Labour's muddle over China and the green transition

A new legal mandate will force the government to buy more Chinese

I wrote a few months ago about the British government’s decision to ban Ming Yang, China’s largest private turbine-maker, from building a new factory in Scotland in an investment worth £1.5 billion. It was a controversial decision, not least to the Scottish politicians who’d spent years courting the massive investment. But I thought it was ultimately the right one: European industry still has a foothold in the wind sector, and it is worth trying to preserve that to avoid another extinction event of the sort that befell the European solar industry. Decades after manufacturing capabilities and industrial bases started to be relocated in the process of globalisation, I think we have to remember that industrial power is a vector of hard power. China’s massive industrial base is one of the secrets to its success.

No doubt turning down so much money and gigawatts is a painful decision to make. I am no climate change denier – I know that humanity needs to become more green. Nor do I wring my hands about the success of Chinese renewables – it is a remarkable story, and on a personal level I am even proud of the ingenuity and hard work that my compatriots display. But I believe British national interest is best served by a world in which like-minded middle powers still have some sway.

Though the British government said little to explain their decision on Ming Yang, with the exception of citing ‘national security’, I thought they had come to the same conclusion. Yet something going through Parliament now has caught my eye, for seeming to be a direct contradiction to the Ming Yang decision.

Last week, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband put forward the government’s proposals to adopt the pathway set out by the Climate Change Committee, an independent public body that advises the government on how to reach their goal of net zero emissions by 2050. The plan, the ‘Seventh Carbon Budget’, requires an 87 per cent drop in carbon emissions on 1990 levels by 2040, which I’ve worked out is around a three quarters reduction from today’s levels. To get there, Britain must increase its offshore wind by six-fold, double its onshore, nearly quadruple its solar power, and increase the share of electric cars and vans on British roads to 75 per cent, among other changes.

To say that this is ambitious is an understatement, not least as political mainstream opinion in the UK is fracturing on net zero, where previously there was consensus. But more importantly, these ambitious goals are only achievable by buying more Chinese.

This is the topic of my column for the Times this week: just how much more we would be building a dependency on China into our energy infrastructure of the future, if this carbon budget is passed (as it is mooted to do later this month). In a time when it is hard to balance climate concerns with security worries, is setting yourself a legal mandate to rush through decarbonisation really the best way forward? The answer is clear to me, though it doesn’t seem to be clear to the government.

In the column you will also find a bit more of my thinking on where the risks of Chinese renewable tech really comes from: not so much the idea that people in China might be able to switch off millions of BYDs or Chinese-made solar panels; but I think in the weaponisation of supply chains, of a sort we saw with the rare earths play last year. I hope you find it interesting.

My slightly ropey picture of a photo displayed in Shenzhen’s Reform and Opening Exhibition, showing BYD’s electric K8 bus on the streets of London. 500 have already been delivered, with another 500 ordered.

What I’ve been reading/listening to:

• As China’s economy slows, some young people are snapping up cheap apartments to ‘retire’ early – Albee Zhang in AP. I’m quite late to this article from three months ago, but it is worth catching up with it if you also missed it at the time. The story is as the headline suggests: the upside to the real estate crisis and a wholesome way to lie flat. The lives of these twentysomethings feel like a good premise for an indie film.

• Look Only at the Ugly Sides, and You Won’t See China – Manya Koetse in Eye on Digital China. A brilliant, courageous piece by the Dutch sinologist Manya Koetse in her Substack, who has been accused of being an apologist for China. (You may know her work previously as the ‘What’s On Weibo’ blog).

  Anyone who wants to understand China seriously must be willing to confront reality as it is, not as it best fits an ideological narrative.

  You can acknowledge that Chinese cities have become safer without endorsing censorship. You can appreciate the quality of infrastructure without defending state control. And you can believe that more should be done to improve women’s safety on Dutch public transportation without being dismissed as an admirer of an authoritarian regime.

  I couldn’t agree with it more.

• China Mine Blast Exposes Illegal Labor, Untaxed Coal Trade – Fan Ruohong in Caixin Global. A great investigation by Caixin into the dark world of illegal mining, after the recent mine collapse that killed at least 82 people. The report details the practice of secret production, so that mines can produce above officially compliant output. Mines use unregistered workers, who work without mandatory tracking devices or gas sensors. To evade regulator inspections, the mines in question sometimes ‘seal off illegal sections’. To maximise yield, these operations also leave ‘smaller safety pillars – the columns of coal left in place to support the mine and reduce the risk of collapse’. A terrible practice.