Hong Kong will hold district council elections on December 10. If you, dear readers, don’t care about this announcement, you are like most of the city’s residents. They clearly have no intention of taking part in a game in which they are expected to play the role of responsible citizens, while dozens of the city’s pro-democracy leaders are currently on trial in Hong Kong courts for their political beliefs.
The expected voter turnout is so low that the city’s government should refrain from presenting the procedure as people’s self-determination. Because what is being sold as a free election is pure fraud. Voters can only elect one in five representatives at all. Beijing’s officials appoint the rest, writes Joern Petring.
In our second analysis today, Nico Beckert looks at the strengths and weaknesses of China’s climate policy. Reports suggest that China will most likely reach its emissions peak earlier than planned. However, given China’s global investments in coal-fired power plants, lack of energy efficiency and excessive industrial energy consumption, achieving the agreed 1.5 or 2-degree target will remain a battle against windmills.
Be it on building fronts, lampposts and other available surfaces – the government’s election appeals can be seen everywhere in Hong Kong these days. It is about the upcoming district council election on December 10. It almost seems the administration is worried that the local election could be a flop.
In reality, it is a relatively unimportant ballot. Every four years, Hongkongers can elect their so-called district councilors. These do not have much political influence. The councils do not have the power to pass laws or make their own decisions. They merely advise the government and suggest how to improve the quality of life in the districts.
And yet, this year’s election is likely to be closely watched. After all, the Hong Kong leadership and, indirectly, Beijing suffered a significant blow in the last election in November 2019. Almost all seats went to pro-democracy parties at the height of the pro-democracy protests. The pro-government camp was almost completely voted out – with a record voter turnout of more than 70 percent. At that time, several hundred-meter queues often formed in front of the polling stations.
However, just as mercilessly as the government suppressed the protests a short time later by introducing the strict Security Act, it also dealt with the opposition district councilors. Many of them resigned in protest or out of intimidation. And the opposition is not even allowed to run again in this election. No candidate from the pro-democracy camp has received permission.
Moreover, the rules have been changed so drastically that it is hard to speak of a democratic election. The changes include a drastic reduction in the proportion of directly elected seats from around 90 percent to just 20 percent. This means that decades of progress have been undone. The percentage is now even lower than in the 1980s under British rule. Most of the 470 seats are now appointed directly by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong or members of pro-government committees. Only “patriots” are allowed to run for office.
John Burns, honorary professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, sees the new voting system critically. “Hong Kong has never been a democracy,” he told the AP news. “The changes do, however, roll back political participation, which could further undermine Hong Kong people’s support for the government.” Kenneth Chan of Hong Kong Baptist University predicts that the district councils could become “mere echo chambers” for the administration.
Government Chief Executive John Lee is unwaveringly campaigning for participation. “We have been doing all we can to [encourage] people to come out to vote,” he said Tuesday. But many Hongkongers seem to have long since given up. They don’t want to hear about the election. A look around the city confirms this. Election campaigners and their teams can often be spotted trying to hand out flyers with their campaign messages. But people simply keep on walking, conversations rarely happen. The Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post has a clear diagnosis for the city: “Political apathy” dominates Hong Kong.
China will most likely reach its emissions peak sooner than planned. Some forecasts suggest that the world’s biggest polluter will exceed its carbon dioxide emissions peak as early as this year. However, if the internationally agreed 1.5 or 2-degree target is to be achieved, emissions would have to fall very quickly after. But this presents the country with significant challenges.
Yet the People’s Republic continues to lay the foundations for a new growth model. While the infrastructure and construction boom was the biggest growth driver for a long time, Beijing now focuses on green technologies. “China’s economic growth model shifted with real estate construction plummeting and clean energy manufacturing and deployment becoming a key economic driver,” a recent study by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the Heinrich Boell Foundation states.
Almost a quarter of all investments were made by manufacturers and installers of EVs, solar and wind power systems, battery storage systems and other green technologies. Without this sector, China would not have seen any growth in investment at all.
The industrial policy goal of “becoming the technology and market leader in the core technologies of the 21st century” has once again amplified China’s renewables boom in 2023. More than 200 gigawatts of new solar energy capacity will be installed this year. In the previous record year of 2022, it was 87 GW.
In 2023, electricity generation from renewable sources grew faster than electricity demand for the first time. If growth is maintained, renewables could force coal and gas out of the grids in the coming years, reducing emissions from the electricity sector.
However, even this unprecedented expansion of renewables may not be enough to reduce emissions fast enough. After all, renewables not only have to push the currently dominant coal-fired electricity out of the grid. They also have to cover the growing electricity demand resulting from the electrification of industry, transport and the heating sector. A scenario by Tsinghua University shows just how great the challenge is. It predicts that between 2020 and 2050, electricity demand will almost double to 14,270 terawatt hours.
As positive as the investments in green technologies are: China’s economy continues to rely too heavily on fossil-based industries. The study authors emphasize that demand for steel and cement has fallen in recent years. Emissions from the cement sector have even fallen so much that they are on a 1.5-degree-compatible path. Direct coal consumption in the industrial sector has also fallen “fairly quickly.”
However, energy demand has recently increased in the iron, steel, and (petro)chemical sectors. And some of this demand is still being met directly by industrial coal-fired power plants. In short, while the industry no longer consumes as much coal directly, it remains too high due to higher electricity demand.
The result: China risks missing its target of reducing energy intensity by a further 13.5 percent from 2020 to 2025. Beijing has committed itself to this goal under the Paris Agreement. According to study co-author Lauri Myllyvirta, the potential of technical energy efficiency in the industrial sector has largely been exhausted. The goal of reducing the carbon intensity of growth is also likely to be missed.
Like renewables, EVs have also seen tremendous growth. The share of EVs in total production has increased from 5 percent in 2019 to 30 percent between September 2022 and August 2023. As a result, EVs are contributing to achieving the 1.5-degree target, as the authors of the study note.
However, the transport sector as a whole still consumes too much oil. Despite the nationwide lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, the sector’s oil consumption has continued to rise on average over the past five years. The authors warn that freight transport, in particular, needs to be decarbonized faster. But electrification of freight transport is still “in its infancy.”
The general trend is also still pointing in the wrong direction in the building sector. Much less coal has been used for heating in recent years, which has reduced direct emissions from the building sector. However, indirect emissions – from electric heating and the increased use of air conditioning during summer heatwaves – have risen sharply. In addition, the energy efficiency of existing buildings needs to be improved, which is “challenging,” emphasizes Myllyvirta.
China is in the midst of a major transformation. In order to meet national and global climate targets, the growth of the heavy industry and construction industry, which are based on cheap coal, must be replaced by a green economy. The key question for success will be whether more renewables can be added to the grid quickly enough and whether coal can be pushed back faster.
But accomplishing this mammoth task will not be enough. As more and more sectors are electrified and electricity demand massively increases, the economy’s energy efficiency must continue to improve. In the short term, China’s emissions appear on the right track with the predicted peak. However, more efforts are needed to achieve the national and global climate targets.
On October 18, it was the turn of the Japanese company Astellas Pharma: Chinese authorities arrested one of its executives on espionage charges. The US consulting firms Mintz, Bain and Capvision have already had similar experiences. The list of companies affected is sure to grow even longer.
Like the sword of Damocles, the new anti-espionage law introduced in July 2023 is bound to prevent anyone on Chinese soil from doing business there. Some will even leave the country, like the investment funds Vanguard and Sequoia or the law firm Denton.
On the other hand, China is more dependent than ever on foreign capital and technology. The hoped-for economic upturn after the end of zero Covid has largely failed to materialize, and the real estate crisis, youth unemployment and declining exports have severely shaken domestic consumption.
Although Beijing frequently announces good intentions to attract foreign investors, such as the guidelines “on further optimizing the foreign investment environment and intensifying efforts to attract foreign investment” published in August.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission’s promise to create a practical and friendly environment for cross-border investment is along the same lines. The CSRC made this statement on November 15, the day President Xi invited over 400 heads of US companies to a dinner in San Francisco after his summit with Joe Biden.
It is likely that the crisis of confidence triggered by Beijing’s new anti-espionage legislation will linger for a long time to come and that Beijing’s official proclamations will no longer be able to reassure foreign companies, of which more and more perceive the Chinese market as increasingly risky.
For those who still harbor illusions and are not thinking of changing their positions on the Chinese market, Beijing has recently announced the planned revision of China’s state secrets law at the end of October, which will further tighten the anti-espionage law. It is as if the narrative of its alleged power alone would be enough to keep foreign investors, whether opportunistic or cynical, dancing with the communist dragon.
Isabelle Feng, a scientific associate at the Perelman Centre for the Philosophy of Law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, is also a collaborator with the Paris-based thinktank Asia Centre and a member of the expert team of the China Horizons project funded by the European Research Executive Agency.
In foreign media reporting on China’s anti-espionage law, the following two assumptions seem to dominate: First, the law contains a significantly expanded definition of espionage. Second, the law is being enforced more and more frequently, especially against foreign companies. From a legal perspective, neither of these assumptions can be confirmed.
The attention paid to the anti-espionage law overshadows several other laws China has enacted since 2014, which are of far greater practical importance to foreign companies. These laws include, among others, the Cybersecurity Law, the Data Security Law and the Personal Information Protection Law.
The anti-espionage law now partially overlaps with these laws, as the 2023 version has included the term “data.” Interpreting the term “data” broadly from a national security perspective inevitably creates uncertainty for foreign companies. However, this has not only been the case since the 2023 version of the anti-espionage law.
Kai Kim is a partner at the law firm Taylor Wessing in Shanghai.
The two opinion pieces are part of the “Global China Conversations” event series by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). On Thursday, November 30, 2023 (11:00 a.m. CET), Markus Herrmann and Nadine Godehardt (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) will discuss the topic: “The Chinese Anti-espionage Law: What Risks for Companies and the Scientific Community?” China.table is media partner of the event series.
Would you have recognized it at first glance? Two daring ice swimmers enjoy the wonderful refreshment in the swimming pond of Beiling Park in Shenyang’s sub-zero temperatures. Temperatures in Liaoning’s provincial capital are dropping to 13 degrees below zero these days. It is just a foretaste of the months ahead in north-east China, when the thermometer regularly plummets to minus 20 or even minus 30 degrees.
Hong Kong will hold district council elections on December 10. If you, dear readers, don’t care about this announcement, you are like most of the city’s residents. They clearly have no intention of taking part in a game in which they are expected to play the role of responsible citizens, while dozens of the city’s pro-democracy leaders are currently on trial in Hong Kong courts for their political beliefs.
The expected voter turnout is so low that the city’s government should refrain from presenting the procedure as people’s self-determination. Because what is being sold as a free election is pure fraud. Voters can only elect one in five representatives at all. Beijing’s officials appoint the rest, writes Joern Petring.
In our second analysis today, Nico Beckert looks at the strengths and weaknesses of China’s climate policy. Reports suggest that China will most likely reach its emissions peak earlier than planned. However, given China’s global investments in coal-fired power plants, lack of energy efficiency and excessive industrial energy consumption, achieving the agreed 1.5 or 2-degree target will remain a battle against windmills.
Be it on building fronts, lampposts and other available surfaces – the government’s election appeals can be seen everywhere in Hong Kong these days. It is about the upcoming district council election on December 10. It almost seems the administration is worried that the local election could be a flop.
In reality, it is a relatively unimportant ballot. Every four years, Hongkongers can elect their so-called district councilors. These do not have much political influence. The councils do not have the power to pass laws or make their own decisions. They merely advise the government and suggest how to improve the quality of life in the districts.
And yet, this year’s election is likely to be closely watched. After all, the Hong Kong leadership and, indirectly, Beijing suffered a significant blow in the last election in November 2019. Almost all seats went to pro-democracy parties at the height of the pro-democracy protests. The pro-government camp was almost completely voted out – with a record voter turnout of more than 70 percent. At that time, several hundred-meter queues often formed in front of the polling stations.
However, just as mercilessly as the government suppressed the protests a short time later by introducing the strict Security Act, it also dealt with the opposition district councilors. Many of them resigned in protest or out of intimidation. And the opposition is not even allowed to run again in this election. No candidate from the pro-democracy camp has received permission.
Moreover, the rules have been changed so drastically that it is hard to speak of a democratic election. The changes include a drastic reduction in the proportion of directly elected seats from around 90 percent to just 20 percent. This means that decades of progress have been undone. The percentage is now even lower than in the 1980s under British rule. Most of the 470 seats are now appointed directly by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong or members of pro-government committees. Only “patriots” are allowed to run for office.
John Burns, honorary professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, sees the new voting system critically. “Hong Kong has never been a democracy,” he told the AP news. “The changes do, however, roll back political participation, which could further undermine Hong Kong people’s support for the government.” Kenneth Chan of Hong Kong Baptist University predicts that the district councils could become “mere echo chambers” for the administration.
Government Chief Executive John Lee is unwaveringly campaigning for participation. “We have been doing all we can to [encourage] people to come out to vote,” he said Tuesday. But many Hongkongers seem to have long since given up. They don’t want to hear about the election. A look around the city confirms this. Election campaigners and their teams can often be spotted trying to hand out flyers with their campaign messages. But people simply keep on walking, conversations rarely happen. The Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post has a clear diagnosis for the city: “Political apathy” dominates Hong Kong.
China will most likely reach its emissions peak sooner than planned. Some forecasts suggest that the world’s biggest polluter will exceed its carbon dioxide emissions peak as early as this year. However, if the internationally agreed 1.5 or 2-degree target is to be achieved, emissions would have to fall very quickly after. But this presents the country with significant challenges.
Yet the People’s Republic continues to lay the foundations for a new growth model. While the infrastructure and construction boom was the biggest growth driver for a long time, Beijing now focuses on green technologies. “China’s economic growth model shifted with real estate construction plummeting and clean energy manufacturing and deployment becoming a key economic driver,” a recent study by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the Heinrich Boell Foundation states.
Almost a quarter of all investments were made by manufacturers and installers of EVs, solar and wind power systems, battery storage systems and other green technologies. Without this sector, China would not have seen any growth in investment at all.
The industrial policy goal of “becoming the technology and market leader in the core technologies of the 21st century” has once again amplified China’s renewables boom in 2023. More than 200 gigawatts of new solar energy capacity will be installed this year. In the previous record year of 2022, it was 87 GW.
In 2023, electricity generation from renewable sources grew faster than electricity demand for the first time. If growth is maintained, renewables could force coal and gas out of the grids in the coming years, reducing emissions from the electricity sector.
However, even this unprecedented expansion of renewables may not be enough to reduce emissions fast enough. After all, renewables not only have to push the currently dominant coal-fired electricity out of the grid. They also have to cover the growing electricity demand resulting from the electrification of industry, transport and the heating sector. A scenario by Tsinghua University shows just how great the challenge is. It predicts that between 2020 and 2050, electricity demand will almost double to 14,270 terawatt hours.
As positive as the investments in green technologies are: China’s economy continues to rely too heavily on fossil-based industries. The study authors emphasize that demand for steel and cement has fallen in recent years. Emissions from the cement sector have even fallen so much that they are on a 1.5-degree-compatible path. Direct coal consumption in the industrial sector has also fallen “fairly quickly.”
However, energy demand has recently increased in the iron, steel, and (petro)chemical sectors. And some of this demand is still being met directly by industrial coal-fired power plants. In short, while the industry no longer consumes as much coal directly, it remains too high due to higher electricity demand.
The result: China risks missing its target of reducing energy intensity by a further 13.5 percent from 2020 to 2025. Beijing has committed itself to this goal under the Paris Agreement. According to study co-author Lauri Myllyvirta, the potential of technical energy efficiency in the industrial sector has largely been exhausted. The goal of reducing the carbon intensity of growth is also likely to be missed.
Like renewables, EVs have also seen tremendous growth. The share of EVs in total production has increased from 5 percent in 2019 to 30 percent between September 2022 and August 2023. As a result, EVs are contributing to achieving the 1.5-degree target, as the authors of the study note.
However, the transport sector as a whole still consumes too much oil. Despite the nationwide lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, the sector’s oil consumption has continued to rise on average over the past five years. The authors warn that freight transport, in particular, needs to be decarbonized faster. But electrification of freight transport is still “in its infancy.”
The general trend is also still pointing in the wrong direction in the building sector. Much less coal has been used for heating in recent years, which has reduced direct emissions from the building sector. However, indirect emissions – from electric heating and the increased use of air conditioning during summer heatwaves – have risen sharply. In addition, the energy efficiency of existing buildings needs to be improved, which is “challenging,” emphasizes Myllyvirta.
China is in the midst of a major transformation. In order to meet national and global climate targets, the growth of the heavy industry and construction industry, which are based on cheap coal, must be replaced by a green economy. The key question for success will be whether more renewables can be added to the grid quickly enough and whether coal can be pushed back faster.
But accomplishing this mammoth task will not be enough. As more and more sectors are electrified and electricity demand massively increases, the economy’s energy efficiency must continue to improve. In the short term, China’s emissions appear on the right track with the predicted peak. However, more efforts are needed to achieve the national and global climate targets.
On October 18, it was the turn of the Japanese company Astellas Pharma: Chinese authorities arrested one of its executives on espionage charges. The US consulting firms Mintz, Bain and Capvision have already had similar experiences. The list of companies affected is sure to grow even longer.
Like the sword of Damocles, the new anti-espionage law introduced in July 2023 is bound to prevent anyone on Chinese soil from doing business there. Some will even leave the country, like the investment funds Vanguard and Sequoia or the law firm Denton.
On the other hand, China is more dependent than ever on foreign capital and technology. The hoped-for economic upturn after the end of zero Covid has largely failed to materialize, and the real estate crisis, youth unemployment and declining exports have severely shaken domestic consumption.
Although Beijing frequently announces good intentions to attract foreign investors, such as the guidelines “on further optimizing the foreign investment environment and intensifying efforts to attract foreign investment” published in August.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission’s promise to create a practical and friendly environment for cross-border investment is along the same lines. The CSRC made this statement on November 15, the day President Xi invited over 400 heads of US companies to a dinner in San Francisco after his summit with Joe Biden.
It is likely that the crisis of confidence triggered by Beijing’s new anti-espionage legislation will linger for a long time to come and that Beijing’s official proclamations will no longer be able to reassure foreign companies, of which more and more perceive the Chinese market as increasingly risky.
For those who still harbor illusions and are not thinking of changing their positions on the Chinese market, Beijing has recently announced the planned revision of China’s state secrets law at the end of October, which will further tighten the anti-espionage law. It is as if the narrative of its alleged power alone would be enough to keep foreign investors, whether opportunistic or cynical, dancing with the communist dragon.
Isabelle Feng, a scientific associate at the Perelman Centre for the Philosophy of Law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, is also a collaborator with the Paris-based thinktank Asia Centre and a member of the expert team of the China Horizons project funded by the European Research Executive Agency.
In foreign media reporting on China’s anti-espionage law, the following two assumptions seem to dominate: First, the law contains a significantly expanded definition of espionage. Second, the law is being enforced more and more frequently, especially against foreign companies. From a legal perspective, neither of these assumptions can be confirmed.
The attention paid to the anti-espionage law overshadows several other laws China has enacted since 2014, which are of far greater practical importance to foreign companies. These laws include, among others, the Cybersecurity Law, the Data Security Law and the Personal Information Protection Law.
The anti-espionage law now partially overlaps with these laws, as the 2023 version has included the term “data.” Interpreting the term “data” broadly from a national security perspective inevitably creates uncertainty for foreign companies. However, this has not only been the case since the 2023 version of the anti-espionage law.
Kai Kim is a partner at the law firm Taylor Wessing in Shanghai.
The two opinion pieces are part of the “Global China Conversations” event series by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). On Thursday, November 30, 2023 (11:00 a.m. CET), Markus Herrmann and Nadine Godehardt (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) will discuss the topic: “The Chinese Anti-espionage Law: What Risks for Companies and the Scientific Community?” China.table is media partner of the event series.
Would you have recognized it at first glance? Two daring ice swimmers enjoy the wonderful refreshment in the swimming pond of Beiling Park in Shenyang’s sub-zero temperatures. Temperatures in Liaoning’s provincial capital are dropping to 13 degrees below zero these days. It is just a foretaste of the months ahead in north-east China, when the thermometer regularly plummets to minus 20 or even minus 30 degrees.
