China And India Will Watch The West Destroy Itself – OpEd

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China and India will allow the west – led by the United States (US) and European Union (EU) – to destroy themselves through dysfunctional, domestic, and continent-wide politics. This isn’t a Donald Trump or EU issue, but electorates having a vague understanding of how societies function, particularly, when it comes to energy.

The “Green New Deal” is evident of that fact, which has no chance of ever working under current technology, taxpayer monies available, and the first “New Deal” was a failure. China and India will allow the US, EU, NATO and their Asian allies to:

“Muddle through endemic crises menacing to its very existence (e.g., economic stagnation, demographic decline, rising unassimilated Islamic populations in many EU democracies, high taxes, mounting debt and the fiscal unsustainability of Western European social democracy)”

Without energy you have nothing. China and India understand this better than the west since their citizenry and leaders view energy through the lens of what will help over two-billion-combined-citizens; join the prosperous, western, consumer-driven world. Most western, environmentally sensitive nations believe fossil fuels are evil. Instead, western countries strive for a renewable energy, carbon-free world. Even if the US were to cut its CO2 emissions, “100 percent it would not make a difference in abating global warming.”

China and India have never bought into that notion of energy, or economies based on supposedly carbon-free renewables that inspire their nations toward a cleaner world. I wish they would, but that isn’t reality. Both countries will continue importing, exporting, and excavating tankers full of coal, oil, and natural gas from countries that are authoritarian, human right abusers such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Iraq, Nigeria, Angola and Algeria.

Furthermore, Chinese and Indian politics, and increasingly Africa, will never allow lack of pipelines, domestic politics, or sensitivity to western environmentalists keep them from first world status enjoyed by the US, EU, and Asian nations like South Korea and Japan.

Naïve-thinking, bordering on western suicide, believes China and India will stop using fossil fuels, led by coal. Each country understands coal is plentiful (“estimated 1.1 trillion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide that at current rates of production will last 150 years”), and it is scalable, reliable, cost-effective to the end user, and has the best energy density of all fossil fuels or renewables available.

China is currently building hundreds of new, coal-fired power plants. To counter China, “India has 589 coal-fired power plants, they are building 446 more, bringing their total to 1,036.” These figures are after both governments signed the Paris Climate Agreement, and touted their green credentials.

Since the US, Russia, China and India have the largest global coal reserves, and each country is vying for geopolitical dominance, they will continue using coal in record amounts. Energy is then a geopolitical weapon. Europe does not understand this fact.

Only Trump seems to have gained clarity on this issue, with the US using their newfound shale oil and natural gas power, to their geopolitical and global advantage. Daily global, media onslaughts, US Democrats, and Never-Trump Republicans constrain Trump at every turn, and facilitate the US’ waning power. China and India sit back and do nothing, knowing the west is too weak to come to the US or Trump’s rescue.

Renewable energy advocates can speak, write and publicly lobby that solar and wind-produced electricity is the same cost, or dropping compared to oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear. This claim is false. Renewables cost more to ratepayers and nations compared to fossil fuels or nuclear.

Without having a basic understanding that every single wind turbine and solar panel is intermittent and has to be continually backed-up by fossil fuels, the west is committing environmental degradation, and putting itself at risk against China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Based on self-interest rightly understood, India will then choose aligning with countries hostile to western interests over environmental concerns.

A great power struggle has broken out between the world’s largest democracy – India – and the world’s largest authoritarian state – China – and whichever country uses the most energy will win Asia for the rest of this century. National security and the competition between them over Asia are at the crutch of why they will watch the west destroy their economies over bad energy policies.

Sure, India and China will use natural gas, nuclear and oil, but coal is where each economy finds its basic energy resource. Horrible for world emissions, air pollution and global health, but how do westerners, the United Nations, and environmental organizations tell both, growing countries they cannot have access to the same energy opportunities and growth the west has now had for over seventy years?

It simply won’t happen; world health organizations, research universities, think tanks, and multinational corporations interested in global longevity and clean air should begin working towards clean coal technology.

All great nations, including China and India, view energy as a domain of power. The west already has their power, but no longer knows how to use it the way it did during the Cold War. Global warming, abortion, gay marriage, and renewables versus fossil fuels have overtaken realism in all facets of government, military strategy, economics and countering the global threats from China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea.

Raw, amoral geopolitics that will grow economies, engage realist strategies, house militaries and feed energy-hungry populations is the new Cold War. Social issues are important, but unless you are talking about the unintended consequences of abortion in the US and China, these issues have no valid correlation within energy geopolitics. Energy and electricity are at the forefront, of which ideological viewpoint, will win the 21st century.

Accessible energy becomes more important than ever, as the competition between China and India heats up. Unless something drastically changes the west will diminish significantly – ushering in the “Asian century” – with China and India biding their time to take over the US-led, liberal order that was created after World War II ended.

Todd Royal

Todd Royal, M.P.P. is the Managing Partner for Energy development, Oil & Gas, and Renewables for Ascendance Strategies, a global threat assessment and political consulting firm that is based in Los Angeles, California

7 thoughts on “China And India Will Watch The West Destroy Itself – OpEd

  • June 21, 2019 at 5:59 pm
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    I can’t believe anyone with an ounce of education can’t see this

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    • July 10, 2019 at 5:51 pm
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      The problem is that so many institutions of learning have been turned into Leftist propaganda mills.

      Reply
  • July 10, 2019 at 8:03 pm
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    This otherwise excellent article forgets, however, that India and China sell huge quantities of goods and merchandise to the West.

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  • July 11, 2019 at 12:33 am
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    It’s the whole agenda of Climate Change, and the Leftist social studies-type courses in Western universities; destroy the West. It seems to be working. I despair of the whole Western world, no country seems to be coping with this war on us.

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  • July 11, 2019 at 5:39 am
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    Mr. Royal- Thank you, thank you, thank you for this wonderful article. I loved it. Kudos, Kudos, Kudos.

    The average citizen, subjected to the unending green propaganda of MSM, thinks the world is “transitioning to a green economy” and “moving away from coal” because its use in the US and Europe has been so demonized and so punished by regulations. However, it is truly fake news that the world is moving away from coal. The MSM, truly the Lame Street Media, is obsessed with virtue signaling and “doing the right thing for the planet”, social justice, and victimization, while the big issues aren’t even addressed and the rest of the world truly ignores the MSM’s “politically correct narrative”. The modern world functions by feeding on machine calories… the costs of those machine calories are a basic fundamental input to the ecoonomy which either gives a country a competitive advantage or a competitive disadvantage.

    Everywhere that Green Energy has gone— Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Canada, Australia — it has increased energy prices. There is not a single example, ANYWHERE in the world, where Green Energy has reduced energy prices— despite the fraudulent, unceasing, mantra that Wind and Solar are cheaper than hydrocarbon fuels.

    We, in the West, think we are wealthy enough, technologically advanced enough, and secure enough in our present prosperity, to be foolish with our resources and talents and fundamentally handicap our societies’ productivity with higher energy costs compared with the rest of the world.

    I have one small quibble: The sentence which reads:

    This isn’t a Donald Trump or EU issue, but electorates having a vague understanding of how societies function, particularly, when it comes to energy.

    I think is clearer restated as:

    This isn’t a Donald Trump or EU issue, but (it is an issue of the) electorates (in the West- the US, Canada, Australia, and the EU) having a vague (and appallingly misguided) understanding of how societies function, particularly, when it comes to energy.

    Reply
  • July 15, 2019 at 8:00 pm
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    What a lame and transparent advertisement for so called “clean coal technology ”

    Does Todd believe that China and India will somehow be immune to the catastrophe of Global Climate Change and Environmental Destruction and the Anthropocene Extinction ? Are they all jsut going to sit back and watch these global disasters happen outside their borders, borders Todd apparently believes that air masses and ocean currents require a visa to cross ?

    .

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    • July 17, 2019 at 12:43 pm
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      Yes, it does read like an advertisement for “clean coal technology”, especially because it is full of assertions but no actual data sources. Marketing propaganda is always full of assertions and no real peer reviewed statistical data sources from which to debate conclusions. But, to be fair, the green renewable energy markets also skimp on real world data, and often use best case solar & wind data to make their economic arguments. We live in a world of constant marketing and outright pandering.

      The geopolitical argument feels spot on though, as the prosperous West obsesses over social, environmental and quality of life issues while the East focuses on rapid industrial growth. The trade tensions that will goad democratic governments towards greater domestic protectionism will also lead to predictable domestic environmental impacts that will propel citizens into the streets in protest of the rollbacks in air & water quality and the reappearance of industrial polluters in their neighborhoods . Politicians will have an impossible tightrope to walk to stay in power and meet these contradictory objectives.

      Meanwhile, Earth Observing Satellites will be showing us the Big Picture as the entire planet hurtles towards Heat Death, especially in the heat islands we call Cities. Several billion people will be sweltering in megacities that are cooking in their own thermal pollution, choking on air pollution, competing for potable water & food, stuck in traffic, crushed by taxes, and ruled by hard-hearted men with no moral compass and only a practical, transactional philosophy to guide them. It would appear that Homo Sapiens is becoming a victim of its own technological successes, and our visions for the future are increasingly threatened by our current civilizational operating system.

      The scale of the changes needed to alter this unsustainable trajectory may turn out to be beyond the limited imaginations of ordinary human beings…

      Reply

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