There are few better examples of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s disdain for the world than his approach to water.
Yes, water, H₂O, the lifeblood of human civilization and all natural life on Earth.
Xi likes to offer parables in support of his commitment to the natural environment. But when it comes to water, as with Xi’s approach to carbon emissions, China’s president offers only hot air and a lot of pollution.
Let’s start with Beijing’s treatment of the oceans. Each year, hundreds of thousands of Chinese fishing vessels dredge their way through the oceans, hoovering up all the marine wildlife they can find. Using nets that make little or no distinction between fish and other endangered marine wildlife such as sharks and dolphins, these fleets are a piscicidal menace. Chinese fishing fleets care nothing about sustainability, only saturating their own greed. But it gets worse. Reflecting Beijing’s imperial and absurd claims of sovereignty over the near entirety of the South China Sea, these fishing fleets like to ignore other nations’ exclusive economic zones. A notable example, here, comes in the form of the hundreds of Chinese vessels that frequently descend on the endangered species of the Galapagos Islands. Another case in point is the situation of West African fishermen, who have found their livelihoods gradually eliminated by the Chinese fleets. When challenged on these points, Beijing says it is being treated unfairly.
Sadly, the problem goes way beyond overfishing. China’s own environmental agency (which almost certainly means an underestimation) assessed that more than 200 million cubic meters of plastic waste were released from China into the oceans in 2018.
But there’s another, lesser-known element to China’s war on water. As the South China Morning Post reports, estimates indicate that China’s dam network is restraining the flow of 47 billion cubic meters of water down the Mekong River. That river is the lifeblood of the impoverished agricultural communities that populate much of Southeast Asia.
Fortunately, the United States is stepping into the breach.
As foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meet virtually next week, China’s destruction of river flows will be front and center on the agenda. As Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell put it on Thursday, “One especially urgent challenge is [China’s] manipulation of the Mekong River flows for its own profit at great cost to downstream nations of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand.” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus announced on Wednesday that “Secretary Pompeo will co-chair the inaugural Mekong-U.S. Partnership Ministerial Meeting and launch the Mekong-U.S. Partnership with the Foreign Ministers of Cambodia, [Laos], Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, and the ASEAN Secretary-General.”
This American leadership is critical. It offers a chance to show otherwise skeptical governments and peoples that America is ready to be their ally. And it does so in a way that strikes a stark contrast with the feudal relationship and arrogant disdain offered to them by China. Consider, after all, that where U.S. businesses and government officials offer a transparent rule-of-law-based approach to their relations with these nations, China offers only literal and figurative political pollution. America might not be perfect, but when contrasted with China, it is a far more preferable partner.
The benefit reaches beyond Asia. American leadership on this joint issue of environmental and economic concern will attract further global attention to the true reality of the Chinese Communist Party rule. Which is to say, a reality of capricious disregard for anything and anyone outside of the Politburo Standing Committee’s narrow interests.
China’s sympathizers in the West like to play to the ruling Communist Party’s victimhood narrative. They argue that Beijing is only aggressive because of the imperial pains it suffered at the hands of Western powers. That today, China simply seeks a mutually beneficial coexistence with world nations. That China wants to grow in power, but take others along with it. Xi’s war of annihilation on the world’s oceans speaks to a different and far more painful reality.
Standing with impoverished farmers and small nations, America can lead at its best.
