In the Financial Times the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, writes:
The violent scenes at the Legislative Council building earlier this week played into the hands of Chinese propagandists and hardliners. But they should not distract attention from the peaceful marches by up to 2m Hong Kong citizens. Anyway, one way of dealing with minority violence and with concerns about how the demonstrations have been handled would be to establish an independent and open inquiry into what has happened in recent weeks.
The British government should press for this and argue for a complete withdrawal of the previous extradition proposals. It should also make clear, as UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt did in his remarks this week, that there would be serious consequences if the international and binding legal agreement with China were not to be honoured. We must hope that Britain has rediscovered its sense of obligation to the citizens whose bravery and seriousness of purpose put to shame our current insular and often delusional political debate.
Britain may have lost some of its soft power recently. It would be nice to think, however, that it still understands how to behave with integrity. Our own “golden age†with China should put more emphasis on honour and less on “fear and greedâ€. That is where our national interest really lies.
Reading between the lines, I think that Mr. Patten see the situation much as I do. Commercial and financial interests are likely to prevail and the United Kingdom, Germany, and France are predisposed to ignore China’s elimination of Hong Kong’s autonomy as long the supply chains remain open.
This should be a reminder to us that the only thing the Chinese authorities can be depended on to follow through with are their own interests narrowly understood.
“would be to establish an independent and open inquiry into what has happened in recent weeks.”
Ah, yes. Blue ribbon panel, special commission, independent inquiry, kick it down the cellar stairs, stuff it in the attic, punt.
Yes, which is why I think China’s signature on the Paris Accord means absolutely nothing.
Sadly, it means a lot. When you sign an accord and then greatly increase your emissions, you’re praised for it. When you demur from signing an accord but reduce your emissions considerably, you’re pilloried for it.
China agreed to stop increasing emissions by 2030, so if they have still been increasing that was allowed in the accord. Per capita production of CO2 in China is still about half of that in the US.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2018/09/12/chinas-peaking-emissions-and-the-future-of-global-climate-policy/
Steve
Unless a new theory of climate change has come along, per capita production is irrelevant. Only absolute production is relevant. The additional problem is that for China every incremental dollar of GDP requires more emissions than the dollar before.
In fairness that isn’t as bad as it was a half dozen years ago. But it’s still a problem.
(A) How do one know the Chinese government is observing the agreement as it says it is? All information comes from the Chinese government. Double dare someone to find an independent calculation of Chinese emissions that does not use data from the Chinese government. (My guess is it is also hard to do so for the US vis a vis US government, but at least any falsified data would be public knowledge by now).
(B) The Chinese government is taking steps to improve the environment — because it become a social unrest issue (smog/bad air). So China is switching from coal to natural gas. But it is not because of carbon emissions or the Paris agreement.
(C) The Chinese government has been trained by the behavior of Western governments and business for the past 30 years. The cynical take is the difference now is the dream of making money in China is not as strong as it was…
That is simultaneously true and false. China is slowing its construction of coal-fired power plants in China even as it plans to build 300 of them outside of China, thereby producing a substantial increase in global emissions.