Winter landscape at West Lake, Zhejiang Province. Photograph by [email protected] via Wikimedia under CC-BY (attribution).
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Winter has arrived, and yet many parts of southern China – including Hunan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi – have just notified reduced electricity supplies. As temperatures in these regions can drop below zero degrees Celsius and some [fr] of cities concerned [fr] are heavily populated and economically vibrant, thousands of articles, all dealing with the plight of the population, have been posted on Chinese social media in the past week.
While some have linked the restriction of the use of electricity to the recent australian coal ban by China, others pointed out that this policy was in line with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions. Whatever the cause, China will likely feel cooler than usual this winter, which does not make people happy.
Yiwu [fr], a city located in Zhejiang province and renowned for its light industrial trade, is one of the cities most affected by the energy restriction policy. Many factories were forced [zh] to reduce their production capacity by 20 to 30%, and some will have to cease their activities completely until the end of December. In addition [zh], the majority of the city’s street lights have been turned off and the authorities have banned the use of the heating system in shopping malls, shopping malls and other public places such as libraries.
Complaints from Yiwu residents flooded the Weibo social network:
I can understand everything else, what should I do if something happens when the lights are turned off at night. We say that the air conditioner in winter cannot be higher than 16 degrees. What is the concept of 16 degrees is all cold wind!
Sure, I can understand most power cuts, but do you have to turn off street lights at night? And what to do in the event of theft and accidents? We are asked to keep our air conditioning at 16 degrees Celsius maximum; do you know how cold the wind is at 16 degrees celsius?
Location: Yiwu, the landlord forwarded the notice from the street community to the tenant group. The air conditioner is not allowed to be turned on before 12 o’clock in the evening. The street and the police station will conduct inspections. If the air conditioner is found to be turned on, a fine of 400 yuan per time will be imposed.
I live in Yiwu. My landlord just sent me the “community surveillance” notification. We cannot turn on the heating before noon, otherwise we may be fined 400 yuan RMB (around 61 US dollars).
Damn it, don’t turn on the air conditioner. I came to check and found that someone turned on the air conditioner in my building and turned off the electricity in the whole building. I was speechless. Isn’t power supply an obligation of the state? ? ? I did not fail to pay the electricity bill, so why did I stop the order. Nervous! ! ! !
Well, banning heating is one thing. When they find that someone is breaking the law, they block the elevator. I remain speechless. Isn’t the supply of electricity a core responsibility of government? I pay for my electricity, how could they cut it? This is completely insane.
D’other cities [zh], such as Jinhua and Wenzhou, located in Zhejiang, and Changsha in Hunan Province, suffered from similar restrictions. Notifications about power cuts have been launched in the midst of a commercial dispute between Australia and China, and China has drawn up a list of sanctions targeting Australian products, including barley, beef, lamb and lobster, wine, cotton, lumber and coal. However, as the amount of Australian coal exported to China was only about 2 % [zh] of total coal consumption in the country in 2019, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the tabloid Global Times, affiliated with the State, rejected the idea of a link [zh] between the energy crisis and the ban measures taken by China:
To say that this is a blow to the power shortage caused by Australia’s coal exports to China is pure nonsense. The coal imported from Australia is mainly coking coal. China’s electricity coal resources are abundant. The problem lies in the organization of mining and transportation. Even if imports from Australia are adjusted, that fluctuation will have little impact on the national power supply situation. The policy towards Australia has hit us. This statement is a malicious fabrication by foreign forces and some people in China.
It is absurd to claim that the power shortage is attributable to the Australian coal sanctions. The majority of imports from Australia are coking coal, and China has enormous thermal coal resources. The stake lies in the organization of the extraction and transport of coal. The impact of Australian coal imports is not worth mentioning. The speeches according to which we would be harmed because of our own sanctions are a malicious fabrication on the part of foreign forces, and for some coming from our own country.
Hu Xijin said the shortage was temporary: it was partly due to excessive demand in winter, and China’s desire to reduce its carbon emissions.
Earlier this month, President Xi Jinping said at the “Climate Ambition” Summit (Climate Ambition Summit), that by 2030, China would reduce its emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by “at least” 65 % compared to 2005 levels. However, China’s energy supply continues to rely heavily on coal power, and its main strategy to achieve this goal is to impose carbon emission quotas on local governments.
Hu Xijin’s rationale is aligned with a number of investigation reports [zh], noting that many governments in southern China had exceeded the carbon emission quotas set by the National Development and Reform Commission, and that they were therefore required to reduce their energy consumption by the end of 2020.
These explanations have generated more scathing comments as the general feeling is that the commitment to reduce carbon emissions should be driven by a switch to clean energy rather than suddenly shutting down cities by cutting electricity in winter. . As you might expect, reactions [zh] furious followed Hu Xijing’s statement:
People’s livelihood comes first, it is heaven. Diplomacy must serve the national economy and people’s livelihood. Don’t be like 60 years ago, starving to death so many people, still beating swollen faces outside to fill up fat people.
The needs of the population should be given priority. Diplomacy must serve the people and we must not go back to the politics of the 1960s, when people starved to death while the country was at war with others, just to show its strength.
Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, the policy of the second five-year plan, under the slogan of ” Great leap forward “, engendered a great famine during which approximately 45 million people were killed between 1958 and 1961. Between 1955 and 1965, China had engaged in several military operations, notably the Taiwan Strait Crisis (1955 and 1958), the Tibetan Uprising (1959), the border conflict between China and Burma (1960), the Xinjiang conflict (since 1960), the Sino-Indian war (1962 ) and the Vietnam War (1965-1969).
However, if it is for energy saving and emission reduction, I think that many businesses are using diesel engines to generate electricity. Isn’t this just taking off your pants and farting?
While the goal is to reduce carbon emissions, many entrepreneurs are now turning to oil-fired electric generators, which emit a lot of carbon. This policy is a complete waste of time.
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