Biden’s environmental agenda is meaningless if he doesn’t push China to change too 

This week, President Biden will meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jingping, in San Francisco, with the hope of halting the rise in tensions between their two countries.  

This engagement is the latest in a series of events involving senior administration officials who have attempted to curry favor with the repressive regime of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This includes climate envoy John Kerry’s failed effort to restart a climate dialogue; Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s similarly unsuccessful visit seeking to repair Washington’s deteriorating relationship with Beijing; and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s subservient showing with China’s top economic official, which she doubled down on with a recent op-ed advocating for constructive cooperation that avoids confronting economic coercion by the nation’s state-owned enterprises.  

Now, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has signaled he too will follow suit. 

The ineffectiveness of Biden’s policy of appeasement with China has already been addressed by those who rightly condemn it for the weakness it presents to an autocratic tyrant that only speaks the language of strength. Another reason to be firm with the PRC concerns the country’s recurring record of environmental harm. For an administration that claims to have the most ambitious climate and environmental agenda in history, failing to hold such a bad actor accountable is both hypocritical and harmful. 

China appears determined to reinforce its role as the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gasses, setting a record peak this year, falsely reporting its actual emissions, and building six times as many coal plants last year as the rest of the world combined. Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia last December sent a clear signal that Beijing has no intention to curb its insatiable appetite for fossil fuels. Additionally, air pollution, a well-known problem in China’s industrial north, is not only back to pre-pandemic levels, it is increasing. 

The PRC is also a top exporter of environmental degradation through its Belt and Road Initiative. Through the initiative’s transportation, communication and energy development projects, Chinese enterprises are increasing air and water pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, loss of clean water, endangered species habitat, and biodiversity in multiple countries throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. 

The world’s oceans are subject to an even greater assault by America’s most ardent adversary. China’s runaway greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to the acidification of the global ocean, which is decreasing the growth rate of some calcifying marine organisms at the base of the food chain. More harmful is marine plastic waste, of which the China is one of the world’s largest producers.   

In the South China Sea, the PRC’s illegal territorial claims and military base construction have destroyed large areas of coral reefs and are part of an unfolding ecologic disaster that is degrading both the environment and ocean economies of neighboring states, such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. 

Perhaps the most egregious example of China’s environmental abuse is the global scourge of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activity. With an estimated 15,000-17,000 long-haul trawlers, the PRC has the largest distant water fishing fleet of any state in the world and is regarded as the international system’s worst violator of sovereign fishing rights and laws, depleting the fish stocks of other nations and causing irreparable environmental and economic damage. The Biden administration actually acknowledged the imperative to address such practices last year with a National Security Memorandum that continued the policies in a Trump administration executive order, but inexplicably, the memorandum makes no mention of the worst offender. 

All of these stand in stark contrast to the numerous environmental advances made by the U.S. over the past five decades. Yet, the administration’s desire to ease the strain in Sino-American relations amounts to turning a blind eye to such a critical global threat. In numerous international meetings on climate, conservation, the ocean and Pacific partnerships, as well as the press release on the upcoming summit itself, the White House has resisted calling on China to change its ways. By not demanding Xi reverse his country’s negative impact on the planet, President Biden is remdering his highly touted environmental agenda meaningless.  

Rear Adm. (ret.) Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC, former acting and deputy administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), acting undersecretary and assistant secretary of Commerce, as well as an oceanographer in the Navy.