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Conservationism and self reliability are, in some ways, good ideals to put into practice. They make sure you are less wasteful - or at the very least make you aware of wastefulness which can then turn into an embedded idea in generations down the line wanting to be less wasteful. Same idea goes with energy and raw material sourcing. Green energy, or very non-polluting energy generation seem to be the current global narrative. Close the cycle, be less polluting, save the environment and climate.
This, at some points at least, is at odds with our globalized economy. Where we once dreamt of an intricate, reliant web of exchanges (material and non-material), the narrative has shifted towards multipolarity. Every region fights for its own development. However, this is a scary prospect and history has shown us that either those doing bad will start arming themselves or those doing more than excellent will gobble up those that are ripe for the taking. Either way, it ends in an arms race if you ask me.
Lately I can't help but shake the idea that the original call to saving the climate and carbon neutrality and all that was a wolf in sheeps clothing for us. And so I've come to share these strings of ideas here to see how it's perceived. Maybe there's more complicated reasons behind it - it more than likely is multifaceted - but somehow this just seems to be one seed that led to an entire unfolding of unfavorable conditions. I don't like where we are at the moment. Let's hope it passes sooner rather than later.
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In Australia they closed nickel mines in Ravensthorpe after a flood of cheap Indonesian nickel.What happened was China built two new coal plants in Indonesia to power those nickel operations and flood the market with supply to get cheaper nickel for it's own needs.Needless to say the environmental laws in Indonesia are a bit less strict than in Australia, not to mention the building of more coal plants which is a bit of a taboo in the western countries nowdays.Wouldn't surprise me if this scenario was being followed all across Africa.
Anyway since those Ravensthorpe operations have been mothballed there have been calls for companies to be willing to pay extra for so called 'green nickel', nickel produced under cleaner conditions than the Indonesian stuff. https://www.mining-technology.com/news/global-miners-call-for-green-premium-nickel-price-crisis/ for example - but seems highly unlikely China would bother with that.Would likely be only western companies, the higher prices again making them more uncompetitive against Chinese goods.Just saw Chinas BYD is making a 50 square mile new car factory, wouldn't be too optimistic about the European car industry a decade from now because thats clearly what they're aiming at.
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There's been huge commotion last couple of years in the EU because of Chinese dumping where they're flooding the market with raw materials in such a way that production facilities file for bankruptcy or are struggling a lot to stay afloat. I don't understand China's policy honestly. Either they're trying to play an economic game where they cripple our infrastructure to make us solely depentend on them or they want to, at some point, close their supply chains to us to screw us over. I'm not sure the West properly understand how China is looking at the future, but they've seemed pretty reliable for the last 50+ years in producing stuff for us. Obviously quality standards are an entirely different discussion, but I just don't know what the best strategy is to execute here. We've underestimated China time and time again and I don't think it's smart to close ourselves off of them. If we can make them more transparent and accountable we'd move in the right direction.
I truly believe - at the moment at least - in a sustainable, long term partnership between China and Europe.
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I myself have warned many people around me about the complete ignorant to the fact that it's an ideological opposite nation than the free world.
China is a result of decades of globalisation. It has hand selected, how foreign companies are allowed to do business locally, if at all, while the trading partners are almost just happily accepting it because of greenwashing and cheaper cost.
Think about all the European companies willing to take some sacrifice, because it's cheaper, easier to do business, and at a bigger market.
China gets all the know-hows, skilled labour, and a whole supply chain set up. Now they are wealthy enough to keep buying up failing European companies.
And when I say Europeans, obviously some US companies are doing that as well, except the US as a nation has always stayed fairly high alert.
Tesla is the same, China gave a ton of benefits to build their mega factory cheap, and now China EV is right behind if not ahead of Tesla.
It's weird to see you think reliability is the concern here, China overtaking the global narrative and being the new world model IS the concern.
And it's already doing that by swaying lots of African nations to their side (something Europe completely messed up), hence in the UN etc they have a LOT of voting power.
They also export their ideologies with tiktok etc.
There are some subtle China craze happening, with newer brands like Lalulu, Wukong Black, they are moving into IP area which used to be more dominated by Europeans.
China is ahead in AI, commercial-able robotics than Europeans.
Meanwhile EU is just happily fining and call it a day.
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EPT
