View of a section of the 1300 km long Karakoram highway, jointly built by China and Pakistan
Media
A carbon-neutral China by 2060 is more than just an aspiration
China’s target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 might at first sight seem extraordinarily – perhaps ludicrously – ambitious, given the country’s status as the world’s biggest emitter of CO2, a by-product of the vast industrial complex which is the foundation of the country’s fast-track economic success.
Top US asset manager Vanguard Group sells stakes in Chinese firms sanctioned by U.S.
Top mutual fund firm Vanguard Group has sold its stakes in certain Chinese securities to comply with a United States ban on Americans from investing in companies it deems to have links with China’s military.
China’s Second-generation Ethnic Policies Are Already Here
What China’s History of Paper Genocide Can Tell Us about the Future of Its ‘Minority Nationalities’
If China no longer wants to be the world’s factory, who will take its place?
China’s transformation into the world’s manufacturing powerhouse has been remarkable. When it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, it was a minor player on the global manufacturing stage. But after years of reforming its economy around producing goods for export, its formal entrance to the WTO helped its output soar. In the years since, it has offered itself up as the world’s low-cost factory, making labor-intensive products such as textiles, toys, clothes, footwear, and furniture for companies, and ultimately consumers, around the globe.
China to build overseas iron ore mines to ensure supply, boost pricing power
China aims to build one or two globally significant overseas iron ore mines by 2025 to boost supply of the steelmaking ingredient and strengthen its pricing power, the industry ministry said on Thursday.
China’s Belt and Road: Down but not Out
Recent Boston University (BU) research showing a sharp drop in Chinese overseas policy bank lending has fueled speculation that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) may be fading away. The slowdown in BRI activity is real: in previous research, we showed that China’s outbound lending has been in decline since 2016 (see Booster or Brake). Beyond the BU numbers, weak economic conditions and debt pressure in several recipient states suggests that lending will have slowed to new lows in 2020. However, we suspect the 2019 slowdown was not as dramatic as the BU numbers indicate. And the numbers do not reflect the changes underway in China’s ambitious initiative.
Making State-Owned Enterprises Work for Climate in China and Beyond
Across power, industry and transport, State-Owned Enterprises emit in the aggregate over 6.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, which is more than any other country except China. By Philippe Benoit and Alex Clark
China’s 2060 carbon neutrality target: opportunities and challenges
Meeting the target could improve public health, spark technological innovation and create new economic opportunities, writes Ryna Cui
COVID-19: The turning point for coal in Southeast Asia?
Global demand for coal—one of the world’s biggest and dirtiest sources of energy—is expected to fall by 8 percent this year—a drop that has not been seen since World War II. In Southeast Asia, the buds of a green energy transition have yet to bloom, but the pandemic is accelerating the region’s move away from coal. Has COVID-19 shown coal the way out?
The China Development Bank’s Debt Deferral in Zambia is a Good Start, But It’s Not Enough
The China Development Bank’s (CDB) announcement yesterday that it will allow Zambia to push back an interest payment that was due last Sunday to next April was an unexpected development. After all, we haven’t seen China’s powerful policy banks publicly demonstrate this kind of flexibility in their dealings with African borrowers. So, we should commend this development in the hope that it’ll encourage them to be even more forthcoming in the future. But, let’s not overstate the issue either.