China-California Cooperation: News and Updates

[Shotgunner51]

Monday, October 24, 2016
California actually benefits a lot from trade with China
Natalie Kitroeff

Virgil Chis, 43, lost his job tuning engines when Fisker Automotive, the luxury electric car company based in Anaheim, collapsed into bankruptcy back in 2013. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Virgil Chis knows all about the loss of American factory jobs. He also has seen firsthand the benefits of Chinese money flowing freely into the U.S.

Chis, 43, lost his job tuning engines when Fisker Automotive, the luxury electric car company based in Anaheim, collapsed into bankruptcy in 2013. A year later, though, the Wanxiang Group, a Chinese auto supplier backed by Lu Guanqiu and his $7-billion fortune, bought the company and offered Chis a raise and his old job back.

Now, Chis says he supports his wife and two teenage children on his salary, covers them all with his health insurance package, and earns enough to take them skiing in Colorado and snowboarding on Mammoth Mountain.​

“We are not rich, but we are managing to live on one income in Orange County, and that’s not something that a lot of people can say,” Chis says.​

Whoever wins the White House on Nov. 8, it's clear that free-trade agreements are going to face tougher scrutiny, if not outright rejection. China, whose ascendance wiped out an estimated 2.4 million jobs in the U.S. from 1999 to 2011, according to one recent study, has been particular scorned by both candidates as an unfair trading partner.

Donald Trump has said the Chinese are “taking our business away” and “want our people to starve”. He has floated the idea of a 45% tariff on Chinese goods.

But there are winners and losers in any trade relationship. And while vast swaths of the Midwest and Southeast may qualify as victims, several sectors in California have reaped the spoils of trade with China.

If the next U.S. president launches a trade war with China, it could rattle those industries, and California’s economy more broadly.

Chinese money has seeped into almost every crevice of California’s economy — inflating its cities’ skylines, flooding amusement parks and shopping malls with tour groups, snapping up $1-million-plus homes with all-cash offers, and quietly rejiggering the power balance in Hollywood.

Last year, Chinese investors poured a record $15.7 billion into U.S. companies, according to a report by the nonprofit National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and research firm Rhodium Group.

California alone pulled in 21% of that haul, which includes money destined for U.S. companies and commercial real estate.

New York was the only state that brought in more Chinese investment last year, but much of the money there went to real estate rather than a more worker-heavy industry like auto manufacturing, according to one of the report’s authors.

“California is very unique. … I can’t think of any state that has attracted the same amount or diversity of Chinese investments,” said Rhodium economist Thilo Hanemann, coauthor of the report.​

“Most investments that we see going into California are either innovation or labor intensive or both,” he said.​

Most economists agree that, in general, trade with China hurts blue-collar workers more than highly skilled ones. After China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, Chinese exports to the U.S. took off, which bruised workers in Tennessee and Mississippi, where a lot of people were making furniture, clothes or toys.

California also was squeezed. Manufacturing jobs have tanked faster in the state than the rest of the country since 2001, and California workers were more exposed to competition from China than the average American, according to an analysis by David Dorn, an economist who specializes in U.S.-China trade.

Some parts of California — especially San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego — were more vulnerable to the wave of made-in-China goods because those cities specialized in making computers and audio visual equipment — product lines in which the Chinese compete.

But economists say that the state’s Pacific coastline may give it a leg up. It makes sense, Dorn said in an interview, that the explosion in Chinese imports also has fueled the creation of new jobs in California, thanks to the state’s bustling ports.

Six in 10 containers that land at the Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, come from China. Last year, millions of those containers were transported by an army of more than 32,000 longshoremen, terminal operators, truckers and rail workers.

In 2016, people working at the ports and handling cargo from ships made a weekly average of $2,066, which is $300, or 17%, more than they did in 2001, after adjusting for inflation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That pay data can include bonuses and earnings for top executives.

Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Los Angeles port, said the influx of Chinese products is “absolutely huge” for Southern California’s economy.​

To a prominent China trade critic, though, that bounty shouldn't distract from the larger damage being done to America by those cheap goods.

Navarro, a UC Irvine professor, is the only person on Trump's economic advisory board with a doctorate in economics. His general view, which has become one of the Trump campaign’s organizing principles, is that China is manipulating its currency to give its exporters an advantage and limit imports to China, and flooding U.S. markets with underpriced goods such as steel.

Business with China may prop up jobs at the ports for now, Navarro says, but it isn’t a long-term growth plan. “On any given day there may be revenues that accrue to the Los Angeles port, but when you do that over a period of 15 years, you destroy the economy,” he said.​

Many economists agree that China has kept the yuan artificially low in the past and that it continues to offload cheap steel in the U.S. But data suggest that the country is much less reliant on exports than it once was, and over the last decade, the yuan has actually appreciated.

And being close to China has also been a boon to industries that have nothing to do with the ports.

Fig Central,
one of many Chinese megadevelopments coming to Downtown LA​

Chinese investors funneled $29 billion into residential real estate purchases in 2015, according to a recent report by the nonprofit Asia Society. California received more than a third of that haul — $10 billion in total investments.

The billions have been a treasure trove for major developers, but they’ve also been a driving force behind a renaissance in construction, one of the few remaining growth industries for blue-collar workers.

In the last two years alone, Chinese companies bought seven pieces of land in downtown Los Angeles worth more than $19 million, according to real estate firm Transwestern. That includes the Metropolis, a 6-acre plot that borders the 110 Freeway and will soon house tens of thousands of square feet of stores, an 18-story hotel and 1,500 condo units.

Greenland USA, the U.S. subsidiary of a big Shanghai real estate firm, hired the Los Angeles infrastructure goliath Aecom as the construction manager for the massive project.

If Trump blocked trade with China, “it would be bad for our company, it would be bad for the citizens of the U.S., and it would be bad for the global economy,” said Michael Burke, chief executive of Aecom. Burke’s company now gets about $600 million a year in revenue from its work in greater China.​

About 1,700 construction workers were hired to build the Metropolis, and when the complex is up and running, it will create 500 jobs in retail and hospitality, Burke said.

Chinese tourists are an important contributor to the growth in retail employment since 2010, said Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer of the Grove and Americana at Brand.

A quarter of all customers at Americana at Brand are Asian tourists or of Asian descent, Caruso says. Chinese tourists to California hit a record 1.1 million last year, out of 17 million total foreign visitors, and that number is expected to hit 1.5 million by 2018, according to Visit California, a nonprofit that promotes tourism.

Each Chinese new year, Caruso sinks more than $1 million into festivities at his properties. The water fountains temporarily spew red water, the lights emit a red glow, and the malls put on a traditional parade complete with stilt walkers, acrobats and a dragon costume inhabited by 10 people.

“Chinese tourism is a very, very important segment, and is growing dramatically,” Caruso said. Chinese tourists are also willing to shell out for high-end swag.​

“They are focused on better products, aspirational products, luxury products — they drive a lot of our business,” he said.​

Yama Gao, the 34-year-old CEO of a travel agency in Hangzhou, China, says she spends up to $3,000 every time she comes to the U.S. She says she bought a $1,100 Max Mara coat on her most recent trip to California this month.

In China, she said, “it’s twice the price — at least.”​

Last week, Gao spent about $300 on pajamas at Baby Gap and dresses at Abercrombie & Fitch at South Coast Plaza in Orange County.

“It’s too big. We only had two hours; it’s not enough,” she said.​

The average Chinese tourist spends about $2,200 per visit to California, $200 more than the typical foreign visitor, according to Visit California.


Read more at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-trump-california-20161024-snap-story.html

 

[cloud4000]

There are no doubt issues with China, but there's a net benefit for both China and US to trade with each other. Protectionism is a losing proposition.

 

[Shotgunner51]

There are no doubt issues with China, but there's a net benefit for both China and US to trade with each other. Protectionism is a losing proposition.

Agree +1

 

[beijingwalker]

Las Vegas casinos love Chinese gamblers. So these guys built a casino just for them
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vegas-chinese-20161026-snap-story.html

 

[Shotgunner51]

Gov. Jerry Brown, America's unofficial climate change ambassador in the Trump era, heads to China
June 1, 2017, 4:30 PM By Chris Megerian, John Myers and Jessica Meyers

When Gov. Jerry Brown flew across the Pacific four years ago to meet with leaders and business executives in China, the world seemed much different.

President Obama had committed to fight the warming of the planet, while China remained a reluctant actor yet to take a firm stand. On Friday, when the seasoned California governor heads back to China for a series of business and government meetings, the political roles will have reversed.

Now, it's China that is poised for global leadership. And as President Trump retreats from the nation's previous path on environmental policy, Brown has the distinction of being America's unofficial ambassador on climate change.

“Trump is going against science. He's going against reality,” Brown said in an interview with The Times on Wednesday. “We can't stand by and give aid and comfort to that. We have to do what's right.”​

Trump’s victory and his administration’s focus on rolling back environmental regulations have left Brown to serve as a political and policy counterweight.

“We want to further strengthen our relationship with China,” the governor told The Times. “The world is moving in a direction that I want California to be a part of.”​

The trip begins just one day after Trump announced that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris accord on climate change. It was an action to which the Democratic governor quickly reacted, calling it “insane” and “deviant behavior.” Brown will now try to demonstrate to the Chinese — and by extension, other world leaders — that some parts of the country are still moving forward.

"We traditionally point to Washington as propagating foreign policy. But when Washington leaves the scene on important topics like climate change, others fill in,” said David Victor, a professor of international relations at UC San Diego. “California gains a much more central role in shaping the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world."​

While the timing of the trip seems serendipitous considering national events, it presents problems for the governor back at home. Lawmakers are less than two weeks away from passing a new California state budget, and Brown's decision to skip some of the negotiations is a notable break with precedent. His administration is also enmeshed in efforts to extend the life span of California’s landmark cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions.

Nonetheless, he departs on Friday for a weeklong trip with high-ranking members of his administration and business leaders organized by the Bay Area Council, a San Francisco-based advocacy group. He’s scheduled to meet with provincial officials in cities with reputations for progressive views on the environment and an interest in green technology, before traveling to Beijing for an international clean energy summit.

When Brown visited in 2013 with a delegation of nearly 100 business officials, President Xi Jinping had just assumed power. The governor rode the country's sleek high-speed rail, opened a trade office in Shanghai and promoted California’s clean-energy companies.

He also laid the groundwork for a climate-change agreement with national officials to promote clean energy and efforts to combat air pollution in a year when Chinese cities disappeared under a layer of soupy gray smog and children regularly ended up in the hospital gasping for breath. China, just months earlier, had finally started publishing air quality measurements.

On his return to China, Brown will find a country that has become the world's biggest investor in renewable energy. Officials plan to launch a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions this year, much like California's program. And they’re considering rules modeled off the Golden State that would encourage electric vehicle production.

Last November, California agreed to serve as a technical advisor to about 100 Chinese cities that aim to reduce their carbon emissions ahead of a 2030 deadline.

"China has always looked to California," said Sophie Lu, a Beijing-based China research head for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which analyzes energy markets. "It's definitely a role model."​

Even with its marked progress, though, the nation still ranks as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the biggest funder of new coal power projects. Beijing winters look like someone tossed a dirty rug over the sky.

But Xi now peppers speeches with calls for environmental stewardship, and is pushing countries to back the climate pact China negotiated with the Obama administration. Xi instructed senior officials last week to help protect the environment "like one protects his eyes," according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Brown will spend the first two days of his trip in the southern Chinese cities of Chengdu and Nanjing reinforcing the kind of regional relationships in which states generally have the greatest influence. In Beijing, he'll attend a forum on clean energy and discuss climate policy at an annual gathering of energy ministers — including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the oil-friendly former Texas governor who tangled with Brown for years over California’s overall business climate.

"China's been learning that the U.S. is not like China where you have a central government, and local governments do anything the central government directs them to do," said Xu Yuan, a climate change expert and professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The U.S. is entirely different and China appreciates that more."​

Even as Trump promises to shrink the role of the federal government on climate efforts, some analysts still question whether a state can step into a spot reserved for nations, or if it's limited to more incremental regional deals.

California's "influence is very, very big, so we are watching closely," said Zhang Haibin, a professor at Peking University in Beijing who specializes in international environmental politics. "The momentum is not as strong or powerful as before without the strong support from the central government of the two countries."​

Many Chinese won’t recognize Brown when he boards the country’s high-speed train and travels north to Beijing. But he’s embraced in certain circles as something of a climate messiah.

"In terms of the symbolic leadership of the U.S., Washington has just been absent," said Yale-NUS College professor Angel Hsu, who studies China’s environment. "So I think Jerry Brown stepping up … that’s really significant."​

During the Paris summit on global warming two years ago, Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, joked that Brown was stuck at "the kids' table" because he couldn’t participate in negotiations as a governor.

Last week Stavins said that status could be shifting somewhat now that Trump is in office.

"Someone who was sitting at the adult table has stood up and walked away, and left an empty seat," he said. "The governor can play a more important role."​

Follow complete coverage of Gov. Jerry Brown's trip to China »

Gov. Jerry Brown speaks to journalists on board a high-speed train during his last visit to China in 2013. (Ng Han Guan / Associated Press)

This is Brown's first official trip abroad since Trump's election. The governor has struck a softer tone on the president than some of his fellow Democrats, seeking ways to cooperate on infrastructure investments and expressing hope that Trump will change his mind on climate change.

But at times, his remarks have been scathing. Brown said it was "so stupid" that Trump once suggested global warming was a concept invented by the Chinese to undercut U.S. manufacturing.

"If there’s any hoax, it's in the White House, not in Beijing," Brown said during a San Francisco conference in April.​

Regardless of whether Brown directly criticizes Trump during his trip, even expressing support for the Paris agreement and greater cooperation with China could put him in the position of contradicting his own country’s chief executive while overseas.

"I know Jerry feels he's in something of a balancing act between maintaining some sorts of workable relationships with Washington, but on the other hand doing what he thinks is his legacy issue," said Orville Schell, author of a 1978 biography on Brown and director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.​

The governor has long expressed interest in an independent relationship with China, apart from disputes between Beijing and Washington over issues like North Korea and the South China Sea.

In an interview in his state Capitol office, Brown said he hopes the China trip will produce "a clear, measurable understanding and agreement with various provinces and the Chinese government itself, to move forward" on issues ranging from regulatory agreements to zero-emission vehicles.

In the four years since his last visit, state environmental regulators have met scores of times with Chinese national and provincial officials to discuss policies. China is laying the groundwork for what would be the world’s largest carbon market for reducing emissions.

"We saw features of our programs being replicated in their pilot programs," said Rajinder Sahota, an assistant division chief at the California Air Resources Board.​

Hal Harvey, who runs Energy Innovation, a research firm based in San Francisco, has traveled frequently to China and said the state's experience has been invaluable.

"The reference point for China is not Washington, it’s California," he said. "They would rather learn from California than any other jurisdiction."​

But should Brown see his visit to China as a global victory lap, the phone calls he expects to have with staffers back in Sacramento could prove sobering. On Wednesday, the leader of the state Senate rejected the governor’s timetable for legislators to extend California’s cap-and-trade program beyond 2020. Even then, substantial political hurdles exist for a legislative plan that could have a profound effect on gas prices in California.

Undaunted, Brown said a continued dialogue and renewed partnership with China are crucial — perhaps more now than ever.

“China is moving forward in a very serious way, and so is California,” he said. “And we're going in the opposite direction of Donald Trump.”​

Megerian and Myers reported from Sacramento and Meyers from Beijing. Times staff writer Jonathan Kaiman and Nicole Liu in The Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-jerry-brown-china-trip-20170601-story.html

 

[yantong1980]

The problem is US leadership that plagued by mix of liberals and globalist, a deep state. They taken entire America into hostage, barred it from win-win cooperation path with another country, they choosing destructive path. Although Brown and Harvey step are good moves, but I doubt it bring significant changes to US-China relation.

 

[Shotgunner51]

The problem is US leadership that plagued by mix of liberals and globalist, a deep state. They taken entire America into hostage, barred it from win-win cooperation path with another country, they choosing destructive path. Although Brown and Harvey step are good moves, but I doubt it bring significant changes to US-China relation.

Agree, perhaps China can work in tandem with few states like California, but fundamental difference in economic structure determines that China-US relation will remain as it is, extremely hostile yet pragmatic, sizable yet transactional.

Hope China & India do not renegotiate any thing in exchange, should just say take it or leave it.

Agree. Bluffing or not doesn't matter, cos it's not the first time US breaches an agreed international pact, so whatever renegotiation may end up in just another renegotiation, let's not waste time cutting deals with US.

Moreover, China has bigger if not world dominant capabilities to go solo, like advanced technologies (hydropower, solar PV, wind turbine, 3rd gen PWR, CTX, ultra-supercritical coal-fired power, EV transport, UHV grid, Smart grid, grid storage, maritime exploration tech, ... not to mention next gen tech like HTGR, fusion, combustible ice), global web of energy & transport assets, comprehensive industrial complex, and ample financial capital as world's top creditor nation. No deal with US is even necessary in the first place.

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/chin...ce-of-renewable-energy-and-technology.471142/
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/re-d...advances-in-clean-coal-ctx-technology.403881/
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/china-2-0-megacities-smartcities.132253/page-5
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/sgcc-geidco-global-grid-to-be-new-growth-engine.494775/
http://www.navigantresearch.com/research/navigant-research-leaderboard-report-li-ion-grid-storage
​

Anyway, being largest energy producer and emitter on this planet, as a responsible nation China has obligation to rest-of-the-world to proceed with signed Paris Accord. Let all nations, with or without US, join force and fight climate change.

 

[onebyone]

Gov. Jerry Brown launched his China tour in Chengdu, emphasizing the value of climate change collaboration. He met with Sichuan province Communist Party Secretary Wang Dongming (Jessica Meyers / For The Times)
Jessica Meyers

Ashaded promenade traces the river in this southern Chinese city that — when the smog blows away — fills with couples dancing to the sunrise. Nearly 900 miles east, leafy boulevards and mountainside parks cover the former imperial capital of Nanjing.

The first two stops on Gov. Jerry Brown’s China tour are places that envision themselves as California sees itself — progressive and green.

Brown’s meetings began Sunday in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, part of a weeklong trip hinged on his mantra of climate change collaboration. Sichuan’s rivers and steep terrain have helped make it a hub for hydropower. Nanjing’s Jiangsu province, which he will visit on Monday, aims to position itself as a leader on renewable energy.

These local stops take on greater significance amid President Trump’s decision Thursday to pull the U.S. from a historic Paris climate accord led by China and the Obama administration. Officials are reinforcing regional partnerships — with the economic links they provide — in a quiet effort to ensure continued ties.

“As I see many problems in the world, many tensions and disruptions, I see a growing importance of partnerships such as the one we are building,” Brown told Sichuan Communist Party Secretary Wang Dongming, as the two regions prepared to sign a sister agreement.

Xi [Jinping] to California in 1978,” Brown told a row of suited Chinese delegates before the signing ceremony.

His long tenure, he said, means “I’m getting very impatient. I want to see things accomplished.”

He’s looking to an unusual partner. China is the world’s leading greenhouse gas polluter and the largest global funder of new coal power projects. More than 60% of its energy use is still tethered to the fossil fuel. A cloak of haze greeted Brown on his arrival in Chengdu.

Washington and Beijing decide the policy level. The actual investment projects ... happen in the states and provinces.— He Weiwen, senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization
But the country is also the biggest investor in renewable energy and a leading advocate of climate change action. Beijing shut its last coal-fired plant in March and has plans to launch a national carbon emissions trading market this year.

China is on track to reach the point where its emissions peak and start declining before a 2030 deadline. Officials spent $88 billion last year on clean energy sources such as wind and solar power, according to market analyst Bloomberg New Energy Finance, more than the GDP of Ethiopia.

Even with China’s top-down approach, little happens without buy-in from the provinces.

“Washington and Beijing decide the policy level,” said He Weiwen, senior fellow of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization and a former economic counselor at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. “The actual investment projects on trade and other activities happen in the states and provinces. That’s why it’s so important to work with them.”

Sichuan, known for its mouth-numbing peppercorns, plays a role in the country’s attempt to transmit electricity from the west to the urban east. But much of it has been wasted due to bad planning and insufficient grid capacity. Officials are scouting out ways to best use their hydropower abundance.

 

[onebyone]

“There is an esprit de corps in these more isolated southwestern provinces where there is money flowing in for infrastructure and development, and they are very open for ways to innovate with the resources they have,” said Daniel Schwartz, director of the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington, who has worked with the province.

Sichuan’s population is more than twice California’s, making it an opportune place to conduct business. Sacramento-based California Center, an organization that connects companies across the Pacific, opened an office last November in the heart of Chengdu’s towering new high-tech hub.

Brown told reporters he wants to work with the province on electric vehicle production. The Bay Area Council, an advocacy group for the region’s companies, will also travel to China during Brown’s visit to look for economic opportunities in clean energy.

California shares an even longer relationship with Nanjing, another sister state. Sandy beaches rub up against Jiangsu province’s hundreds of miles of coastline, a Californian companion minus the Pacific Coast Highway.

Brown visited Nanjing on his last visit, and signed agreements on renewable energy, biomedicine and high-tech agriculture.

The province launched China’s first provincial renewable energy association more than a decade ago in a region rich in wind energy potential. Analysts question whether it has made the best use of this opportunity. But the manufacturing hub now counts hundreds of clean energy-related companies, from biofuels to solar panel production.

California has long offered regions guidance on environmental issues — from zero-emission vehicles to air pollution control. Chinese officials recently turned to the state for assistance with the planned emissions trading system, which they’re piloting in several provinces.

Brown’s trip now represents a “tidal shift” of power from Washington to subnational leaders, said Orville Schell, director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations in New York, who penned a 1978 biography of Brown and has written 10 books about China.

It’s a “slow melting away of Washington as the epicenter of American global leadership.”

These regional visits, above all else, send a signal to Chinese leaders about the seriousness of California’s intentions.

“The key to Paris was President Xi and President Obama meeting together,” Brown said. Now “it’s up to President Xi to advance the ball. We want to stand behind him and make that possible.”

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-green-cities-20170604-story.html

 

[CAD]

California and China Have Signed an Agreement to Develop Clean Energy Technology

The government of California said on Tuesday it will work with China's science ministry to develop clean energy technologies, cooperate on emissions trading and explore other "climate-positive" trade and investment opportunities.

The two sides agreed to establish the California-China Clean Technology Partnership designed to drive innovation and commercialization in areas such as carbon capture and storage, as well as advanced information technology that could help cut greenhouse gas emissions.


President Donald Trump announced last week that he would pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, a move branded as "insane" by California governor Jerry Brown, who is visiting China this week.

Joint pledges by China and the United States ahead of the Paris talks helped create the momentum required to secure a global agreement, and included a promise by China to establish a nationwide emissions trading exchange by this year.

Brown told Reuters last week that he would discuss linking China's carbon trading platforms with California's, the biggest in the United States.

http://fortune.com/2017/06/05/california-china-clean-energy-climate/

 

[AndrewJin]

Republic of California!
Stay away from the washington regime that is controlled by white-killing multinationals and weapon exporters.

 

[onebyone]

June 5, 2017, 11:19 a.m.
Reporting from Nanjing, China
Gov. Jerry Brown says California wants China’s help on electric vehicles
Jessica Meyers

The "Star Wars" theme song blared as participants entered Nanjing’s environmental conference on Monday, a fitting lead-in to Gov. Jerry Brown’s fervent speech about climate change and the new frontiers he pledged to conquer.

The Democratic governor gave his usual rally cry in this coastal Chinese city, imploring the packed ballroom to help reinforce a global commitment to climate change. But a more specific theme also emerged, an undercurrent in his five-night trip that he’s echoed in several meetings with officials: Brown is looking to China for the future of California’s electric vehicles.

The state aims to put 4 million to 5 million electric cars on roads by 2030, he said at the event, “and we aren’t going to get there until Chinese business people, Chinese government leaders make it a priority to develop batteries and electric cars. And we will too.”​

Brown emphasized a partnership again when signing a clean-tech agreement with the Communist Party head of Jiangsu province. He told reporters that he highlighted the issue with Sichuan officials a day earlier, and stressed battery and electric car improvement as a tangible goal to reduce carbon pollution.

For the state to reach its environmental goals, “California and the world will need the cost of batteries and electric vehicles to come down,” said Yunshi Wang, director of the China Center for Energy and Transportation at UC Davis, who is in Beijing for a different international clean-energy summit this week. “China is a leader in this area.” ​

It works like this: More competitors in the market lower the cost, he said, and raise the quality.

Brown spent much of his afternoon Monday on another project he envisions for California — high-speed rail. California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols and members of Brown’s staff snapped photos as a sleek, white bullet train pulled into Nanjing.

Four years ago on his last visit, the governor walked the aisles on another high-speed train. He wanted Chinese investment to fund his longtime dream — one still far from fruition.

“There is Japan, China, Germany, maybe more, they are all in the running,” he said about assistance building the bullet train, the state’s biggest public works project.​

If the project proceeds as planned, it will deliver people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours. Work has started on a section in the Central Valley but the effort still faces economic and political obstacles.

“The high speed rail in California is under construction,” he said, standing comfortably between compartments as the train neared Beijing. “We have money and we are spending. And we will continue to do so.”​

http://www.latimes.com/politics/ess...ys-california-wants-1496685564-htmlstory.html

 

[AndrewJin]

Does Trumpish Regime need California?

 

[Hammer Has Fallen]

Commiefornia.

 

[Shotgunner51]

China-California Climate Cooperation: A New Model For States, Nations In The Trump Era
Jun 14, 2017 @ 09:00 AM
Post written by Chris Busch
Chris Busch is Director of Research at Energy Innovation where he leads the urban sustainability and California climate programs.

Tweet This

• California offers lessons as China works to build a cleaner, more innovative economy.
• China and California understand that policies promoting innovation and clean tech will be the economic winners of the 21st century.

In this picture taken on June 8, 2017, California Governor Jerry Brown speaks during an energy policy conference in Beijing.China treated a US governor to a red carpet reception this week, while President Donald Trump's energy chief received a low-key greeting, a signal that Beijing is ready to go around the White House in the battle against climate change. / AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR / To go with China US politics environment climate, Focus by Allison Jackson (Photo credit should read FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)

The Paris Agreement is an overwhelming global consensus to fight climate change—with only Syria and Nicaragua failing to sign on—but Donald Trump’s announcement he intends to withdraw America from the accord threatens climate action. However, since his announcement on June 1st, an international silver lining has emerged to this dark cloud: Trump’s action has encouraged major nations and leader states within the U.S. to reaffirm and strengthen their commitments to seizing the decarbonization opportunity.

China and California have already begun forging new trails to capture this opportunity. During his recent six-day visit to China, Governor Jerry Brown, America’s “unofficial climate change ambassador,” met with China’s most prominent government figures, including President Xi Jinping, to discuss ways the Red Dragon and the Golden State could collaborate on climate strategies. President Xi rarely meets with government officials other than fellow national leaders, so his nearly hour-long conversation with California’s governor indicates the importance China is placing on climate cooperation.

China And California: Benefiting From Stronger Cooperation

Both governments see big economic and environmental upsides to increased cooperation. California views China as a rising dynamic force, a valuable export market, a source of new investment, and an innovation collaborator. While in China last week, Governor Brown said, “China is leading. California is leading… California-China cooperation has taken a real leap forward.” Likewise, China considers California a trailblazer for the sustainable development path it aspires to follow.

California offers lessons as China works to build a cleaner, more innovative economy. The air pollution Chinese citizens endure today from increased industrial activity and sprawling personal automobile use is reminiscent of mid-20th century smog in southern California, which spurred the creation of the California Air Resources Board and dozens of subsequent policy innovations.

Smog in downtown Los Angeles in 1968 (left); a sunny day in LA's Echo Park (right).

The return to blue skies in Los Angeles, and the state's decoupling of emissions from economic growth, are important proof points for the Chinese. As Energy Innovation CEO Hal Harvey said, "The reference point for China is not Washington, its California. They would rather learn from California than any other jurisdiction."

Having pulled 300 million people out of poverty, China’s government now must address increasing quality-of-life concerns from its growing middle class. Chinese authorities are striving to improve air quality and other environmental problems in an effort to deliver a better quality of life after years of focusing on economic growth. This green growth push is consistent with China’s overall effort to transition from an export-oriented, industry-heavy economy to a more innovative, service-based economy.

The World’s Big Movers On Climate Solutions Moving Forward

China has already demonstrated its low-carbon leadership through several actions: It has committed to investing $360 billion in renewable electricity by 2020, it is the world leader in installed wind and solar power, and it has the largest national electric vehicle market. China has also borrowed lessons from California’s policy playbook, including strong efficiency standards for buildings, appliances, and cars, as well as renewable energy targets. Now, China is eager to learn from California’s cap-and-trade program—the best designed carbon program in the world—as it readies for its own national emissions trading system launch, expected late this year.

China and California understand that policies promoting innovation and clean tech will be the economic winners of the 21st century. As California has ramped up its emission reduction measures, it has emerged as the strongest large-state economy and the fastest growing advanced economy. In the last five years, with just 12% of the U.S. population, California is responsible for 17% of the nation's job growth and 25% of its economic growth. The state attracts about half of all North American venture capital for clean energy, and these investments are paying off with growing, profitable companies. Just last year, clean energy jobs grew 14% in California, double the overall average job growth. China also recognizes this economic opportunity, as demonstrated through its supreme presence in the global clean tech sector. This year, Ernst & Young ranked China the world’s most attractive market for renewable energy, and more than a third of the world’s largest publicly listed clean tech companies are China-based. China’s renewables sector already employs 3.6 million people, and is expected to add 13 million more renewables jobs by 2020.

A Golden Opportunity To Take Climate Leadership to the Next Level

On his recent China trip, Governor Brown signed multiple agreements to increase California-China climate collaboration, including:

1. A pact with Sichuan province to establish the California-Sichuan Clean Tech Innovation Center and develop a California-China Clean Technology Partnership Fund;
2. An agreement with Jiangsu province to expand cooperation on clean energy technology and the reduction of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions;
3. An agreement with China’s Minister of Science and Technology that builds off the provincial-level pacts to advance low-carbon energy and transportation technologies;
4. The U.S.-China Climate Change Institute, a joint initiative with California and Tsinghua University connecting government leaders, researchers, and scientists to collaborate on climate solutions.

The partnerships developed during Brown’s visit can make global climate impacts, and China’s desire to work on climate cooperation with U.S. leader states has already been emulated by others. Since Trump’s Paris pullout, Germany has agreed with California on a joint approach to fight climate change, Canada’s federal government is moving to work directly with U.S. states and cities on climate change, and the Under2MOU coalition of international “subnational governments” that Governor Brown has championed added five new signatories to reach 1.2 billion in covered population.

While it can be hard to find time for building up international partnerships amidst the day-to-day demands of government, California must find the resources. And even as California shares its expertise, its policy leaders must continue working to settle debates about the state’s cap-and-trade program beyond 2020. These discussions must be resolved promptly in order to provide the confidence businesses need to make clean energy investments, while properly signaling to other states and countries that our world-best program offers valuable design lessons.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/energy...es-and-nations-in-the-trump-era/#2fcb4b4a7889