This Side of the Blue: 5 October 2022
This Side of the Blue: 5 October 2022
China's renewables advantage, Australia's temporary lentil windfall in India, and an election in Quebec. Plus this week's essential articles and music playlist.
China’s Renewable Advantage
I was at the Helsinki Security Forum over the weekend, and during one panel discussion, James Appathurai, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, made a point about the knock-on effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that would be critical for both Western and non-Western countries. While China has used Europe’s attempt to wean itself off Russia energy to purchase discounted oil and gas from Russia, Appathurai noted that there were longer term advantages for China in the renewables sector.
In the short term most European countries have sought to simply find new suppliers of oil and gas, but the longer term strategy is to move to renewables. This, in the words of German finance minister, Christian Lindner, is “the energy of freedom”. But in order to achieve that freedom the infrastructure needs to be put in place. China dominates the production of both solar panels and lithium-ion batteries used in the storage of energy and in electric vehicles. The road to energy freedom currently runs through Beijing.
This should be a windfall for China, but it presents serious problems for the rest of the world. The geographical concentration of renewables supply chains not only makes them less resilient and susceptible to shocks, but it also makes the sector reliant on a country that has a habit of using trade as a coercive tool against countries it believes are not sufficiently deferential.
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC in late-September, Australia’s minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, stressed that it was imperative for Australia to work with partners like the United States to develop a greater renewables manufacturing capability in order to circumvent these potential problems.
Australia’s Finger on the Pulse
There are few more important things in life than Indian food, whether Indian or not. Although India is itself an agricultural superpower, its demand for certain foodstuffs is unable to be sustained by domestic production. Yet in a still overwhelmingly rural society, agriculture is a politically potent issue, something that all Indian political parties at both state and federal level pay close attention to. Although India needs to import certain products, maintaining economic protection for domestic agriculture is one of the iron laws of Indian politics.
However, this year the price of lentils – an Indian staple – is at record high, and the balance between pleasing producers and consumers is a delicate one. This has led New Delhi to become a little more flexible with the country’s inherent protectionism. The interim trade agreement Australia signed with India in April temporarily reduced the tariff on Australian lentils to zero, but New Delhi planned to revert this back to 30 percent in the following months. Yet as the local price of lentils hasn’t fallen, it has proved necessary for India to maintain tariff-free imports. Therefore this past week India has extended the tariff-free period for Australian lentils to March 2023.
Although temporary, this is a clear positive for Australian producers. But it is also an indication of how New Delhi’s calculations may affect Australian agriculture in the future. As India continues to urbanise, the balance between producers and consumers starts to favour the latter and protectionism will become less of a political incentive. This makes the relationships Australian producers build now while tariff barriers are down important for future market access when a comprehensive trade agreement may eliminate them altogether.
Plus ça reste le même, plus ça décline
This week saw an election in Quebec. The once problem-child of the Canadian federation (a title now held by Alberta) has seen a major realignment of its politics in recent years. Gone is the contest over whether to remain part of Canada, instead it has been replaced by a strange desire to simply decline its place within it.
The result saw an overwhelming victory – and second term – for the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) – a conservative party formed in 2011 which eschews separatism, but not fervent and insular Quebec nationalism. The CAQ won 90 of the National Assembly’s 125 seats, although due to the defects of the first-past-the-post voting system it did so with just 41 per cent of the vote. The separatist Parti Québécois – in power as recently as 2014 – was reduced to just three seats, while the once mighty Liberal Party could only win one seat outside of Montreal.
Premier François Legault used the campaign to prey on Quebec’s insecurities including the status of the French language, and the perceived degeneracy of Montreal’s multiculturalism. Legault promised to cap migration to the province at 50,000 people annually – one eighth of Canada’s overall yearly intake of 400,000. This is a small percentage for a large province of 8.5 million people, and especially odd given Quebec’s chronic labour shortages. Legault’s belief is that migration is diluting the French language.
Yet the opposite is true. Over 80 percent of migrants to Quebec speak French, and their children will be educated in French. However, for the CAQ - and Quebec nationalism more broadly – speaking French in public isn’t good enough, what matters is that you speak it at home, and those who don’t are considered a threat to Quebec’s unique identity.
This perspective is limiting the ability of French to maintain its power within Canada. In 1980 close to 30 percent of Canada spoke French as their primary language, this has now decreased to under 20 percent. Although Quebec remains the second largest province, it has lost enormous power relative to Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia who boom with migrants and have political parties that are all enthusiastic supporters of high rates of immigration. This Quebec election indicated this trend is unlikely to change.
This Week’s Essential Articles
Penny Wong Wants Australia To Be More Than Just a Supporting Player
Margaret Simmons, Foreign Policy
“There’s no question the foreign minister’s agenda is ambitious. She hopes to find common interests with proximate small and middle powers to help create a “peaceful, prosperous region in which sovereignty is respected.” Ultimately, she hopes this will shape the way the world’s superpowers—China and the United States—behave. Australia, she says, is in the “influence game,” and it must use all the tools of statehood to address the most uncertain time in its recent history.”
Australia’s Development Agenda in the Pacific
Heather Wrathall and Melissa Conley Tyler, Australian Outlook
“Australia needs to frame its engagement with the Pacific as valuable in its own right – not just through the lens of geostrategic competition – and position itself as an integral and invested part of the Pacific neighbourhood that is truly committed to bold climate action on a global scale.”
‘Condolence Diplomacy’ and Australia-Japan Relations
Daisuke Akimoto, The Diplomat
“The bipartisan delegation symbolises the close bilateral relationship forged by Abe, the longest-serving Japanese prime minister. Indeed, during the Abe administration, the Australia-Japan relationship developed to the level of a “quasi-alliance” and a “special strategic partnership” in the changing global and regional security environment.”
The Australia-India-Indonesia Trilateral Finally Takes Off
Premesha Saha, Observer Research Foundation
“The Indian Ocean faces a lot of climate-induced challenges, such as quick depletion of marine resources, and natural disasters, and therefore, there is a lot of potential to work on these areas in the trilateral platform and also on the platform of the [Indian Ocean Rim Association] with the three countries taking the lead.”
Why Australia’s Indo-Pacific Endeavour Is Different This Year
Patrick Dupont, The Diplomat
“Over the next two months, some 1,800 Australian Defense Force (ADF) personnel, five naval vessels, and 11 helicopters will be carrying out bilateral and multilateral engagements in a record 14 countries across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. This includes port visits, military exercises, capacity-building training and workshops, sporting events, and cultural activities with regional partners in the Maldives, Timor-Leste, Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia.”
What a 19th-Century Shearer Can Teach Us about Australia-Korea Relations
Jay Song, Foreign Policy
“South Korea’s surplus of a skilled youth workforce can be a solution for Australia’s talent shortage. But in order to explore this possibility, both the South Korean and Australian governments need to consider how to make cross-border and cross-cultural experiences easier for skilled migrants and their families.”
India’s Government is Exporting Its Hindu Nationalism
The Economist
“[India’s] high commission in London condemned the “violence perpetrated against the Indian community in Leicester and vandalisation of premises and symbols of [the] Hindu religion”, but, pointedly, did not condemn Hindus’ violence against Muslims…The Indian government’s response was notable in another respect. Most of Leicester’s South Asian Muslims have their ancestral roots not in Pakistan but, like its Hindus, within the borders of India itself. Mukul Kesavan, an Indian writer, writes that to identify only with its Hindus “is to withdraw...the ancestral claim to India from the Muslims of Leicester.”
The Downside of Imperial Collapse
Robert D Kaplan, Foreign Affairs
“All this should be kept in mind when considering the vulnerability of China, Russia, and the United States today. These great powers may be even more fragile than they seem. The anxious foresight required for avoiding policy catastrophes—that is, the ability to think tragically in order to avoid tragedy—has either been insufficiently developed or nowhere in evidence in Beijing, Moscow, and Washington. So far, both Russia and the United States have initiated self-destructive wars: Russia in Ukraine and the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. As for China, its obsession with the conquest of Taiwan could lead to self-destruction.”
When Conspiracy Theorists Run Countries
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
“But conspiracy theorists have moved from the streets to the suites. They have become presidents of countries, including Turkey and Brazil. In the US, Donald Trump — who sees plots against him everywhere — is planning his political comeback. The most dangerous conspiracy theorist of them all is Vladimir Putin, who is currently threatening the world with nuclear war.”
Russia Wants to Lock Ukraine Back in the Soviet Cellar
Peter Pomerantsev, Time
“In Putin’s rambling, aggressive, misinformed speeches about Ukraine he always harps on a false history, claiming that Russia and Ukraine are one people, that Ukraine belongs to Russia. The speeches are also interesting for what they leave out. There’s no attempt to deal with the oppressions of the Russian and Soviet past, the way the Kremlin repeatedly colonises, ethnically cleanses, deports, starves and mass murders other nations, and the way it kills and arrests and humiliates masses of its own people too in labour camps, Gulags, and the killing cellars of the KGB. Russia is a country that makes no effort to make sense of, define who was responsible, ask for forgiveness and move on from its legacy of mass murder and institutionalised sadism.”
Tim Alberta, The Atlantic
“I’ve met men and women like Thomas in small towns and big counties, public servants who have devoted their career to safeguarding the infrastructure of our democracy. Over the past two years, they have been harassed, intimidated, and in many cases driven out of office, some replaced by right-wing activists who are more loyal to the Republican Party than to the rule of law.”
David Brooks, New York Times
“I come away with the impression that many men are like what Dean Acheson said about Britain after World War II. They have lost an empire but not yet found a role…Masculinity has gone haywire. Reverting to pseudo-macho cartoons like Donald Trump and Josh Hawley doesn’t help.”
The ‘15-Minute City’: What They Are and How To Build Them
Laurie Winkless, Forbes
“On first glance, the concept is very simple: to create neighbourhoods and cities where a person can meet a host of their basic needs via a short walk or bike ride; larger cities also tend to include public transit in the mix. Exactly what defines ‘short’ varies from place to place. Copenhagen, for example, adopted a ‘5 Minutes to Everything’ model back in 2016, “A maximum 5-minute walk to all amenities and public transport.” For Melbourne the goal was a 10-minute threshold (or more specifically, a “20-minute return trip to all amenities”). And while the specific time period differs, the central tenet – enhancing the accessibility of neighbourhoods through design and active transit – remains the same.”