China can become one of the world’s biggest green innovators
- Reforming trade plan could make Beijing a global environment champion
Seven years ago, in 2012, when China announced it wanted to build an ecological civilisation, it was hard to take it seriously.
The concept sounded good, but it was too much to hope for from the world’s biggest polluter. A year later, China launched the “Belt and Road Initiative” and, ever since, all eyes have turned in that direction.
As billions of dollars have started to pour into a plethora of eye-catching belt and road projects, many of which had nothing to do with the original purpose of restoring the old Silk Road, criticism has hit the project from all directions.
Growing increasingly sensitive, President Xi Jinping has made a recent timid attempt to define what kind of investments are welcomed under the belt and road umbrella. Has China identified an opportunity to give its belt and road a new identity? I believe it did.
As the environmental crisis is deepening, China’s 2012 “ecological civilisation” idea is ready to be brought back to the table, this time in the form of a green belt and road.
Rather than focusing on policies and investments that would create similar environmental issues in belt and road countries as the ones China is now facing – from urban smog, to rivers flooded with toxic contaminants – China and its partner countries could explore the opportunities for joint environmental action.
For the first time, China has the chance to start on an equal footing with its Western competitors, as nobody has yet found a comprehensive solution to all the environmental problems of our planet.
The idea of a green belt and road had been articulated before, in a speech held by Xi in Beijing in May 2017, but nothing came of it – it remained just a catchy, but empty, slogan. The pattern of Chinese investments shows that China wasn’t truly willing, at that time, to commit to the sustainable development goal.
Things can take a distinct turn, however, if China decides to embrace the ecological cause as its core foreign policy instrument, promoting itself as a “green superpower”.
If China could dominate the green industries of the future, this can bring huge economic gains, as well as boost its soft power by winning over the younger generations that are increasingly worried about environmental issues.
China would also fulfil a moral duty towards the environment, since its rapid industrial development in the ‘90s and 2000s has significantly contributed to worsening the climate change phenomenon.
The lack of political will in addressing environmental issues has affected hundreds of millions of people throughout the world over the past decades.
Over time, China has also suffered greatly from overexploiting its own resources, creating an unprecedented environmental crisis at home.
By reforming the belt and road into a green initiative, China can show the global community that it has learned its lesson and that it is ready to change its destiny from being the world’s greatest polluter, to becoming one of the world’s biggest green innovators.
Andreea Leonte is Fellow for China Studies at the Romanian Institute for the Study of the Asia-Pacific (RISAP).
