Yet here was Hu speaking to the leaders of some far less productive nations, whose economies have been stagnating for many years and many of whom have become financially reliant on China, on their terms – in the language of lowering carbon emissions, achieving sustainability, and elevating the need to ‘clean up the planet’ over the naked pursuit of economic growth. Hu spoke, not in the language of a political leader of an industrious nation, but in the language of those Western-based international organizations and NGOs that problematize economic growth for having a dirty and allegedly devastating impact on the planet. ‘Global climate change has a profound impact on the survival and development of mankind’, he said. ‘It is a major challenge facing all countries.’
This curious event – which was tellingly welcomed by some greens as evidence of a ‘Damascene conversion’ amongst top Chinese officials to the climate-change cause – was revealing. It demonstrated that China is keen to be accepted into the international fold, and that it recognizes – whether in a calculated or genuinely internalized fashion – that the best way to achieve that is to make a very public pledge to be true and devoted to tackling climate change, the only unifying cause and source of moral purpose amongst Western nations today. And it also revealed that, despite their relative economic weakness, Anglo-American societies’ new green-leaning politics and morality are the dominant forces in the international sphere, to the extent that one of the most powerful nations on Earth – whose economic growth over the past 30 years has lifted 235 million people out of absolute poverty and thus has been responsible for 67 per cent of the recent total reduction in global poverty – feels the need almost to apologize to Western leaders and NGOs for creating a ‘carbon footprint’ in the process of achieving such mammoth things.
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