Believe it or not, there is a place where housing is plentiful, electric vehicles are cheap–as are solar electric panels, cities are dense, the streets are multi-modal with light rail and bike lanes, there is high speed rail between cities, and the government is in full support of Palestinians having their own country instead of Israel. That place is not California or New York. Nor is it one of the Scandinavian Socialist nirvanas.
It’s China.
When I see all of the things being demanded and being put into action by the political Left here in America, I see the same exact things that are already in place in China. But I also see that things aren’t going so well over there.
Let’s start with the push for dense urbanization in cities across the US. It’s no coincidence that every project going before plan commissions and city councils is another high-rise apartment building. Cities are demanding that nearly every available square foot of space be converted to residential use–including some of the business offices that many abandoned in the pandemic, and to which they likely will never return. There is a belief that Americans want to live in smaller spaces, concentrated in city centers, where there is a reduced need to drive for work, food, and entertainment. As one city council member around here stated this month referring to such a project: “If you build it, they will come”.
Well in China, dense urbanization and high-rise residential development has been going on for more than 20-years. Cities are filled with apartment towers, buses run frequently, as much space is dedicated to walking and biking as there is dedicated to driving. And light rail supplements the transit system. They are the “perfect, modern cities”. There’s just one catch–nobody actually lives is some of them.
Here in the US, we have what are known as “ghost towns”. Once thriving cities that usually sprung up around a certain industry (like gold mining)–but once the source of revenue dried up, everyone moved out and left empty buildings behind. In China, they have entire “ghost cities”, metropolises that were built in anticipation of millions coming–but only tens of thousands actually showing up, if that. Huge towers, new streets and utilities, transit systems, schools, hospitals, and everything else needed for modern life all sitting in place….for nobody.
And this building boom lies at the heart of a financial crisis that has crippled Chinese economic growth. Construction companies, funded and encouraged by the central government to “build, build, build” as much as possible and as soon as possible are going broke as supply has vastly outpaced demand. No doubt, the Chinese Communist Party conducted studies and wrote reports that there was a “looming housing crisis” in their country–but ultimately, people still have to decide they are going to live in all of these new apartments and cities. It also didn’t help that for a couple of generations, China tried everything it could to limit population growth, led by the infamous “one child policy” that is now backfiring spectacularly, as those aging out of the workforce are not being replaced at a high enough rate by those single-child households.
China is also a leader in the production of the “necessities” for the “green future” that environmentalists and their allies in government claim we will be living. The country is building a vast fleet of electric cars that could come with sticker prices in the $10,000 range. It should be noted, that the cars are not being built with the Chinese market in mind. Instead those companies are looking to flood the American and European markets with the vehicles–which will be priced far below what domestic automakers in those countries will be able to sell their EV’s for.
Despite demanding that their constituents “wean themselves off fossil fuel-powered vehicles”–American and E-U officials are doing all they can to prevent people from gobbling up these cheap, “eco-friendly” cars. In fact, President Biden has instituted 100% tariffs on imported Chinese-made EV’s. The European Union is considering the same thing. In the case of the US, the move is meant exclusively to preserve the United Auto Workers’ mammoth retirement and health insurance benefit packages that account for the second-highest expense in construction of American vehicles–which President Biden’s former boss, President Obama, guaranteed would stay in place with the bailout that “saved the auto industry” (when bankruptcy could have allowed for renegotiation of those terms, saving the company and customers billions of dollars).
The same situation is arising with the production of solar energy panels. China is producing (with government subsidization) far more of them then the country needs at this time. So they are again trying to flood the global market–and perhaps corner the market. And how is America and Europe responding? Not with appreciation for China “providing solutions for our energy crisis”, but with additional tariffs–again, making “going green” more expensive. (This might be a good time to ask: Why were tariffs on Chinese imports “racist” and “stoking anti-Asian sentiment” when former President Donald Trump put them in place–but are considered to be sound economic measures to “protect America” when President Biden uses them?)
China also has the most-extensive high-speed rail system in the world. They are so proud of it, they want to extend it to the rest of Asia as well–so long as Chinese companies are paid to build, maintain and operate the system. Unfortunately, establishing that system has led to such a substantial debt that fares are going up 40% this year to create enough revenue to maintain it. I should also note that while China appears committed to high speed rail to “replace aviation for long-distance travel”, the country has also recently rolled out its first commercial airliner–so I guess you could say they are hedging their bets.
And I as mentioned earlier, China is a big backer of Palestinian autonomy–especially if it on the land currently designated as the sovereign nation of Israel–aligning itself with the American college kids who took to tents and damaging university buildings this spring. While they are not supplying direct financial and weapons aid to Hamas like Iran, China is more than happy to back the Iranian puppet state on the world stage and at the United Nations. It would be ludicrous to think that Chinese support is due to a belief that Muslims are being oppressed in Gaza and the West Bank–given that they have 12-million Muslims in their own country–some of whom are being held in concentration camps for “re-education”. And China doesn’t seem that interested in a “two-state” solution when it comes to Taiwan.
Since I was a kid in the years after President Nixon reopened diplomatic channels with China, the hope was that someday the Chinese would be more like Americans. Aside from stealing our entertainment products and copying our technologies–that never really happened. Now, a growing force in American governance want us to be more like China. Let’s hope that effort is as successful as it was going the other way.
