In this episode we hear some perspectives and information to understand China's role in green house gases, its relationship with Taiwan, and what it did and didn't do at the beginning of the COVID crisis.
Episode 041 – China: Pollution, Taiwan, and COVID.
Penny: Welcome to a second episode on Understanding China. In our first episode, number 40. Chinese language and culture expert Professor Larry Herzberg shared important facts and perspectives to help understand China today. In this episode, Understanding China Part two, we continue the conversation with Larry Herzberg, exploring the issues of pollution in China, Taiwan and the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.
Welcome to the Diversity and Inclusion for All project, supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Together, we'll listen to key perspective, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
The first issue that I think a lot of people kind of associate with China is that they are environmentally unfriendly or unconcerned, that they're polluters or they have a lot of polluted cities. And I'm wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the current state of China in terms of pollution and environmental policies?
Larry: Absolutely. We see in the West alarming pictures of the pollution in cities like Beijing and elsewhere in China. And of course, it's because China has industrialized so very quickly in trying to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, which they have successfully done, but often at the expense of the environment. However, Xi Jinping, the president of China and others in the central party are scientists and they're well aware of that threat to the environment. After all, they live in Beijing. They see the pollution, they know the damage it's doing to the health of everyone there, including themselves and their families. So, they are really trying very seriously to reduce carbon emissions.
Now, China produces 30% of the world's carbon emissions, but the U.S. produces 15%. And together the two nations are responsible for 45% of carbon emissions, which lead to not only global warming but global climate change, global weirding. However, it's arguable that China in recent years has done more to try to curtail that than the U.S. And, by the way, China has four and a half times our population. So even though China pollutes a little over twice what we do, as a nation, per capita Americans pollute twice as much as the Chinese. So, we need to take into account our own responsibility for this.
Well, the reason that we see China is so terribly polluted is that China's population in recent years is so much more concentrated in large cities than it is true for the United States population. China has 110 cities with populations over a million. And in Shanghai and Beijing, they have the world's third and sixth most populous cities with populations of 25 million and beyond. New York City, our only metropolis, only has a little under 10 million, and the United States only has ten cities with populations of over a million. But again, China with 110 cities, the pollution is so much more concentrated. What the Chinese government has tried to do in recent years is to have a really strong environmental policy, which they announced very publicly a war against pollution. And they have reduced the pollution in most of their major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and so on, by 36% on average just in the last four or five years. And they have made great strides in producing electric cars. They have a lot more companies producing electric cars than we do in the United States. And they are investing hugely in solar power and wind power, more than the rest of the world combined. Nevertheless, because their economy has been growing so fast, they still need to use way too much coal to produce energy. But they are trying to rely on coal less and less and on renewables more and more.
One myth that we in the West have, and especially in the U.S., the pollution in China is that China has the most polluted cities of any in the world, but China is far from being the most polluted country in the world. In fact, it's only the 13th most polluted country. I mean, that's bad enough out of 190 some countries in the world, but ten of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India.
Penny: It is true that in the past those pictures or the images in the new stories that we heard where China is depicted as having really polluted cities and disregard for environmental concerns, it's fair to say that some of those were fair reporting, but that a lot of progress has been made, especially you said like maybe even in the last five years in terms of cleaning up the cities that are most polluted and making strides in alternative energies.
Larry: That is absolutely true. And I should really point out that China has paid a huge environmental price by being the factory for the world for the last four decades, making goods for Americans and Europeans and so on, so that we can get cheaper goods at Wal-Mart and Meijer and elsewhere. And so American companies outsourcing their production of so many things to China with Chinese workers, have been polluting the Chinese air and soil and water, not cleaning it up, not paying anything for that environmental damage. We need to take responsibility for that and realize that so much of China's pollution is due to American companies but other European companies, Japanese companies producing goods in China and polluting their country, not ours.
Penny: I think it's a good reminder to me, too, that per capita, as you mentioned, per capita, the United States produces more carbon emissions than China. So, it's a little… like I just have to be a little humble there. And if I'm going to point the finger at China, I also have to realize that I personally and my country is also really contributing hugely to global warming and to environmental issues of today.
So. sometimes in the news we hear about like China creating new islands in the ocean or doing military maneuvers. And, in particular, perhaps we hear in the news things about Taiwan, about how China, you know, is posturing or doing flyovers or kind of threatening Taiwan. And I know that there's a lot of history here that we don't have time to go into. But I think a lot of Americans think, well, Taiwan is kind of …what it wants, it thinks of itself as more independent, as its own country. But China thinks of Taiwan as kind of belonging to China. So, I'm wondering, what's a good way to understand that? Or what are maybe some things that we need to understand about the Taiwanese-Chinese relationship that will help us understand what we hear in the news about China and Taiwan?
Larry: China does have a reasonable argument and claiming that Taiwan is a breakaway province of China. Taiwan is occupied, is inhabited by 23 million people who are largely Chinese people who follow Chinese traditions, speak the Mandarin Chinese language as well as their own local dialect, which is the dialect spoken in the southeast province of Fujian Province, just across the straits. And so imagine if our civil war had not occurred in the middle of the 19th century, but had occurred in the middle of the 20th century as China's civil war did. That went on from 1927 to 1949. And imagine if in our civil war that would have happened at that time and in the early in the middle part of the 20th century, if the losing side in the Civil War --the Confederacy-- had fled to. Rhode Island, except to make it more geographically similar to Taiwan, had fled to Puerto Rico--If Puerto Rico had been a state of the United States --and had set up themselves as the new nation of the United States. A small island with a tiny fraction of the population of the United States, and they claim to be the real United States. That's how China views Taiwan, because that's basically what happened when Chiang Kai-Shek and Guomintang (the party that was a one party totalitarian government which the U.S. supported and ruled China in the 1920s and thirties and forties). When they lost the Civil War, 1 to 2 million of them fled to Taiwan, took it over by military force, and declare themselves the Republic of China.
But now, once China opened themselves up to foreign investment, to capitalism, several million Taiwanese of the 23 million Taiwanese have invested heavily in China. And there are, I may be wrong on this, but I believe there are around a million Taiwanese actually living in southeastern China where they have established successful businesses. So, and now you could travel between the two nations or the two areas.
To China it is just a province of China. And China wants it back. However, the Chinese government is not the government of North Korea. They’re not run by a madman. It is true that Xi Jinping has consolidated his power in the last five years or so in a way that's alarming to those of us that believe in democracy. However, he realizes that to invade Taiwan militarily would create just a terrible, terrible loss for the Chinese. And so they're trying to somehow get Taiwan back and convince them to come back. And back ten years ago, when China was moving, continuing to move more and more toward giving freedom to their people, one-third of Taiwanese actually in a poll said they would be willing to go back to being part of China if they were allowed the same freedoms that the people of Hong Kong were at that time.
So, when the Chinese now are flying planes into a zone near Taiwan and sending a battleship into that area and other ships which looks very threatening and is meant to be, what they're trying to do as they're warning the U.S., which has been arming Taiwan-- continues to --and more and more increasingly has been inviting our diplomats to meet with their diplomats in a way that hadn't been done in decades, as we honor China being the only Chinese nation, it has angered the Chinese and they’re trying to make a statement for the U.S. to butt out, for the U.S. to stay out of the South China Sea. It's not called the South United States Sea or the South “American” Sea. I don't believe that China necessarily has the right to build those military bases in the South China Sea just miles off their coast, by the way, and not the other side of the world from the United States as we try to dominate the world. And they definitely are violating international waters there, which belong to several other Asian nations, and they're rightly protesting. I'm not trying to defend the Chinese government, but from their perspective, what right does the United States have to be in there. What we say: well, we are… everything the United States does is good. And we have the Pax Americana. We provide peace for the world. And we are trying to keep you, China, from invading Taiwan or creating any disturbances. But China has not invaded Taiwan. They're not sending missiles over. And why would they do that? Because, again, their trade with Taiwan has been really beneficial to both Taiwan and to China. And they also know Taiwan is heavily armed and the U.S. has pledged to defend them. So, it would be disastrous for both China and, on the other hand, for Taiwan and the U.S. should there be a war. That would be awful. And, so, I think it's it's wrong of so many people in the U.S. government and other talking heads to say that, oh, I think that the U.S. will go to war with China over Taiwan sometime in the next five years. I pray that's not the case. I doubt very much that the Chinese government would be so foolish as to do that.
Penny: So, I think there are Americans who think Taiwan is its own country, and if they ask for U.S. help, then we need to go and help them maintain independence from China. How do you respond to that? Like should the United States feel that they should help Taiwan maintain independence from China?
Larry: That's such a thorny issue. I think what's important to the Chinese is not that Taiwan immediately go back into the fold to become part of China, and perhaps it never will. And from my perspective, Taiwan in the last 70 years has created their own separate government, their own separate way of doing things, even though they are Chinese, speak the Chinese language and share common culture. And I would like to see the United States still protect Taiwan. But what we mustn't do and what we've started to do under the Trump administration and the Biden administration is continued that is: to make China believe that we will not perpetuate what has allowed this peaceful coexistence between China and Taiwan for the last 70 years. And that is to keep up the pretense that Taiwan is not a separate country and does not get official international recognition as such, because it's really important to China that that never happen. So that hopefully one day in the Chinese mind, mainland Chinese mind, that Taiwan will come back to be part of China. And so. The U.S. is doing everything it can recently to antagonize mainland China by giving too much face to the Taiwanese. We can continue to sell them weapons. We can even continue to pledge to defend them, perhaps. But that …but we need to tread really carefully there and keep up this pretense, if you will, or the status quo that has helped keep the peace for recent decades by saying: no, we only recognize China as a nation and as the Chinese nation. And Taiwan is just something separate.
Penny: So, the situation with Taiwan and China right now is is a really thorny issue. And it feels like we want to honor some of the independence that Taiwan has while not antagonizing China because they are so powerful.
Larry: That's right. It's quite a tightrope to walk and it's a unique situation in the world.
Penny: Wow.
Larry: There's no clear answer for that. There really isn't, Penny. And I think the US Government will continue to struggle with this in the coming years.
Penny: Yeah.
COVID 19, the Corona virus. This is obviously monopolizing our news for the last two years now. It really affects our lives, our everyday lives of every American and especially in the previous administration, there was a lot of related anti-Chinese rhetoric. There are stories that you hear in the news, you know, are they true? I don't know… about how it's all China's fault. Right. That we associate that with Wuhan Province. And, you know, people, especially a year or two ago, were calling it the China flu or the Chinese virus. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit from your perspective, how that has affected people you know, maybe in America or in China, or how to think about China and the coronavirus in helpful ways.
Larry: I think it's important for Americans to realize that, yes, it's true that the Corona virus, this particular COVID 19 strain, did originate in China, first discovered in Wuhan. I think scientists across the world are back to leaning on the explanation that it came from this wet market rather than it came from a lab in Wuhan. It's a total myth that the Chinese would ever have done this deliberately, and that's a terrible conspiracy theory. China has paid a tremendous price, literally and figuratively, by then locking down their country more than any other nation and spending billions and billions of dollars to vaccinate their people and to close the borders, which has hurt them economically greatly to keep them safe… anyway. But yes, it's true that the virus did originate in Wuhan, just as the Spanish flu that killed millions of people worldwide actually originated in the United States. And by the way, is only called the Spanish Flu, because that was the only government that was willing during World War I to talk about the fact that this was a pandemic. In any case, but yes, it's true: the virus originated in Wuhan, and yes, it's true that the local government in Wuhan was too slow in informing their national government, let alone the world, that this was occurring. So there were a two, there was a two or three week delay in that. And why? Because in a totalitarian government, this is one of the prices that China pays by having an authoritarian government: the local government officials were afraid of what the national government officials would say about how they were dealing with it and that this was a problem. So, but when the Chinese national government found out about it and this was in January of last year, before there were any cases or maybe just a few cases in the United States, the Chinese scientists did sequence the genome and did share that with the world scientist. And in early February, on a phone call between the Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Penny: So this is 2021 right now.
Larry: This is 2020 to make that clear, February 2020.
Penny: That's right.
Larry: Early in February 2020, before there were hardly any cases of COVID 19 in the U.S., Trump called President Xi Jinping of China and asked him about it. And President Xi was very honest with him. He said, Mr. Trump, this is a really serious airborne disease, far more serious than the flu, and we need to take this really seriously. And in a taped interview later with the legendary journalist Bob Woodward, Trump admitted that President Xi said this to him. And these tapes have been played, by the way, on national television here in the U.S., not on Fox News, of course, or OAN. But in this taped interview, Trump admits, okay, the president of China told me about this serious virus, but I wanted to downplay it because I didn't want the American public to panic. Well, what he didn't want was to lose an election because the economy would then have to go on partial lockdown, the country would have to go in partial lockdown. And so he terribly mishandled the virus, which has helped lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths in this country, whereas China did take it really seriously and has taken draconian measures that no other country that is democratic would be willing to do. But it needs to be admitted that, yes, the virus came from China. These coronaviruses occur in nature. They all are around. Yes, China should have been more open immediately in sharing this, but they did give us enough time in the U.S. to react. But the Trump administration had not listened to the previous Obama administration in having enough ventilators on hand, enough equipment to handle the infrastructure to handle a health crisis like we had, and dismissing a lot of health officials before this. So… and then in sending out all this misinformation about the the virus. In fact, objective news source, a world news source, claims that 40% of all the disinformation about COVID 19 in the entire world comes from one source, Donald J. Trump. And it's infected our politics so that masking and vaccinations are seen as a political issue. where as they should just be a medical scientific issue. And so when some of our legislators, like Matt Gaetz, call for China to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations to the US, it is totally unfounded to to ask China to do that when most of the deaths, according to Deborah Brooks, by the way, who was Trump's most trusted adviser on COVID 19, according to her, hundreds of thousands of deaths due to COVID 19 in this country could have been prevented if our government had handled the situation better. So, we can't blame China for the mishandling of the virus.
Penny: So, I think it's really important to take away that the corona virus, the COVID 19 virus, did originate in China, but that the Chinese government fairly soon afterwards was quite upfront with the world and saying, hey, there's this virus, it's really serious, take it seriously. And at the Chinese government also, you said, made like the DNA research that they had done on the virus available to everybody.
Larry: They did. Now, we wish that --we in the West -- that the Chinese scientists would be more more open to allow us to know what happened, how the virus did leak out of Wuhan, …what… in Wuhan was it from the wet market or was it an accidental escape of the virus from the lab? But the Chinese don't want to do that because they know how demonized they are in the West, how Western journalists and Western governments, especially the U.S., would go poking around and find things that the Chinese government don't want found uncovered that have nothing to do with the virus. And China does have plenty to hide. But China was upfront about this being a pandemic early enough on so that the US could have prevented most of the deaths that we have from this, if it hadn't been so badly mishandled and made into a political issue by the party in power.
Penny: Yeah. One last question, just about the lab. So, some people think that because there's this high-power virus lab or whatever, right in Wuhan, that kind of begs the question: isn't it related to the fact that there's this lab there that does this work? And other people say, oh, that's just a conspiracy, it's conspiracy theory. A demonization, again, of China that they would do this at all on purpose.. But other people say, well, even if they did it by accident, they're doing this virus work and it's inevitable, and they shouldn't be doing that. How do you respond to that?
Larry: Coronaviruses are found in nature. Bats do transmit it. And world scientists, including Chinese scientists, have been doing work on this for a long time. I don't believe it's only in the lab in Wuhan where they are working on a Corona virus. Nevertheless, the scientists that work there in Wuhan, some of them are highly respected worldwide scientists who did contribute a lot, as I said, to the sequencing of the genome and sharing that, and to suspect that they were so careless as to let it out of the lab, I believe, is only a conspiracy theory. But unfortunately, the Chinese often shoot themselves in the foot, and by not being more open and allowing a clearer examination of what went on in the lab over these last few years, it leads to these thoughts, these suspicions on the part of Americans and other Westerners that it might have leaked from the lab. But to think that it was set deliberately, I mean, that is just absolutely horrible. And and something that would be unthinkable for the Chinese government.
And by the way, China has so much invested in the US and depends so much on the us as their major trading partner, they have no interest in harming us. China has every interest in seeing the US prosper economically. And so they would never want to infect us or any other country. And they deal usually with the European Union too, and with many other countries in the world, and with Africa for that matter. All their investment there.
Penny: All that information just sort of puts China's contribution in a broader context for me. So, thank you.
If you're interested in human rights issues in China or understanding China's so-called one child policy, check out Episode 42 on Human Rights and Episode 43 on family planning policies in China.
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