Former US president Donald Trump is mistaken in his belief that climate change is “a Chinese hoax”. Instead, climate change – and other aspects of the broader ecological crisis, from plastic and chemical pollution to biodiversity loss – is all too real. And although some foreign policy experts in the United States and elsewhere seem slow to realize it, the ecological crisis represents the gravest security threat in the world today. Not the direct first-order physical effects, such as rising sea levels, more frequent and intense storms, droughts and floods, and diminishing freshwater supplies. But the second-order social and political-economic effects that result from those, such as famines, mass migrations, political instability and an increasing threat of war.

On the bright side, we know precisely what needs to be done to avoid ecological catastrophe. Fossil fuels must be rapidly replaced with renewable energy and electrification, necessitating an immense global build-out of wind and solar farms connected by networks of ultra-high-voltage transmission lines. Supply chains must be redesigned to maximize real-world efficiency, with environmental externalities internalized. Planned obsolescence must be replaced with products designed for maximum life spans with repairs. Agriculture must be restructured away from maximizing short-term profitability while disregarding medium- and long-term threats such as soil degradation and pesticide/fertilizer pollution, with the focus on smaller-scale, more localized production methods with greater sustainability. Urban planning must minimize private transportation and maximize energy efficiency, and so on. Scholars, scientists, and engineers have already done the basic planning; what remains is for powerful governments to draw up  blueprints for change, and implement them.

If China has adept “America Watchers”, it should be widely known that the short-term prospects for cooperation on such a transformative project are dim. Yet it is an existential necessity. Were the US and China to unite in carrying this program out, the rest of the world would have little choice but to follow. Although Joe Biden has replaced Trump as the occupant of the White House by-and-large the US foreign policy elite remains united in its antipathy toward China. China has become a political football for Republicans and Democrats alike, with each positioning themselves as the toughest on China, and each accusing the other of being too “soft” on it.

The political-economic reasons for this are simple. The US is more of an oligarchy or plutocracy than a democracy; only a few really rule, and those few are the disproportionately wealthy. The wishes of the non-rich majority have little impact on policymaking, while the wealthy minority’s desires more often than not become law.

The US ruling class was perfectly willing to cooperate with China on economic integration so long as China was content to be, in a biblical phrase, a hewer of wood and drawer of water. That is, so long as China did not develop beyond a “workshop of the world”, engaged exclusively in low value-added production and final assembly. Once China threatened to achieve parity (or more) with US companies in high value-added, high-tech fields — particularly those with military applications  — the deal was off.

There are still plenty of US investors who want good relations with China to reap gains on their Chinese investments, and they may eke out a few lobbying victories here and there. But the trend is clear: gone are the days when the self-interest of US investors could be relied upon to shape the country’s foreign policy toward China. When US “full-spectrum dominance” over the world is perceived to be at risk, profit maximization falls by the wayside.

Yet there is a massive generational gap in ideology in the US today, with the younger generations much less wedded to capitalism and empire than the old. From opinions on capitalism versus socialism, to belief in American exceptionalism and voting in the two most recent Democratic primary elections, the younger generations are clearly not like the old. Millennials (born between 1980 and 2000) and Zoomers (born after 2000) experienced the Great Financial Crisis, disastrous imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wealth and income gaps that have widened into chasms, and shrinking social mobility, and many graduate from university suffocating under a mountain of student debt. Furthermore, unlike their parents, they are not limited to TV, radio, and newspapers to learn about domestic and international politics; they have the internet. While the internet may not be an ideal marketplace of ideas, for all its flaws it at least offers a far greater diversity of perspectives than the legacy media. This combination of a worsening economic situation and a more diversified information environment has fueled the generational divide. Over the coming years, the old Boomer Cold Warriors that currently define US policy will be replaced with more environmentally conscious, capitalism-skeptical Millennials and Zoomers.

So although the Sino-US cooperation we need on climate may be a write-off during this decade, future decades are full of possibilities. China’s best option is to plow ahead, redoubling (or tripling, quadrupling) its efforts to develop renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels. It’s a win-win-win: a guarantee of energy security, a major step closer to an ecological civilization, and a sorely needed boon to China’s soft power. A zero-emission China may be insufficient to avoid global ecological catastrophe on its own, but its example would be a powerful spur for the US to follow suit, if only in an attempt to save face and retain global leadership, and where the two economic powerhouses lead others will follow. If some cooperation can be wrung out of the less militaristic factions in  US political circus, including those who are appropriately worried about the ecological crisis, then all the better – but it will be an uphill battle in the near term.

Over time, though, members of my generation will be running the US government – and if current polling is any guide, the government we lead will be much more open to Sino-US cooperation on the environment. Particularly if, by 2030, China has already blazed the trail for the rest of the world to follow.

The author is an assistant professor in the Masters of Global Political Economy Programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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