I really should start a category with this title. Tom Friedman wonders
Can China go green without going orange?
That is, can China really undertake the energy/environmental revolution it needs without the empowerment of its people to a whole new degree — à la the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004?
While I agree with Mr. Friedman’s tentative hypothesis that the transition from the Chinese version of communism to the form of state-directed and subsidized laissez-faire capitalism that China has undergone in the last 30 or so years is likely to be easier than a transition to “clean capitalism”, I think that whatever transitions China makes over the years will be built on Chinese roots. I think that the central government has never had the sort of control that Mr. Friedman seems to think they did/do and I doubt that they’re as relevant to making the sorts of changes that will be needed as he seems to think they are.
China does have some egalitarian traditions and a tradition of local control but that doesn’t translate into the sort of political, social, or legal infrastructure for the sort of system that I think he’s envisioning.
That’s why I’ve been concerned about the U. S. and Europe’s ongoing program of transferring their industrial pollution to China. I have no doubt we’ll be able to move it there but restraining it once it’s there will be a tall order.
