China’s Empire Must End Reliance On One Man

Behind the high death toll and continued swapping of blame, the crisis confronting the Chinese leadership in the far western Xinjiang region says much about the way China is run. For all the record of economic growth, the shiny cities and the speculation about Beijing and Washington forming their own “G2”, it is, in many ways, still an old-fashioned state. Habits stretching back to imperial times influence the behaviour of the nine men in dark suits with uniformly full heads of black hair who make up the ruling standing committee of the politburo.

Central control by the anointed leadership – be it in the form of the empire’s Mandate of Heaven or the tenets of Marxism, Maoism and the market espoused by today’s Communist party – is paramount. Dissent equals treason. No thought can be given to loosening Beijing’s hold on far-away territories such as Xinjiang and Tibet despite their ethnic, cultural and historical divergences from the Han mainstream.

The precipitate return to Beijing from the Group of Eight summit of Hu Jintao, Communist party leader and state president, underlines the gravity of the crisis that took more than 180 lives (mostly Han Chinese, according to official figures) in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. The violence, the worst since the Cultural Revolution, was all the more serious as it followed riots 15 months ago in Tibet. Both events caught the leadership on the hop. In Urumqi, the potential for disorder is all the greater because of the strong reaction of Chinese internal migrants seeking revenge for deaths inflicted on Han residents by local Uighurs.

Like Tibet, Xinjiang is being blanketed by a security crackdown. Mr Hu is striking the pose of the national leader who will ensure unity and enable Han Chinese to sleep safely; the Communist party claims to be the bedrock for national unity and stability. Party and state media stress the economic advances Xinjiang has enjoyed, mainly in the development of its energy and mineral reserves, and wonder why the local Muslim population is not grateful. Exiles are blamed for fomenting trouble. Links will probably be drawn with fundamentalist extremists. No meaningful dialogue will be entertained.

Yet, despite the mass migration of Han into the far western territories, China will find the management of its huge land empire increasingly difficult as native populations grow more resentful of income disparities, the favoured treatment accorded to immigrants and the steady destruction of local culture – not to mention the religious factors in both areas. While Mr Hu’s position is secure – his term as party leader runs to 2012 – the fact that both this year and last have seen serious unrest in the two territories must raise questions about Beijing’s surveillance machine.

Mr Hu is very much at the centre of this storm. He had to fly home from Italy because, as chair of the standing committee of the politburo, he has to be present when major decisions are taken. As soon as he reached Beijing, the committee met – the official account of the session characterised the riots as “a serious incident of violent crime painstakingly orchestrated and organised” by hostile forces at home and abroad, and proclaimed the need for a crackdown. Also, as chair of the central military committee, Mr Hu is the only civilian able to give orders to the armed forces.

Even if he wished, he cannot delegate this. Like an emperor of old, the party leader needs to be seen at the helm. This is not a leadership ready to put its trust in conference calls or long-range electronic communications. The suspicion and paranoia bred in the long years fighting for power and sustained by Mao Zedong’s autocratic, erratic management style remain in force. Under Mr Hu, who has led the party since 2002, the politburo has become more consensual – a good thing, as it diminishes the chances of a new Mao appearing. But the crisis underlines the subordinate position of the government as against the party. Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, and the state council he heads have no role. The politburo and the party will step forward as saviours of the nation while Mr Wen and his ministers busy themselves granting value added tax rebates to exporters.

Thus any relaxation of policy on either Xinjiang or Tibet can be ruled out. Mr Hu was in charge of Tibet when an uprising occurred there, and he was photographed in uniform carrying a submachine-gun (though his altitude sickness meant he spent as much time as possible in Beijing). This time, he will strike a more dignified pose. But, as Britain found, running an empire is a tricky job when the natives rebel. Beijing’s reluctance to recognise that Tibet and Xinjiang are, to all intents and purposes, occupied territories complicates its task in ruling them, and China’s institutional framework will act, once again, as a political straitjacket.

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Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d0549d8-6f10-11de-9109-00144feabdc0.html

Tags: Chinese Politburo, Mao Zedong, Wen Jiabao, Tibet, Beijing, Communism, Deng Xiaoping, Mr. Hu, Communist party leader, state president, Han Chinese, Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, Cultural Revolution, Global Development News,

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China, Google, and Pornography

China says it has taken unspecified punitive actions against the Google search engine, which it accuses of violating Chinese law by spreading pornography. The official comments come as computer users in China experience intermittent difficulty accessing Google.

China has recently stepped up its criticism of the world's biggest search engine. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was asked Thursday about recent difficulties computer users in China have had accessing Google and its related sites. He says the Chinese government is carrying out its duty to protect young people from online pornography. Qin says Chinese authorities have found that Google is spreading "pornographic, lewd and vulgar content," in violation of China's laws and regulations.

He says Chinese authorities have summoned the company's representatives and urged them to immediately remove the objectionable content. Qin urged Google to abide by Chinese laws and regulations and said Chinese authorities have taken "punitive measures," although he gave no details. He also gave no specific examples of Google's alleged lewd content.

Access to Google in Beijing was temporarily interrupted Wednesday. As of Thursday afternoon, Google access for computer users at some of Beijing's universities was still blocked. Google recently issued a statement saying it would step up efforts to stop pornography from reaching users in China. A Google spokeswoman is quoted by media Thursday as saying the California-based company is now looking into reports that users in China cannot access Google.

Beijing's latest comments come days before a Chinese-government set deadline for all computers sold in China to come packaged with Internet filtering software, known as "Green Dam." Wednesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk wrote a letter to Chinese officials, raising concerns that Beijing's order may violate free-trade commitments. When asked about the latest American concerns that Green Dam could become a trade issue, the Chinese spokesman said he had nothing to add to earlier comments that the software is necessary to stop online pornography.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-25-voa12.cfm

Tags: Chinese Government, Google Search, Pornography, Censorship, Beijing, US Commerce Secretary, Green Dam, Gary Locke, Ron Kirk, Internet Filtering, Global IT News, Chinese law, Google blocked by China,

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Green Power Takes Root In The Chinese Desert

DUNHUANG, China — As the United States takes its first steps toward mandating that power companies generate more electricity from renewable sources, China already has a similar requirement and is investing billions to remake itself into a green energy superpower.

Through a combination of carrots and sticks, Beijing is starting to change how this country generates energy. Although coal remains the biggest energy source and is almost certain to stay that way, the rise of renewable energy, especially wind power, is helping to slow China’s steep growth in emissions of global warming gases.

While the House of Representatives approved a requirement last week that American utilities generate more of their power from renewable sources of energy, and the Senate will consider similar proposals over the summer, China imposed such a requirement almost two years ago.

This year China is on track to pass the United States as the world’s largest market for wind turbines — after doubling wind power capacity in each of the last four years. State-owned power companies are competing to see which can build solar plants fastest, though these projects are much smaller than the wind projects. And other green energy projects, like burning farm waste to generate electricity, are sprouting up.

This oasis town deep in the Gobi Desert along the famed Silk Road and the surrounding wilderness of beige sand dunes and vast gravel wastelands has become a center of China’s drive to lead the world in wind and solar energy.

A series of projects is under construction on the nearly lifeless plateau to the southeast of Dunhuang, including one of six immense wind power projects now being built around China, each with the capacity of more than 16 large coal-fired power plants.

Each of the six projects “totally dwarfs anything else, anywhere else in the world,” said Steve Sawyer, the secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, an industry group in Brussels.

Some top Chinese regulators even worry that Beijing’s mandates are pushing companies too far too fast. The companies may be deliberately underbidding for the right to build new projects and then planning to go back to the government later and demand compensation once the projects lose money.

“The problem is we have so many stupid enterprises,” said Li Junfeng, who is the deputy director general for energy research at China’s top economic planning agency and the secretary general of the government-run Renewable Energy Industries Association.

HSBC predicts that China will invest more money in renewable energy and nuclear power between now and 2020 than in coal-fired and oil-fired electricity. That does not mean that China will become a green giant overnight. For one thing, Chinese power consumption is expected to rise steadily over the next decade as 720 million rural Chinese begin acquiring the air-conditioners and other power-hungry amenities already common among China’s 606 million city dwellers.

As recently as the start of last year, the Chinese government’s target was to have 5,000 megawatts of wind power installed by the end of next year, or the equivalent of eight big coal-fired power plants, a tiny proportion of China’s energy usage and a pittance at a time when China was building close to two coal-fired plants a week.

But in March of last year, as power companies began accelerating construction of wind turbines, the government issued a forecast that 10,000 megawatts would actually be installed by the end of next year. And now, just 15 months later, with construction of coal-fired plants having slowed to one a week and still falling, it appears that China will have 30,000 megawatts of wind energy by the end of next year — which was previously the target for 2020, Mr. Li said.

A big impetus was the government’s requirement, issued in September 2007, that large power companies generate at least 3 percent of their electricity by the end of 2010 from renewable sources. The calculation excludes hydroelectric power, which already accounts for 21 percent of Chinese power, and nuclear power, which accounts for 1.1 percent.

Chinese companies must generate 8 percent of their power from renewable sources other than hydroelectric by the end of 2020. The House bill in the United States resembles China’s approach in imposing a renewable energy standard on large electricity providers. But the details make it hard to compare standards. The House bill requires large electricity providers in the United States to derive at least 15 percent of their energy by 2020 from a combination of energy savings and renewable energy — including hydroelectric dams built since 1992.

Chinese power companies are eager to invest in renewable energy not just because of the government’s mandates, but because they are flush with cash and state-owned banks are eager to lend them more money. And there are few regulatory hurdles.

At the same time, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has temporarily banned three of the country’s five main power companies from building more coal-fired power plants, punishment for their failure to comply with environmental regulations at existing coal-fired plants. China’s renewable energy frenzy has been accelerating recently, especially in solar energy.

Last winter, winning bidders for three projects agreed to sell power to the national power grid for about 59 cents a kilowatt hour. But this spring, when the government solicited offers to build and operate the 10-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant here in Dunhuang, the lowest bid was just 10 cents a kilowatt hour — so low the government rejected it as likely to result in losses for whatever state-owned bank lent money to build it.

The winning bidder was China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company, an entirely state-owned business that bid 16 cents a kilowatt hour. (That was still far below last winter’s price, but a two-thirds drop in raw material costs because of the global financial crisis has started to drive down the cost of solar panels, the chief expense for the winning bidder.)

Zheng Shuangwei, the company’s general manager for northwest China, said that 22 or 23 cents would be more fair. The bid of 16 cents “is not a proper price,” he acknowledged. “It’s a bidding rate that is the result of competition.”

By comparison, the grid buys electricity from coal-fired power plants for 4 to 5 cents a kilowatt hour. Wind turbine rates have dropped to 7 cents from 10 cents over the last couple of years because of fierce competition and declining turbine costs.

The solar project still must go ahead, Mr. Zheng said, because China has limited coal reserves — 41 years at current rates of production — and the potential for hydroelectric power is leveling off as most eligible rivers have already been dammed. But technical obstacles to renewable energy are popping up. Sandstorms in Dunhuang in the spring, for instance, will cover solar panels and render them useless until they are cleaned after each storm by squads of workers using feather brushes to avoid scratching the panels, a process expected to take two days.

And wind turbines are being built faster here than the national grid can erect high-voltage power lines to carry the electricity to cities elsewhere. On the windiest days, only half the power generated can be transmitted, said Min Deqing, a local renewable energy consultant. Nonetheless, city officials are pushing for more projects.

“It’s the Gobi Desert,” said Wang Yu, the vice director of economic planning. “There’s not much other use for it.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/business/energy-environment/03renew.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Tags: China, wind power, Chinese desert, Global Best Practice, sandstorms, Dunhuang, Gobi desert, Wang Yu, Min Deqing, Silk road, wind turbines, Beijing, Global Wind Energy Council, Brussels, HSBC,

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China's Solar Drive

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Beijing's bid to boost the solar energy sector could draw more than $10 billion in private funding for projects and put China on track to become a leading market for solar equipment in the next three years.

Shares of U.S.-listed Chinese solar firms such as Suntech Power Holdings, the world's biggest crystalline solar panel-maker, have risen strongly on expectations China will soon unveil more cash incentives to develop solar energy. China, the world's top greenhouse gas polluter, is trying to catch up in a global race to find alternatives to fossil fuels, blamed for carbon emissions affecting the planet's climate.

Any cash perks for the sector will help drive demand for solar energy systems and create bigger businesses for companies involved in the entire solar supply chain, says Julia Wu, an analyst with research firm New Energy Finance. Top panel-makers including Trina Solar, Yingli Green Energy Holding Co and JA Solar are expected to benefit, while solar wafer-makers such as LDK Solar could gain from related business opportunities.

"China could potentially be the top market for solar. Companies up and down the supply chain should benefit," said Wu. Beijing is considering enhancing cash incentives at a time when European states including Germany, one of the largest solar markets, are pulling back on spending to slow industry growth.

Nearly 10 years of subsidized prices have made Germany among the largest markets for photovoltaic panels, which transform sunlight into electricity, producing solar giants including Q-Cells AG and Conergy. "The photovoltaic industry has very good opportunities in the medium and long term now that a lot of countries have decided to develop new energy as an important measure to combat the economic crisis," Shawn Qu, president and chief executive officer of Canadian Solar Inc, told Reuters.

INCENTIVES

Although China supplies half the world's solar panels, it contributes very little to demand as the cost of tapping solar energy to generate electricity remains steep and investors find little economic sense in pursuing solar projects in China where incentives are few. But that's about to change.

China's government said in March it will offer to pay 20 yuan ($2.90) per watt of solar systems fixed to roofs and which have a capacity of more than 50 kilowatt peak (kwp). The subsidy, which could cover half the cost of installing the system, was popular among developers, attracting applications equivalent to the building of 1 gigawatt of solar power.

One GW, or 1 billion watts, is enough electricity to power a million homes. China is expected to raise its 2020 solar power generation target more than fivefold to at least 10 GW. With incentives, analysts expect over 2 GW in new solar capacity will be installed as early as 2011, up from just over 100 MW in 2008.

To further attract investors, Beijing may align its solar energy policy with an incentive scheme used in Europe and the United States called "feed-in tariff," which guarantees above-market prices for generating solar power. China is widely expected to announce a subsidized price for solar power of 1.09 yuan per kW-hour (kwh), or 16 cents, which is over three times the rate paid for coal-fed electricity in China, but far below the established solar tariffs of about 45 cents in Europe and 30 cents in the United States.

"It would be too low considering the current manufacturing technology," said Fang Zheng, general manager of China Huadian Corporation New Energy Resources Development Co, the renewable energy unit of state-owned Huadian Group. "Such a price would not help the development of the solar power generation industry."

Several Chinese power producers say a fair price for solar power would be 1.5 yuan per Kwh. Without a guaranteed high price, solar firms may find it hard to compete. "In itself (the tariff), it's not enough encouragement for the market," said CLSA analyst Charles Yonts. "Even in the sunniest areas, you're still looking at a negative return or below your cost of capital based on current prices." Yonts estimates a developer would have to bring down costs by 30 percent to $3 a watt for a project to yield a return of as little as 8 percent.

THE WHOLE PACKAGE

Nevertheless, analysts say that taken together, Beijing's proposed tariff and other perks should help generate decent returns given that local labor and equipment costs are cheap."(The tariff) sounds a little light relative to European feed-in tariffs," Steven Chadima, Suntech vice president of external affairs, told a recent conference in the United States.

"But the costs are substantially lower in China and there are also other incentive programs available to package together to be able to create a reasonable electricity price coming off these projects." Moreover, prices of polysilicon are expected to fall further below the current $60 a kilogram amid a glut of the solar panel material, further cushioning costs. Certainly a view that the overall impact of the China incentives will be beneficial to the solar sector appears to be reflected in company share prices -- Suntech shares hit a 7-month high last week.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE55I18S20090619

Tags: Solar Power, Photovoltaic, Polysilicon, Solar Subsidies, China, Huadian Group, CLSA analyst Charles Yonts, Global Development News, Canadian Solar Inc, Suntech Power Holdings, Beijing,

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