.-dominated geopolitical order shaped by oil is yielding to a new system built on carbon-free renewable energy and electric vehicles. In the emerging international scramble for so-called green energy, China is leading, with its control over many supplies of minerals essential for batteries, wind turbines and other technologies. China is also key to addressing climate change because its coal-powered economy creates more planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions than any other country. To counter China, the United States is rallying allies and friendly mineral-rich countries to forge alternative supply chains that can enable green energy industries to scale up. And, faced with Russian aggression in Ukraine, Europe is shedding energy ties to Moscow and expanding its domestic wind and solar power sources. Clean hydrogen may also create new energy powers — from Australia to Chile and Africa — as industrial demand for fossil-free energy surges. Competition extends into the Arctic, where retreating ice is spurring the hunt for green energy minerals. While the transition will take decades, the rules of the game are being set now — in Beijing and Washington.
Overview
In late September, as Russia was calling up 300,000 military recruits to overcome battlefield losses in Ukraine, and Europe coped with shrinking Russian natural gas supplies due to the war there, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken convened a little-noticed meeting in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Attending were ministers from mineral-rich U.S. allies Canada and Australia, along with Britain, France, Japan and South Korea — all among the world’s 10 largest economies.
Alongside them sat envoys from other mining nations, including Brazil, Argentina and five African countries — Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia — whose mineral exports are needed for the coming transition from globe-warming fossil fuels to green energy. Those minerals range from lithium and copper used in electric vehicles, to platinum needed for batteries and neodymium required for wind turbine magnets.1 (See Short Feature.)
The African and South American mining nations, along with Mongolia, joined members of the newly formed Minerals Security Partnership, which will offer financing, loan guarantees and technical assistance to accelerate the production of key minerals needed for electric vehicles and to boost solar and wind power. The initiative, said Blinken, is needed because “critical mineral supply chains are simply vital to our shared future.”2
In his opening remarks, Blinken did not mention the biggest economy absent from the table — China — whose sizeable control over the global supply of minerals needed for green energy technologies has many of the ministers worried about the international security implications.
As countries deal with increasingly intense storms, droughts, rising seas, human migration and conflict caused by a warming planet, the transition to green energy to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases is reshaping the U.S.-dominated, post-World War II geopolitical system. That system is rooted in the use of fossil fuels — oil, natural gas and coal — the major sources of those emissions. The transition to a carbon-free economy has strengthened the power of China, which controls a large percentage of the world’s green energy minerals and has massive investments in carbon-free technologies and electric cars.3 Many governments worry that China could use its dominance in the green energy market for geopolitical leverage.
“We’ll stand together with others against economic coercion and intimidation,” Blinken said in May, explaining the new U.S. partnership during a China policy speech. “We’ll boost supply chain security and resilience by reshoring production or sourcing materials from other countries in sensitive sectors like pharmaceuticals and critical minerals, so that we’re not dependent on any one supplier.”4
As Washington and Beijing race to establish a framework for that emerging green energy system, other countries — such as Australia, Chile and several African nations — could become consequential energy players.
The joining of economic and mining powers under U.S. leadership highlights the geopolitical shift under way as the world aims to reduce human-caused carbon emissions to “net zero” in the second half of this century, a goal established by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. To achieve that goal, 195 countries pledged to limit the increase in the global average temperature to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. But even that 2-degree rise, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned, would intensify heat, drought and rainfall, harm ocean life and double the share of plants, insects and vertebrates at risk of losing most of their habitat.5
In its 2022 update, the IPCC said achieving the net zero goal would require “a rapid acceleration of mitigation efforts after 2030,” but some models say the world may not reach the goal until the early 2070s. For example, China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter, does not intend to reach its peak carbon emissions before 2030 and will not achieve net zero carbon emissions before 2060.6
Given this timeline, the uncoupling of international fossil fuel alliances will take longer than many green advocates and activist governments would like, experts say. As a result, the two geopolitical systems — one seven decades old and built on oil and an emerging one shaped by the sun, wind and key minerals — are likely to co-exist for some time.
The realization that oil and natural gas are likely to continue to play a major role in the energy economy is an unwelcome reality in many places, including Europe, says former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, chief executive of the Energy Futures Initiative, a clean energy advocacy group in Washington. It “has elevated the importance of more seriously defining the multi-decadal clean energy transition, rather than a simple-minded focus by many on the net-zero end state.”
For example, U.S. crude oil production is forecast to reach a record 12.3 million barrels a day in 2023, while the U.S. share of electrical power generated by renewable energy — solar, wind and hydropower — will increase from 20 percent in 2021 to 24 percent in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.7
And while renewable sources will generate more U.S. electricity than coal this year, China still depends on the fuel for more than 60 percent of its electricity and plans to increase that usage through 2030. Coal-generated electricity powers the growing number of electric vehicles on Chinese streets. This year, a quarter of all new cars bought in China will be electric or plug-in hybrids, served by about 4 million charging units, double the total a year ago. The United States is far behind, with about 140,000 charging units.8
Reaching net zero by 2050 “requires nothing short of a total transformation of the energy systems that underpin our economies,” said the International Energy Agency, a research and coordination organization whose 31 member countries include the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Germany.9
Japan, the world’s third largest economy, exemplifies the emerging choices at the intersection of energy and national security. Since the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in 2011 caused Japan to reduce its reliance on nuclear power, the country has depended on gas and coal to generate electricity, according to IEA data. Yet Japan is pivoting toward green energy, notably hydrogen, and collaborating with developing nations in Asia to accelerate its transition toward carbon neutrality.10
Concern about energy security is also forcing countries to recalculate the geopolitical equation in favor of renewables. Russia’s war in Ukraine exposed Europe’s dependence on Russian gas supplies and prompted a rapid shift of strategy toward renewables. Germany is expanding its wind energy to further displace fossil fuels.11
The war itself may have broken out in part due to international competition for green energy minerals. Some analysts cite the European Union’s 2021 deal to access Ukrainian minerals used in electric vehicles — such as lithium, cobalt and so-called rare earth elements — as a possible factor in Russia’s decision to invade. Rare earths are 15 lesser-known metals such as neodymium and terbium valued for their magnetic and optical properties.12 (See Short Feature.)
As the effects of climate change intensify in developing countries, the United States by 2030 is likely to face a high risk of climate-related demands for financing and technology assistance, an influx of climate refugees and a greater need to supply aid and humanitarian relief, according to a U.S. national intelligence estimate.13
“Geopolitical tensions are likely to grow as countries increasingly argue about how to accelerate the reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions needed to meet Paris Agreement goals,” the National Intelligence Council said last year. “Debate will center on who bears more responsibility to act and to pay — and how quickly — and countries will compete to control resources and dominate new technologies needed for the clean energy transition.”14
At November’s 27th conference of parties to the U.N. climate convention (COP27) in Egypt, debate centered on how industrialized countries that generate the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions should compensate developing nations — which spew far less carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere — for climate-related damages. Seventeen of the world’s 20 most climate-vulnerable countries are in Africa.
“The most valuable contribution that developed countries can make is to reduce their emissions faster while investing in Africa to build sustainable, green power,” Rwanda President Paul Kagame said at the gathering. “Questioning whether Africa is ready to make use of climate finance should not be used as an excuse to justify inaction.”15
Meanwhile, among the new arenas for global competition are mineral- and sun-rich Africa, as well as the Arctic, where shrinking seasonal ice is opening new shipping channels and aiding the hunt for green energy minerals and untapped oil and gas. (See Short Feature.)
With the world’s largest solar energy potential, Africa could strengthen its geopolitical position as other countries jockey to access the continent’s green energy minerals and seek to convince Africans to protect their carbon-absorbing rainforests.16
One encouraging sign: Hydrogen — the most abundant element in the universe — can be extracted from water to produce a clean fuel. The investment bank Goldman Sachs said $5 trillion may be needed to develop “clean” hydrogen as a fuel source, which could help cut greenhouse gas emissions about 15 percent “while becoming a key pillar of the energy mix.”17 And hydrogen production is arriving at commercial scale in countries as far-flung as Australia and Namibia.
Dozens of countries, including Germany and Japan, have rolled out strategies to harness hydrogen for industrial use and transportation, while stepping up diplomatic outreach to future exporters. The idea is to use renewables such as solar energy to extract “green” hydrogen gas from fresh or salt water through electrolysis, then transport the gas through pipelines or, in liquified form, by ship to industrial markets. The Hydrogen Council, a Brussels-based industry group promoting hydrogen-based energy, said 680 large-scale projects are planned worldwide in this decade, up 50 percent from a year ago. Based on planned hydrogen projects, global capacity could reach 134 gigawatts in 2030, from around 1 gigawatt this year, according to the International Energy Agency.18
As energy strategists, investors and policymakers strive to understand the scale, sources and sequencing of this transition and the countries poised to benefit, these are some of the questions on their agendas:
Will China dictate the pace of the world’s transition to green energy?
In August, China suspended climate talks with U.S. presidential climate envoy John Kerry after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in self-governing Taiwan, a visit the Chinese government called an affront to its “one China” policy that claims Taiwan as part of China.19
An announcement that the talks would resume came on Nov. 14 after the first face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping in Indonesia, a hopeful signal for advocates of more aggressive action on climate change who were meeting at the same time in Egypt at COP27.20
China and the United States had issued a joint declaration in late 2021 on the “seriousness and urgency of the climate crisis” and committed to accelerated actions and cooperation in the 2020s on reducing greenhouse gases, especially methane, and speeding up the shift to renewable energy.21
“Methane is 80 times more potent than carbon, and it accounts for nearly half of the net warming we’re experiencing now,” Biden told the COP27 meeting on Nov. 11. “So, cutting methane by at least 30 percent by 2030 can be our best chance to keep within reach of 1.5 degrees Celsius target.”22
The world’s energy transition would be eased if the United States and China “cooperate substantially, including in technology transfers, both ways,” but rising tensions between the two countries made that unlikely, says Henry Lee, director of the environment and natural resources program at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Chinese control over key minerals used in electric vehicles and other green technologies sharpen the divide, as reflected in the aim of the U.S.-led Minerals Security Partnership to create alternative supplies. Currently, China refines 68 percent of the world’s nickel, 40 percent of copper, 59 percent of lithium and 73 percent of cobalt, according to the Brookings Institution in Washington. China also controlled 79 percent of lithium-ion battery manufacturing in 2021.23
The United States relies totally on imports for 14 “critical” minerals, including graphite, manganese, niobium and rare earths, and depends on imports for more than 75 percent of 10 others, according to congressional researchers.24
“This is China’s hegemonic weapon,” says James Kennedy, a consultant on rare earth elements, such as dysprosium, used to strengthen magnets for vehicles and wind turbines.25 “The U.S. uses oil and the dollar as hegemonic tools. China is using critical materials as a hegemonic tool.”
In September 2020, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13953, which declared that U.S. dependence on “foreign adversaries” for critical minerals was a national emergency. Trump said China had used “aggressive economic practices to strategically flood the global market for rare earth elements and displace its competitors,” while coercing industries that rely on these elements to locate in China.26
Countries key to the minerals-security initiative buttressed the U.S. stance. In June, Canada called for advanced economies to prioritize creation of critical mineral supply chain resilience for lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earths. Britain published a similar strategy document in July.27
In August, the European Union said China’s control of critical minerals posed a risk of supplies being “used as a geopolitical leverage, for instance through export restrictions.”28
“We are much more dependent on those critical minerals in comparison to oil and gas,” raising concerns if relations with China deteriorate, says Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
As the green energy transition accelerates, Chinese companies are securing their international positions. CATL, the world’s biggest electric-vehicle battery maker, last year bought a minority stake in a copper and cobalt mine in Congo. It is setting up factories in Germany and Hungary and reducing carbon emissions in its batteries to meet U.S. and European standards.29
However, says the Belfer Center’s Lee, while China will have a major influence on the green transition, “I don’t think any one country will dictate the pace” of it. “You’re looking at a machine with many moving parts.”
As China flexes its muscles in renewable energy and electric vehicles, it also depends on coal to provide electricity for those cars as it ramps up the use of wind and solar. During his Oct. 16 speech to the Chinese Communist Party congress, Xi pledged to “push forward the clean and low-carbon transition” in industry, transportation and construction, but admitted China would also need to step up its use of fossil fuels. “Coal will be used in a cleaner and more efficient way, and greater efforts will be made to explore and develop petroleum and natural gas, discover more untapped reserves, and increase production,” Xi said.30
That tighter embrace of fossil fuels, however, could diminish China’s influence over the transition from carbon-based fuels.
Stabilizing carbon emissions in 2030, says Neil Hirst, a senior policy fellow for energy and mitigation at Imperial College London, is “a tough call for the Chinese,” because of economic growth and social progress considerations.
The boost in coal use will raise China’s carbon emissions by 1.5 to 2.5 percent by 2025 — above prior estimates — although long-term, carbon-reduction targets should still be viable, says Yang Fuqiang, a senior adviser on climate change and energy transition at Beijing University’s Institute of Energy. “Coal will not go away very soon,” he says. “It will last several decades.” In his projections, coal will still account for 7 to 10 percent of total Chinese energy production in 2050.
China’s renewed commitment to coal contrasts with Xi’s 2021 announcement at the United Nations that China would no longer build coal projects abroad.31
The Climate Action Tracker, produced by German researchers, rates China’s target for reduced greenhouse gas emissions as “highly insufficient” and said that “if all countries followed the level of ambition implicit in this development, it would lead to a warming of 3°C degrees globally,” or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit.32 That is double the optimal Paris Agreement limit and would threaten a range of natural systems.
A study by the Australian Academy of Science found that just 3 degrees of warming would exacerbate heat waves and drought, diminish water supplies and have ecosystem-changing effects on forests, fisheries and ocean reefs.33
As climate worries escalate and energy goes green, China’s neighbor and rival, India, may be the geopolitical wild card. Access to fossil fuels is crucial for India, the world’s third-largest carbon dioxide emitter. As international pressure mounts to squeeze carbon out of the energy system, India will face challenges in energy-intensive industries such as iron and steel production, cement and chemicals, according to an MIT study.34
Still, India is accelerating its conversion to renewable energy, pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitions and tens of billions of dollars of planned investment from Indian billionaires. Solar and wind energy will become India’s dominant power sources by 2050, while hydrogen use for transport will increase in this decade, according to The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi.35
The United States should “privately work behind the scenes to assist India with the larger policy dilemma about how to begin a transition into a cleaner, green economy and achieve it with American technology and private sector trade,” said Tim Roemer, the former U.S. ambassador to India. “America needs to play this strategically for the long term — and not push India into the powerful gravitation of the China-Russia orbit.”36
Can hydrogen diminish energy competition among nations?
At the World Hydrogen Summit, held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in May, a futuristic city named Neom claimed a top prize for its plans to generate environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel.37
The accolade was less surprising than the place where Neom is being built: Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s biggest producers of crude oil and natural gas. For decades, the Saudi kingdom has played a central role in the supply and pricing of the world’s oil, making it a crucial geopolitical player.
During a July visit to Jeddah to confer with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Biden and the Saudis signed a partnership to develop and finance clean energy sources, such as green hydrogen, nuclear and solar.38
Creating green hydrogen from water by using solar and wind energy to power electrolysis produces carbon-free energy that can be traded internationally. “By opening up the long-distance transport of sunlight and wind, hydrogen will become the new oil,” energy executive Marco Alverá wrote in his 2021 book, The Hydrogen Revolution. 39
“Green hydrogen is a huge growth area for us, and we believe it’s going to be a contributor in the future economy and the future energy as we transition to a decarbonized world,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih told Bloomberg in July.40
Saudi Arabia will be competing with a range of green energy newcomers. The United Arab Emirates, the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, is forging a hydrogen partnership with the United Kingdom. Hydrogen could enable the U.A.E. “to maintain or grow its geostrategic energy position despite global decarbonisation policies,” said a study by the Dubai-based World Green Economy Organization.41
As an energy source that is created rather than extracted, hydrogen has raised hopes that it can dissipate global tensions spawned during the oil era. Italian energy researcher Marco Giuli said hydrogen is likely to “reduce the geopolitical sensitivity of energy trade” by focusing more on domestic needs than on “grabbing resources.”42
Others are more cautious, however.
“Hydrogen will certainly play a significant role in decarbonizing multiple sectors of the energy economy,” says Moniz, the former U.S. energy secretary. “However, arguing that it would eliminate geopolitical considerations is a step too far. Hydrogen should abate, but not eliminate, geopolitical competition.”
Countries increasingly are focusing on building a global market for hydrogen and negotiating future trade deals. Germany has opened hydrogen offices in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, with the goal, in part, of helping oil exporters adapt to the transition and reducing economic disruptions and security risks.43
Chile, which seeks to become a green hydrogen power in South America, is discussing with the Netherlands how to create “export-import corridors” between Chile and Europe. The European Union’s energy strategy is to support three renewable hydrogen import corridors via the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea and, “as soon as conditions allow, with Ukraine.”44
Some say that hydrogen could “completely democratize global energy markets and let most countries self-produce,” says Jeffrey Beyer, managing director of Zest Associates in Dubai, a clean-energy consultancy, and author of the U.A.E. study. “The reality is that some countries have lots of indigenous energy sources and others don’t.”
Japan, whose reliance on Middle East oil makes it susceptible to geopolitical jolts, is pursuing a regional hydrogen strategy that would support Asian markets. In September, Japan hosted a green energy meeting of 20 nations, including Southeast Asia’s rising economies of Indonesia and Vietnam.45
“Currently, the international finance industry is rapidly withdrawing investments from fossil fuel projects,” Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Nishimura Yasutoshi told the Asia Green Growth Partnership on Sept. 26. “However, Asia is highly dependent on fossil fuels amid growing energy demand and its potential for renewable energy is not necessarily as high as it is in Europe.”46
In February, the specially built ship Suiso Frontier arrived in Kobe, Japan, from Australia with the first cargo of liquified hydrogen in a pilot project, viewed as a milestone in the transition to green energy.47
Australia is also developing hydrogen ties with Germany. “If our current pipeline of clean hydrogen projects is completed on time, Australia could be one of the world’s largest hydrogen suppliers by 2030,” a 2021 Australian government report said.48
An analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency, an Abu Dhabi-based intergovernmental organization, suggests that about one-third of hydrogen would be traded across borders by 2050, about half of that probably in pipelines, including those now used to transport natural gas. Exporting countries will gain in strategic importance and new shipping routes will shape security and defense plans, the agency said.49
Coastal countries might hold an advantage over dry, inland areas, because desalination of seawater adds only one U.S. cent per kilogram to the cost of hydrogen, energy executive Alverá wrote.50
Hydrogen “will change the dynamics of geopolitics in energy,” says Jamie Speirs, a fellow in energy analysis and policy at the Sustainable Gas Institute at the Imperial College London. “Some countries will do this better than others, and those are the places where green hydrogen will be done at scale.”
China is already the world’s largest producer and consumer of hydrogen, but it is made using coal. China’s new strategy calls for creating 50,000 hydrogen-fueled vehicles by 2025, using more hydrogen in industry and increasing the manufacture of electrolyzers for hydrogen production.51
While hydrogen is riding a wave of optimism, Speirs says it’s “easy to get carried away by the hype” surrounding it. “We might find out that hydrogen isn’t as low-carbon as we hope, or need it to be, to meet our targets,” undercutting the confidence of governments and investors, he says.
Can Africa parlay its green assets into geopolitical influence?
On Africa’s arid southwestern coast, Namibia boasts a population of only 2.7 million people in an area almost twice the size of California, which has nearly 40 million people. Namibia currently depends on electricity from South Africa. Yet, it has two assets of increasing international interest: high solar energy potential and metals coveted for electric vehicles.52
Germany, which is seeking hydrogen to decarbonize its industries, formed a partnership with Namibia last year, linked to a Namibian government initiative that has awarded 1,544 square miles of land to investors for a $9.4 billion green hydrogen project. The enterprise will convert Atlantic Ocean water into hydrogen, fueled by the country’s abundant solar and wind power.53
“The global race for the best hydrogen technologies and the best sites for hydrogen production is already on,” Germany’s federal research minister at the time, Anja Karliczek, said during the signing of the partnership. Namibia could produce hydrogen “at the most competitive price in the world.”54
A recent U.S. assessment described Namibia, which also has new lithium and cobalt mines, as “an up-and-coming source country for critical minerals” used in electric vehicles and battery storage. In October, Namibia Critical Metals said its Lofdal mine could produce significant amounts of dysprosium and terbium — rare earth metals used in the permanent magnets of electric vehicles — to supply Japan long term. China currently controls the world’s supply of dysprosium and terbium.55
Besides Namibia, other African regions are well-positioned to capitalize on the green energy transition — from the continent’s vast, sun-washed deserts and savannas to its carbon-capturing Congo Basin rainforest and the vast supply of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Clean energy investments on the continent are projected to rise sixfold from 2026 to 2030, with total annual energy investment averaging about $190 billion, according to the International Energy Agency.56
Whether Africa can translate those assets into geopolitical clout hinges on tackling entrenched economic barriers.
“Much more needs to happen from African governments to be able to change the game completely” regarding critical minerals, says Alfonso Medinilla, head of climate and green transition geopolitics at ECDPM, a think tank on Africa-Europe relations. African countries need to get away from the current model of merely extracting raw materials and exporting them to be processed elsewhere, he says. Instead, he says, they should process the minerals domestically and export the higher value finished products.
James Mwangi, founder of the Kenya-based Climate Action Network Africa, agrees. Antiquated supply chains that export raw African materials without adding value incur a large carbon cost and concentrate poverty and instability in Africa, he says.
African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina told Norwegian investors in September that Africa’s lithium deposits could “make Africa competitive with China and Chile in the race for supplying global value chains for electric cars.” He also touted Africa’s green hydrogen potential, along with a $20 billion “Desert to Power” plan to turn 11 countries in the Sahel — a transition belt between the Sahara Desert and tropical regions to the south — into the world’s largest solar zone.57
Some hydrogen projects already emerging in Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and South Africa are using renewable energy to make ammonia for fertilizer, which would strengthen Africa’s food security, the International Energy Agency said. African farmers face a shortage of imported fertilizer due to the war in Ukraine.58
Experts say African countries must balance domestic needs and international interests as they strive to amass green geopolitical influence. The DRC illustrates the challenge, as Secretary of State Blinken highlighted during an August visit to its capital, Kinshasa. “On climate, the Democratic Republic of Congo is vital to the future of the planet,” Blinken said. “It’s as simple as that. The Congo Basin rainforest absorbs more carbon than is emitted by the entire continent of Africa.”59
A large swath of flooded rainforest — a region the size of England — runs through the DRC and neighboring Republic of Congo. The peat under the water contains about 30 billion metric tons of carbon — as much as the world emits in about three years.
A moratorium on logging concessions in the DRC rainforest took effect in 2002. Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom have been funding a forest preservation and management initiative that could lead to the lifting of that moratorium in 2023. Western countries would like for the DRC and other Congo Basin nations to leave their rainforests undisturbed or for them to be sustainably developed.
But the African governments also are eyeing the sizeable oil deposits underneath the peat.
“The challenge is to find an equilibrium, a balance between the well-being of the Congolese people” and an ecological framework, said Congolese Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula.60
A national audit of rainforest logging published this year found that six DRC government ministers in a row had violated forest-protection laws and illegally allocated at least 18 concessions to themselves. The environmental advocacy group Greenpeace Africa, which said the logging moratorium is routinely violated, found that a DRC environment minister had awarded a logging permit to Chinese and other companies covering an area equal to four times the size of Kinshasa.61
Another Central African country, Gabon, has been trying to balance its domestic needs while helping in the global effort to slow climate change. The tiny nation aims to sustainably manage its abundant, carbon-absorbing rainforest by banning exports of logs, controlling and tracking tree harvesting and developing domestic manufacturing of wood products.62
Expanding renewable energy and helping to create an industrial base in Africa could position the United States more strongly against China, says Mwangi. Africa’s projected population surge — estimated to represent 52 percent of world growth by 2050 — makes it an enticing alternative market to China’s for U.S. companies, given current trade tensions between China and the United States, he says.63
“Don’t think about Africa purely as a climate victim,” Mwangi says. Instead, focus on the potential of the African economy to help lower the cost of meeting global net zero emissions targets, he says.
At COP27, Biden announced investments in climate adaptation and green energy in Africa, including early warning systems and disaster-risk protection. He said the United States is joining the EU and Germany in a $500-million effort to help Egypt add 10 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 while reducing 5 gigawatts of “inefficient” gas-powered facilities and capturing natural gas that flares or leaks from oil and gas operations.64
During the conference, countries such as Kenya and Nigeria announced the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative, designed to generate $6 billion by 2030 for African communities to invest in renewable energy and other efforts to curb climate change. It would set up a system for trading carbon credits, each representing one ton of carbon dioxide emissions that a polluter can purchase, with the funds being invested in carbon-reduction systems, such as a forest.65
Achieving a so-called African Green Deal would require bold, government-directed efforts to boost energy availability and reduce carbon emissions while expanding economic growth and ensuring social equity, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. “African leaders must clearly articulate, map and assert their own climate transition and development agendas” with regional coordination, the agency said.66
Ethiopia also aims to become a major player in Africa’s efforts to become a world leader in renewable energy. It seeks to boost its power output ninefold by 2037 by expanding its hydropower, wind, solar and geothermal resources.67
Africa’s largest hydropower dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile River, has begun to generate electricity amid tensions with downstream Egypt.68
But Ethiopia’s potential is limited by investment risks and the need for “prohibitively costly” energy-delivery infrastructure, says Mikael Alemu, an Ethiopian-Israeli entrepreneur and co-founder of 10 Green Gigawatt for Ethiopia, a solar energy development company.
“My partners and myself believe in [the] enormous potential of solar energy in Ethiopia, and we know hundreds of investors who share this belief,” he says. “But very few investors today can accept the country and currency risks of Ethiopia, and therefore there is just a handful of private energy developers.”
Some activists say that as the green energy transition gathers momentum, some African countries, such as Mozambique, continue to bet too much on new oil and gas production, where European and Japanese investors are tapping major gas discoveries for export.69
Throughout WWII, the U.S., the Soviet Union and the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of China were formal allies. But in 1949, Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forced the KMT to flee to Taiwan. On October 1st 1949, Mao formally announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The strategic triangle shifted as the U.S. lost a putative (and highly authoritarian) KMT ally in China and the Soviet Union gained a Communist comrade-in-arms with the CPP.
The chumminess of this 1958 photo of Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev belies the deep rifts — both ideological and geopolitical — which had been developing in the Sino-Soviet relationship since 1956. Despite efforts to patch over the differences, the divisions continued to grow until Mao announced the split in 1964 followed by a series of formal statements. Monolithic global Communism had ceased to exist.
Fifty years ago today, Air Force One touched down in Beijing bringing President Nixon and the First Lady for their historic meeting with Mao Zedong. The Nixons’ visit to China lasted from February 21-28, 1972. It was then followed by years of rapprochement efforts — including the historic performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1973 — and culminated in the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China under President Carter in 1979. The Soviet Union was left out in the cold.
Today — February 21, 2022 — Russia announced its formal recognition of two breakaway, largely Russian-speaking enclaves in eastern Ukraine. The post-WWII order of sovereignty, rule of law, and cooperation is being challenged. Two weeks earlier, Xi Jinping chose to support Putin’s Ukraine power-play, overturning decades of official “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” policy. The U.S.-China-Russia ground has shifted yet again.
Looking back on these seventy-five years of U.S.-China-Soviet/Russia relations, I expect that I will always pause to reflect on February 21 as each year passes. February 21, 1972 was deeply promising. February 21, 2022 is deeply foreboding. In a professional sense, today’s date will likely be for me somewhat like what I feel personally as other calendar days each year remind me of my mother’s and father’s deaths (and of their lives). Artificial and arbitrary dates on a calendar which nonetheless carry deep and lasting human meaning and consequence.
______Assessing China / The TEA Collaborative______ 