10 days in China: Wow! and Uh-Oh...

I just got back from a 10 day family trip to China, specifically Beijing and Taiyuan. There was a lot to digest on this trip, which included seven family members spanning three generations and two heritages (Chinese and American). But a few things struck me.

China has developed at a pace that most Americans can’t appreciate unless they’ve been there multiple times over decades. When I first visited Beijing in 1993, the streets were filled with bicycles, plus some buses and trucks. There were no private cars—not even motor scooters. There were no skyscrapers. Few people wore Western-style clothes, and the stores that tourists were allowed to frequent sold kitschy souvenirs, cigarettes and liquor. Of course, in 2019 Beijing is a completely different city, filled with private cars, skyscrapers, luxury retail stores, subways, highways and huge malls.

There is much good that has come out of this. Economic development has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, and created a huge, well-educated middle class. Entrepreneurs have created global business giants. I won’t get into trade, tariffs, and intellectual property issues here, but you can see the improvement in the daily life of many Chinese over the past few decades.

New construction and smoggy day in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China. April 2019.

At the same time, in China, you are smacked in the face by the implications of this growth on resources. The air quality, while better than a decade ago, is still bad. We wore our masks the four days the AQI was in the 200-400 range, the air a gray smudge masking the gorgeous cherry, magnolia and peach trees in full bloom. Chinese cities are crowded, with people jostling for space, for jobs, for money, for spots in good schools for their children. And it’s quite tangible that economic development in the modern world means consumption-- consumption of fast fashion, electronic goods, Starbucks and bubble tea in disposable cups, meat, cars, air conditioning. Clearly we need to adjust the economic model that currently equates prosperity with ever-increasing consumption, or we will face the choice of either leaving billions in poverty or utterly depleting the earth’s resources to the detriment of all.

China is facing some of these issues in a much more head-on way than the U.S. (I won’t get into climate change politics here, but you know what I mean.) While they are still building new coal plants, the Chinese have also become leaders in renewable energy, both as manufacturers of wind turbines, smart inverters and solar panels; and as developers of renewable energy projects around the world and in their own backyard.

While on the high-speed rail between Beijing and Taiyuan, I saw numerous solar installations-- some rooftop installations on homes and commercial buildings, but more often, large solar farms tucked amongst the fields and orchards in rural areas, as seen in the photo below. Energy companies in China are starting to build out microgrids, which can enable more sustainable, distributed energy delivery. And in Beijing, residential heating is being electrified, replacing coal-burning furnaces. The energy players in China are investing and innovating, with government support, and are taking a leading role in the next phase of building out the world’s energy systems. How much of that will be renewable vs. fossil fuel-based remains to be seen.

Solar farm in Shanxi province, China. April 2019.

In the end, two things were crystal clear to me. 1) China is on a trajectory to eclipse the U.S. as the global economic leader in the coming decades. They are investing while we are bickering. 2) It is imperative we figure out how to build prosperous societies and create value while consuming less per capita. If the global middle-class aspiration is a 3000 square foot home, two cars, the convenience of throw-away goods, and steak for dinner every night, our planet simply will not be able to sustain us all.