A forest in China
When the terms ‘climate’ and ‘China’ are mentioned in the same breath in English, the connotations are almost never positive. On the American right, which these days appears far afield in Bircher territory, the language on climate change and China is conspiratorial (as in, one is ‘a hoax’ perpetuated by the other). This presents something of an embarrassment to the American liberal centre-right and centre (i.e., the hashtag-Resistance), who do not like their own conspiratorial thinking to be thus crassly exposed by the chuds, and prefer it trimmed with a certain veneer of polite respectability. It’s more common for American and European liberals and baizuos to hand-wring, therefore, about China’s population, continued reliance on coal and timber, refusal to be the West’s rubbish bin and so on. (All this, of course, without any real awareness of the implicit anti-human Malthusianism and entitlement mentality all of these stances entail.) But the greatest potential for slowing or even partially reversing our current œcological crisis also happens to be in China, and they also happen to be a global leader in one of the key policies needed in this effort, namely: reforestation.
China’s reforestation drive, which has even included the military, is a deliberate act of political planning meant to counteract soil degradation and air pollution as well as climate change. And – get this – it’s actually working, in spectacular ways. The satellite imagery gained from NASA doesn’t lie. With the glaring exceptions of Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta, the Chinese East has seen immense annual growth in leaf coverage per square kilometer over the last two decades. Despite accounting for only five percent of the potential green landmass on Earth, China has contributed a full twenty-five percent of the plant-kingdom re-growth by foliage area.
In this she is joined by India – largely a result of their intensification of agriculture; and Southeastern Europe (including Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and former Yugoslav republics like Macedonia). Worthy of note is how the governments of this latter group of countries, particularly Bulgaria and Moldova, are actively planning out liveable communities, child-friendly family support policies and play spaces, neoclassical architecture and planned public green space in their urban environments.
On the other hand, the single worst actor globally with regard to old-growth forest conservation is, far and away and hands down, Brazil – and they’re only getting worse, again as a result of deliberate political choices. Note the high-modernist and anti-œcological architectural approach which the old pre-Junta Brazilian liberals under Kubitschek took to designing Brasília, and the Junta took to actually building it. Again, one has to note the double standards at play. The Western liberal media are a good deal quieter and more docile when the true œcological menace comes from neoliberal governments prima facie friendlier to Western business interests. Clearly, not all authoritarianisms are created equal.
That having been said: China is rapidly becoming part of the solution, rather than the problem. It’s quite true that China still has a long way to go, and a great deal more effort to make, in kicking the coal habit and kicking the cement habit. But: as shown above, the Chinese government is leading forest preservation and replanting efforts. The government is attempting (with not much success, sadly) to get its people to eat less meat. They are investing in more efficient infrastructure and more compact neighbourhoods. Although I can’t entirely approve of the Faustian approach of some of these policy initiatives, they do trend in a direction which is positive and which should be emulated in the preservationist and reformist ways analogous to those being undertaken in Southeastern Europe. Here I will gladly own my South Slavic roots, my retro æsthetic and my Tory socialist political preferences.
We therefore need to return, to some extent, to industrial policy and deliberate planning for human-scaled outcomes. (There is very little incentive, after all, for any major industry other than agriculture to contribute to the actual growing of greater green spaces, or to encourage citizens to eat healthier diets or pursue healthier lifestyles.) Perhaps surprisingly to some, China can still be a model for this – as we can see not only in the reforestation drive but also in slow food initiatives and the continued vitality of local and street food markets. These outcomes are not at all at war with public policy on the macro level: indeed, a healthy postal savings bank system is one factor which enables this kind of environment for small business.
It is not at all an exaggeration to say that China already is and must be our most important partner to engage with on the topics of conservation and œcological protection, followed by India, Southeastern Europe and Russia – in that order. For both of these reasons, a Sanderista foreign policy that prioritises international coöperation on climate change even with gæopolitical rivals, is to be qualitatively preferred above Warren’s more business-centric, competition-oriented œconomic plan bolstered with national-greatness rhetoric. (This is, of course, to say nothing of the incumbent’s blundering trade policies.) The Chinese government has already furnished us with the means and the benchmarks by which we ought to hold it accountable; therefore we have to start thinking of China as part, an indispensable part, of the solution, and not merely an obstacle to œcological survival. As for China herself, let us hope that the great nation is open (as she indeed appears to be) not only to traditionalism in rhetoric but also to her own venerable voices of œcological wisdom.
「夏后氏以松，殷人以柏，周人以栗，曰使民戰栗。」
The Xia sovereign planted the pine tree about them; the men of the Yin planted the cypress; and the men of the Zhou planted the chestnut tree, meaning thereby to cause the people to be in awe.- Zai Wo, Analects 3.21
「斧斤以時入山林，材木不可勝用也。五畝之宅，樹之以桑，五十者可以衣帛矣。」
If the axes and bills enter the hills and forests only at the proper time, the wood will be more than can be used. Let mulberry trees be planted about the homesteads with their five mu, and persons of fifty years may be clothed with silk.- Mencius, 1.3
「牛山之木嘗美矣，以其郊於大國也，斧斤伐之，可以為美乎？是其日夜之所息，雨露之所潤，非無萌櫱之生焉，牛羊又從而牧之，是以若彼濯濯也。人見其濯濯也，以為未嘗有材焉，此豈山之性也哉？」
The trees of the Niu mountain were once beautiful. Being situated, however, in the borders of a large State, they were hewn down with axes and bills - and could they retain their beauty? Still through the activity of the vegetative life day and night, and the nourishing influence of the rain and dew, they were not without buds and sprouts springing forth, but then came the cattle and goats and browsed upon them. To these things is owing the bare and stripped appearance of the mountain, and when people now see it, they think it was never finely wooded. But is this the nature of the mountain?- Mencius, 11.8
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