Chinatopix via AP
Residents swim to a riverside pavilion submerged by the flooded Yangtze River, in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province, July 8, 2020.
This story has been updated with a statement from the National Security Council.
Amid bad political and economic news on several fronts, from the budget stalemate to the supply chain crisis, President Biden and chief of staff Ron Klain have put out the word that the administration desperately needs a headline win at the big climate meetings in Glasgow next month. The sessions, called COP26, are intended to build on the largely unfulfilled 2015 Paris accords to get firm commitments from the world’s major nations to meet accelerated climate goals.
But one major player stands in the way of Biden’s hoped-for headlines—China. And Beijing is astutely playing the climate card by threatening Biden that if the U.S. wants happy news out of Glasgow, it must stop criticizing China’s human rights violations and pull back from tariffs and other measures intended to counter China’s economic warfare.
On this fraught question, the administration is badly split, leaning toward accommodating China’s demands for the sake of a Glasgow agreement. John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy for climate, is the leading advocate for subordinating other China policy goals to a Glasgow deal, and the infighting is turning nasty.
One issue is the importation of Chinese goods made with Uyghur forced labor and other human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. In July, the Senate unanimously passed by voice vote the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would flatly ban such imports. A substantively identical measure passed the House last year. My sources say Kerry and national security adviser Jake Sullivan have requested the House leadership to block floor action in the House for the sake of appeasing Beijing.
The National Security Council is vigorously denying this. A spokesperson said in an emailed statement, “It is absolutely false that the National Security Advisor made such a request. We share Congress’s concern about forced Labor in Xinjiang and in fact have taken concrete measures on our own including but not limited to visa restrictions, Global Magnitsky and financial sanctions, export controls, import restrictions, the release of a business advisory and rallying the G7 to commit to take action to ensure all global supply chains are free from the use of forced labor including from Xinjiang. It is the PRC that has consistently sought to link their action on climate with us making changes in the bilateral relationship, and we reject that linkage.” A State Department spokesperson indicated that Kerry also did not ask to block floor action.
China’s record is one of ignoring one solemn pledge after another.
So far, the bill’s House sponsors have been unable to get a vote scheduled, but a source close to the leadership tells me that the mechanics of the legislative process work in favor of delay, giving the leadership a convincing alibi. Under constitutional and House rules regarding revenue bills, the House must first pass its own measure and cannot simply approve the Senate bill. Last session’s House bill doesn’t qualify.
A related divisive issue is America’s pending industrial policy for rebuilding production of solar cells in the U.S. Domestic manufacturers once pioneered this industry. After decades of predatory trade policies, aimed at underpricing and driving out non-Chinese manufacturers, China is now the world’s dominant solar panel producer. And Chinese solar companies also have subsidiaries in the United States.
As a result, the Solar Energy Industries Association, nominally a domestic trade association, echoes Beijing’s line. For instance, SEIA has lobbied for lifting of the tariffs that have been imposed to offset China’s illegal subsidies.
Last month, several genuinely domestic solar producers, called American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention, filed a complaint with the Commerce Department against China’s tactics of evading U.S. tariffs by moving part of their production chain to Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
They filed the complaint under provisions of U.S. trade law that allow them to do so anonymously out of well-justified fear of retaliation. China dominates production of solar supply chains as well as finished panels, and has a long and well-documented record of punishing companies that file complaints.
According to Commerce Department sources, the White House, again seeking to curry favor with Beijing, has put pressure on Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to disclose the identity of the complaining companies, which Commerce has on a confidential basis. Several senators, led by Jacky Rosen of Nevada, sent Raimondo a letter adding to the pressure.
These negotiations continue.
Even if solar manufacturing were repatriated, most of the jobs in the industry would still be in installation, positions that cannot be outsourced. However, this entrenches the manufacturing imbalance, as many domestic users and installers want the cheapest possible solar panels, and the current low-cost producer is China. Some climate groups have become apologists for China.
The administration is badly split, leaning toward accommodating China’s demands for the sake of a Glasgow agreement.
This is a case of short-run and long-run climate goals colliding. Even if prices temporarily increased, the U.S. would be better served by taking back the solar supply chain, as this Prospect article demonstrates.
Chinese solar companies have blamed price increases on tariffs, but ironically, some of the recent price increases are the result of the Chinese government ordering production cuts because of power shortages, which in turn are causing China to double down on coal, in violation of its previous pledges.
China is now the world’s leading producer and user of coal-fired power plants. China in 2019 produced 27 percent of fossil fuel fumes, more than double the U.S., at 11 percent. And China’s own climate policy is moving in the wrong direction.
Needless to say, any commitment that China makes at the climate summit is only as good as Beijing’s keeping its word, and China’s record is one of ignoring one solemn pledge after another. “Nations participating in the climate summit at Glasgow must be clear-eyed about China’s long history of empty climate promises,” says Michael Stumo of the Coalition for a Prosperous America. “The Chinese Communist Party routinely violates international commitments. Global leaders should not expect this time to be any different.”
One option would be for the Biden administration to recognize that reality and work toward a climate deal that excluded Beijing for now, rather than allowing China to dictate the terms, and then set a timeline for China’s actual behavior to live up to the world’s climate imperatives. This is exactly what the U.S. did not do when China was allowed into the WTO in 2001 based on commitments that were never kept. We are still living with the results.
Politically, Biden needs a short-term win on the Glasgow headlines. But that halo will fade after a few weeks. Substantively, Biden and the world need genuine progress both on China’s predatory behavior and on climate.
