China, Cap and Trade, and Futility

Conn Carroll / March 17, 2009

The Washington Post reports today:

Li Gao, China’s top climate negotiator, said any fair international agreement to curb the gases blamed for global warming would not require China to reduce emissions caused by goods manufactured to meet demand elsewhere.

The idea that China would ever make cuts in carbon emissions a priority has always been a fable. Heritage fellow Derek Scissors explains why:

Behind Chinese policies on competitiveness –indeed behind almost everything involving the PRC–is the Communist Party’s top priority for 20 years and counting: jobs. The well-documented demographic surge that precipitated the one-child policy has put a generation’s worth of pressure on the party to create jobs and avoid socio-political instability. This is the main reason the Chinese development pattern differs from its East Asian predecessors: Beijing has been much more open to foreign investment because the PRC’s primary concern has been employment generation–even more than economic nationalism. (more…)