Patricia Adams: Western greens are China’s useful idiots

Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army's Honour Guard Battalion wear protective masks as they stand at attention in front of photo of China's president Xi Jinping at their barracks outside the Forbidden City, near Tiananmen Square, in Beijing. PHOTO BY KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES

 

Environmentalists have become the highest-profile cheerleaders for the CCP, helping divert attention from the regime’s worrisome pursuits

The big exceptions to those who have had their eyes opened are Western environmentalists and their funders who, rather than becoming more cautious about China’s role in the world, continue to lavish its environmental efforts with superlatives such as «herculean» and «momentous. The environmental gushing for China is reciprocated by the regime, with Communist Party media organs such as the China Daily dedicating full-page articles to extolling the environmental movement for its positive role in partnering with China. Western environmental organizations enjoy a privileged position in China. While foreign advocacy organizations of almost all stripes, from human rights groups such as Amnesty International to legal aid groups such as Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, are extremely restricted, if not effectively banned in China, the environmental groups are sponsored by a designated state agency or department of the CCP government, as all acceptable NGOs now must be under a 2017 law governing foreign NGOs.

The environmental groups’ embrace of China is understandable. -based foundation, Energy Foundation China, has provided over US$330 million to U. China’s embrace of Western environmentalists is also understandable. To borrow a line attributed to Lenin, the environmentalists are the CCP’s useful idiots. The government not only monitors their activities to ensure their compliance with policy, it also directs the environmentalists’ agenda via its de facto control over their use of funds and even through its staff.

Energy Foundation China, for example, is headed by Ji Zou, a Chinese national with a long career as a senior official in China’s government, including during its climate negotiations for the Paris Agreement. Zou, as a paymaster for the Western environmentalists, decides what projects to fund, thus enabling him to effectively solicit work desired by his former employers in Beijing from the Western environmental organizations, who give the regime their imprimatur of legitimacy. While critics of China’s many malign activities give it a black eye, the environmentalists’ glowing reports about its environmental leadership paint China in a favourable light and put critics on the defensive. In fact, environmentalists have become the highest-profile cheerleaders for the communists, helping divert attention from the regime’s worrisome pursuits.

Chief among these is China’s appropriation of fossil-fuel resources in the South China Sea and elsewhere in pursuit of its goal of displacing the U. As virtually all students of China now appreciate, the West was foolish to trust Communist China to embrace democracy once it had access to Western markets and Western values.

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Source: Patricia Adams | Financial Post