Burried Bill and Worsening US-China relations

Last Thursday, Senate Democrats abandoned the effort to pass an energy/climate bill. In the current political climate, the Democrats neither have the will nor the capacity to see through such a bill, though they barely got the health care and financial reform passed. Such failure has deeper international impact, particularly US-China relations.

When Obama began his presidency, one of the pillar of his administration's China policy was climate cooperation. Since both trade and energy secretaries are Chinese Americans, US government has much better chance of improving relations with China on climate change and clean energy fronts. However, the Great Recession reversed the trend towards better relations. Though initial coordination on stimulus measures marked a good star, things soon worsened due to the constrained domestic political and economic conditions. Both countries need to make tough decisions to save the economy, particularly the job market. The economic imperative overwhelmed and re-prioritized the climate issue and the confrontational tone rapidly diminished cooperative prospect.

Since the new foundation was not established, the old habit catches up. Cold War thinking and changing geopolitical scale (NK) tend to create more tensions than China and US could ameliorate (TW).

Now, the climate bill is temp dead, the force pushing for change is severely challenged at a time when global warming is the most conspicuous. Also, exchange rate, trade surplus, Tibet, south China sea etc. are piling up to weight on the ties between the two countries. It's hard not to imagine the worse case scenario. China's economic growth will inevitably slow down in the near future, and America's long term structural change is no where near complete. So turbulence will be constant and risk management never be more important than now.

US and China must find a mutually trustful ground and no other is better than future oriented energy and climate cooperation. To make that work, China needs to find a way to invest in the US market, jump-start the life-style change as well as consumption of clean product. And the US will have to stop making China the scapegoat of its own economic problems and make compromises on the terms of emission and tech transfers. Only working together on peaceful and mutually beneficial projects, can we build trust and eliminate the risk of conflict.