¹ See Michael Klare, Feb 14, 2017, ‘Donald Trump's China First, Russia Second, America Third Foreign Policy’ at Tomdispatch.com (and subsequent repostings)

² We have been publishing analyses of China's green vs black energy strategies for several years. For recent articles by us, see postings here and here.

³ See Kara Sherwin here; Beth Walker here; Phillip Hannam here.

⁴ According to the data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy released in 2016, the share of energy from non-fossil fuel sources, including renewables and nuclear energy, in the total primary energy consumption in China increased from 7% in 2008 to 12% in 2015, a 5% increase over the eight years. The share in Germany, the US and India increased by 8%, 3% and less than 1% over the same period. The most significant green transition has taken place in the electric power generation sector, where the share of power generation based on non-fossil fuel sources increased from 17.6% in 2007 to 28.4% in 2016, according to the data from the China Electricity Council.

⁵ For example, Fergus Green and Nicholas Stern in their recent paper concluded that China's GHG emissions “are much more likely to peak by 2025”. See their report here.

⁶ We are not including nuclear power in these totals – in contrast to China's statistics which usually include non-fossil generation as encompassing WWS and nuclear.

⁷ For some recent discussions on OBOR, see for example, Francis Fukuyama, ‘Exporting the Chinese model’, 12 Jan 2016, Project Syndicate, and Gal Luft, ‘It takes a road: China's One Belt One Road Initiative’, November 2016, Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), and the report by PwC here. Wade Shepard has been providing vivid on the ground reportage in a series of articles published in Forbes, such as ‘A look at 7 new cities rising along the New Silk Road’, 20 Sep 2016

⁸ The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a proposed trade agreement between the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) and the six countries with which ASEAN has existing free trade agreements (Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand). For analysis, see here

⁹ We acknowledge the uncertainty and fluidity of the circumstances post-Trump, with China-US-Taiwan relations being perhaps less fraught than they appeared to be early in Trump's ascendancy. But foreign affairs commentators like Fareed Zakaria are pointing to the gains China is making in international soft power as the US is seen to be retreating. See here.

¹⁰ Those are based on estimates in a report by PwC in Feb 2016, available here.

¹¹ See article reporting the result in China Daily, here.

¹² The role of Russia has remained a point of contention, with the US declaring eventually it would not oppose Russian participation; see the analysis here.

¹³ These data are sourced from Bo Kong and Kevin Gallagher, 2016, ‘The Globalization of Chinese Energy Companies: The role of state finance’, Boston University's Global Economic Governance Initiative, The ‘energy exports’ as defined in their study involve exports of energy products and equipment in six specific categories only, including petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, coal and coal equipment, hydro equipment, PV equipment, nuclear fuel and equipment, wind equipment and power plants. Since other energy-related products and equipment are left out in their study, the result may not present a full picture of energy exports from China.

¹⁴ China is a major petroleum importer and exports much less crude oil to the world. For example, according to the UN Comtrade database, see here, China's imports of crude oils amounted to US$220 billion in 2013, compared with US$ 1.4 billion of its exports in crude petroleum oils. Therefore, we expect the majority of exports in this category in the study of Kong & Gallagher (2016) involved manufactured petroleum products such as petrochemical products and fertilisers etc.

¹⁵ According to Kong & Gallagher (2016), the category of ‘power plants’ includes both ‘black’ energy exports such as coal-fired power generation equipment, and ‘green’ energy exports such as hydroelectric dams. Further analysis would be required to differentiate these different categories of energy-related products.

¹⁶ These questions inevitably raise issues to do with China's development strategy, and the implications of its energy choices being made. As a consequence of its industrialization, China is creating the world's largest energy system, initially one based largely on fossil fuels and now increasingly one that involves the building of a green energy system, targeted at the domestic market but also at external export markets. One can no longer assume the unmitigated good of rapid development of energy resources in a world of deep climate threat, nowhere deeper than in China. Our argument is that China is making its contribution on the climate front while targeting its own energy and resource security – both domestically and now internationally as well. For a discussion of the issues, see the new book by one of us, Global Green Shift.

¹⁷ See the report here.

¹⁸ A list of proposed and yet approved projects can be found in the AIIB's website here.

¹⁹ For NDB's policies see here.

²⁰ For AIIB's Environmental and Social Framework document, see here; for the Bank' draft energy policies, see here.

²¹ See Phillip Hannam here.

²² See ‘No new coal fired power plants for India’ by Tim Buckley, 20 December 2016, RenewEconomy, at:

²³ See ‘India cancels four major new coal plants in move to end imports’ by Tim Buckley, RenewEconomy, 10 June 2016

²⁴ See ‘No new coal fired power plants for India’ by Tim Buckley, 20 December 2016, RenewEconomy

²⁵ See ‘Indian solar tariffs on cusp of smashing record lows’, by Tom Kenning, 8 Feb 2017, PVTech

²⁶ See the report in the Financial Times, ‘India optimistic of being coal-free by 2050‘, by Kiran Stacey, Feb 13 2017

²⁷ See ‘A Jaw-Dropping World Record Solar Price Was Just Bid in Abu Dhabi’, by Katie Fehrenbacher, Fortune, 19 Sep 2016