Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 14, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A7 THINK TANK PERSPECTIVES EDITOR: BRAD OSWALD 204-697-7269 ● BRAD.OSWALD@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 THURSDAY OCTOBER 14, 2021 Ideas, Issues, Insights ANDY WONG / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Chinese President Xi Jinping’s exertion of state control over economic activity has shaken the confidence of global investors. China no longer the ‘sage of nations’ N ATIONS, like people, have reputations, and in both cases there can be gaps between the rep and the reality. China is known as the sage of nations, strategically patient, thinking in terms of centuries while the West flits about like a toddler in a toy store. Current events are forcing a reappraisal, however, as China careens wildly — and very dangerously — from one bad decision to the next. Start with the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian U-turn after a generation in which China’s gradual opening produced extraordinary growth and modernization. Under the power-hun- gry leader Xi Jinping — who is abandoning the term limits honoured by his recent predecessors to hold the reins indefinitely — the CCP is exert- ing state control over economic activity in ways that rattle the confidence of global investors. Aggressive moves to stifle the internet have drained more than US$1 trillion in value from Chinese tech companies this year. In July, the State Department warned U.S. businesses of a souring commercial climate in Hong Kong since Beijing’s crackdown there. Domestically, the CCP is flailing to defuse the demographic time bomb unleashed by the party’s foolhardy decision in 1979 to limit Chinese fami- lies to a single child. A preference for boys has created a nation of bachelors, which thwarts gov- ernment efforts to reverse the damage. Runaway health costs and declining growth are the likely consequences of an aging population. China’s Belt and Road Initiative to create a 21st- century infrastructure for eastern trade looks increasingly like a scheme to saddle weaker part- ners with debt while keeping China’s construction industry occupied. Meanwhile, the unmanageable domestic debt racked up to overbuild infrastruc- ture at home has financial markets around the world quaking. This from a government that continues to oppress the Buddhists of Tibet while forcing Uyghur Muslims into concentration camps. Fear- ful of losing its grip, Xi’s Communist Party has slammed the brakes on an open China and is pull- ing the nation back toward tyranny. China’s problems would be China’s province but for one important fact: Xi appears to be flirting with his worst decision yet, one likely to cause worldwide pain, or worse. In recent days, China has been filling the skies over Taiwan with war- planes, leading Taiwan’s defence minister to warn that Beijing may be preparing to exert control over the breakaway island by force. Defeated by the Communists in a long civil war, the Chinese Nationalist government fled to Taiwan in 1949, and the status of the island has been in dispute ever since. Relatively open and democratic, Taiwan raced ahead of the Com- munist mainland in its economic vitality. But as China appeared to be catching up, many observ- ers believed that a peaceful reunification might lie somewhere in the future. That would be the patient strategy — to let China grow in terms of human rights and economic freedom, thus making Beijing’s “one China” policy palatable. But with Xi and the CCP swinging back in the authoritarian direction, the prospect of a peaceful resolution is receding, replaced by shows of force. The United States is committed to protect- ing Taiwan from invasion. A small number of U.S. military trainers have been dispatched to improve the readiness of Taiwan’s army, and the recent decision in Washington to sell nuclear sub- marines to Australia is a further sign of concern about Beijing’s intentions. The possibility of a shooting war between the world’s leading economies over Taiwan, so unlike- ly before Xi, now cannot be ignored. Though the Chinese leader boasts of his nation’s unstoppable rise, Xi’s swelling record of poor choices suggests that he fears the future and will act impulsively to try to change it. This nation that supposedly thinks in centuries is now issuing sweeping fiats on a seemingly weekly basis. Xi is causing the world to recal- culate the risks of doing business with such an unpredictable nation. The “narrative of China’s inexorable rise can and should be challenged,” analyst Logan Wright of the Rhodium Group wrote with colleagues in 2020. “Growth in China continues to depend upon increasingly inefficient state-led and bank- financed investment… China’s potential growth and productivity growth are slowing. Demo- graphic changes mean a shrinking labour force in the coming decade, and productivity has been hampered by a financial system that continues to keep bloated state-owned enterprises and local government firms afloat.” Xi, 68, won’t last forever. But as long as he is ruler, the United States and its allies must move carefully to limit global exposure to Chinese mismanagement and deploy every tool short of war to deter rash action by China against Taiwan. A whole new way of thinking is required. Western policy has long been shaped by China’s rapid as- cent, but that could be child’s play compared with confronting a China in decline. — The Washington Post Reliability, not razzle-dazzle, needed from next premier THE leadership race for the Progressive Conserv- ative Party of Manitoba is defi nitely not a circus. My distant memories of the circus are fond ones. Circuses were exciting, full of exotic crea- tures, strange costumes, amazing stunts and the effort, at least, to razzle-dazzle the crowd with magic, illusion and spectacle. You get my point. The PC leadership race is any- thing but a circus. It’s not much of a race, either. The PC brain trust must be happy with the shift to boring, predictable and dull, however, after years of impromptu governing that seemed like serial episodes of “Whose gaffe is it anyway?” Acting Premier Kelvin Goertzen epitomizes this new approach to government, which the polls say is working. Yet the current situation reveals two major flaws in the PC party’s structure that threaten its future leadership of the province: First, the leader is not subject to any kind of ongoing performance review or any direction from the party, until after they lose an election. The PCs still believe in the “Great Leader” style of absolute political authority, which Brian Pal- lister, on his watch, repeatedly wielded with more relish than discretion. We will never know what pressure it took (or from whom) to finally get him to take a knee. Second, the “Sell lots of new memberships and you can be leader” approach to replacing Pallister was driven more by fundraising economics than by political wisdom. With the current setup, it was possible for someone to buy, lease or mer- chandise their way into becoming not only party leader, but the next premier of the province. Given how few members are in any political party these days, the low cost of PC memberships and the rise of right-wing extremism around COVID-19 restrictions, this could have created a dangerous situation in which an anti-vaxxer became premier, thanks to a group of friends and a few thousand dollars. While Shelly Glover and Heather Stefanson have been pandering to the PPC-linked, MAGA- themed, anti-mask/vaccination right wing of the Progressive Conservative party to garner votes for their campaigns, I think they both have enough brains to walk back toward the centre if they become premier. After all, too many Manitobans (of all politi- cal stripes) are just too smart and too sensible to put up with that claptrap — which is why most of us are vaccinated already, and continue to wear masks and social distance even when our political health officials waffle about the need to do so. While such provincial concerns are less than trivial in the sweep of world history, Manitoba is a microcosm of the lame and misguided leader- ship elsewhere that is incapable of grappling with the steadily worsening climate crisis. “Lame and misguided” certainly describes the track record of the Pallister government on sustainability issues. On top of regularly scram- bling the departments and personnel responsible for environmental affairs, its Made-in-Manitoba Climate and Green Plan was a waste of elec- trons. The results of multi-sectoral consultations were ignored in favour of a perverse and badly executed online public survey, while the plan itself was long on hot air and replete with enough pointless pillars to fail a first-year architectural design course. The three ministers (in six years) responsible for the various shifting green portfolios learned the hard way that all environmental policy deci- sions were made at the leader’s kitchen table, and ultimately only by him. If environmental NGOs (ENGOs) dared to question the rationale and details of the plan, they were cut off at the knees — the funding knees, that is. I hope that “dull and boring” means the provin- cial government will start to work with ENGOs as partners again, instead of treating them as politi- cal adversaries. No one with a functioning brain (and who can count) goes to work for an ENGO because of the big money, job stability, easy hours and amazing benefits. You are much more likely to find idealistic, passionate and hard-working people who take pride in their community and care for everyone who lives in it — and who put up with their employment conditions because they feel they are doing something important. We need more people like that, of all ages, if we are going to build the kind of resilience into our life here that a climate-changing world will require. If we want a sustainable future for our- selves and our children, we must find new ways of working together. We don’t need to create an occasional climate circus in Manitoba. Instead, we need consistent, ongoing environmental leadership across all sectors — with more collaborators, fewer clowns and no magic tricks, however green. A shrewd and responsible provincial government would set up the tent, invite everyone interested inside, and pay the help but not dictate what happens next. Our next premier needs to be a thoughtful lis- tener who gathers wisdom from everywhere — not a ringmaster, and certainly not a Great Leader. Stay tuned. Peter Denton is an activist, writer and academic, vaccinated and still working from home in rural Manitoba. Brazil’s next election pivotal for climate change BRAZILIANS won’t choose their next presi- dent until October 2022. Neither far-right populist incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro nor his presumed challenger, leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula), have even announced their candida- cies. Yet electoral tensions in Latin America’s regional powerhouse are already exploding. Dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” given his affinity for the former U.S. president, Bolsonaro said in July that he may not accept the 2022 outcome based on claims of potential voter fraud. By August, Bolsonaro went even further by declaring, “I have three alterna- tives for my future: being arrested, killed or victory.” During a Sept. 7 independence day rally in Brazil’s capital, his loyalists encour- aged Bolsonaro to ensure his stay in office by launching a coup and executing opposition supporters by firing squad. The domestic stakes are well apparent — Brazil is suffering the world’s second deadliest COVID-19 outbreak, with more than 600,000 deaths and counting. But Brazil’s next election outcome also matters for the wider world, giv- en it could significantly help or hinder global efforts to rein in runaway climate change. Elected in 2018 with 55 per cent of the vote, Bolsonaro came to office as a law-and-order candidate vowing to stamp out crime and cor- ruption. Instead, his tenure has been marked by legislative power grabs, persecution of op- ponents in the media and civil society, and the disastrous handling of COVID-19, including a procurement scandal in which senior govern- ment officials allegedly profited off vaccines. Polls indicate support for the former army captain has been whittled down to a fervent base comprising about a quarter of the elec- torate — a mix of evangelical Christians, gun owners, ranchers, agribusiness tycoons and conservative economic elites, with the back- ing of Brazil’s military. Internationally, though, Bolsonaro is mostly associated with one thing: rampant destruc- tion of the Amazon. His shredding of environ- mental regulations and defunding of Brazil’s environmental agency has enabled the slash- and-burn of huge tracts of rainforest to boost beef and soybean production and increase access for logging and mining activities. Deforestation in the Amazon hit a 12-year high in 2020, as Bolsonaro’s hands-off approach to enforcement of environmental laws has in es- sence decriminalized the plundering of several immensely biodiverse ecosystems. Evidence of the resulting damage has been dismissed as “lies” — even though it’s so extensive that a study published in March found the Amazon has crossed a tipping point at which it is now emit- ting more carbon dioxide than it is absorbing. Dogged by global outrage and cratering popularity, Bolsonaro has lately tried to reinvent himself as an environmental ally, including during a speech on Sept. 21 to the UN General Assembly. Brazilian soldiers were deployed in July on a two-month mission to root out illegal min- ing activity in the Amazon, while hundreds of conservation officers have been hired in recent months. Firefighting budgets have also been doubled ahead of a wildfire season which, due to ongoing drought and deforesta- tion, experts fear could be among Brazil’s worst in memory. At U.S. President Joe Biden’s climate summit in April, Bolsonaro also pledged Brazil would achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and end ille- gal deforestation of the Amazon within a decade — if only foreign countries will give his govern- ment an additional US$ 10 billion per year. Home to 60 per cent of the world’s largest rainforest, Brazil is uniquely positioned to em- brace the urgently needed and symbolically powerful role of a developing world nation leading efforts to halt deforestation, which is responsible for about one-tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions. But this will never happen under Bolsonaro. If re-elected, Bolsonaro may continue with incremental improvements on his environ- mental actions — but only under the right combination of intense international pressure, scrutiny and financial assistance. His challenger Lula, however, has been has been credited for presiding over the bulk of efforts that led to an 80 per cent decline in deforestation within Brazil between 2005- 2012. A political legend among Brazil’s work- ing class, Lula has his own checkered history and was jailed in 2018 on corruption charges before his conviction was overturned by a supreme court judge in March. Polls since have regularly suggested he would beat Bolsonaro in a head-to-head vote by around 10 per cent. It would be a fitting turn of events next Octo- ber if — 30 years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro first put climate concerns on the global agenda — Brazilians rejected a leader turning the country into an environmen- tal pariah. But if the pandemic has shown any- thing, it’s that a lot can happen in 12 months. Kyle Hiebert is a Winnipeg-based researcher and analyst, and former deputy editor of the Africa Conflict Monitor. DAVID VON DREHLE PETER DENTON KYLE HIEBERT A_07_Oct-14-21_FP_01.indd A7 2021-10-13 5:05 PM ;