Citizen Power

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Beijing Taiyanggong Gas-fueled Thermal Power Co., Ltd. (Taiyanggong Power Plant) of the Beijing Energy Investment Co., Ltd. in Beijing, capital of China on February 21. She also visited the Chinese president the same day, especially to reassure him that China’s investments in the U.S. were safe (that must have been a hard sell) and that we will work together to makes our economies strong again, according to a report by the CBC.

Clinton said she had “very good meetings” with Chinese officials during her visit, which she called the beginning of “a new era” of China-U.S. relations characterized by positive cooperation. China owns a lot of our economy so they were mainly interested in meeting with Sec. Clinton on economic matters. The purpose of Clinton’s visit was to work on general relations with China, economic issues, and climate change/energy issues.

“BEIJING, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) — China and the United States on Saturday agreed to establish a dialogue on strategic and economic issues and pledged to work together to tackle the global financial crisis and climate change. The agreement came out of a flurry of meetings between Chinese leaders and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday. “Now it is more important than anytime in the past to deepen and develop China-U.S. relations amid the spreading financial crisis and increasing global challenges,” Chinese President Hu Jintao told Clinton. Saying the relations were “among the most important bilateral relations in the world,” Hu proposed both countries work closely to address international financial crisis and tackle climate change and other global challenges so as to seek a sound and smooth growth of bilateral ties. . . . . . “

We’d better hope China is enthusiastic about working with us on climate issues. Last year, Science reported that China’s C02 emissions could equal the whole world’s emissions today, by 2030. They were constructing new coal plants at the rate of about two per week in 2008, with no serious signs of stopping in 2009. According to the journal Science in 2008: “China is completing two new coal plants per week. That power is being used to drive an enormous manufacturing expansion. China has increased steel production from 140 million tons in 2000 to 419 million tons in 2006, the authors report.” The U.S. has basically stopped opening new coal plants and the EPA’s decision on new coal plants and whether to tie them to the Clean Air Act is expected before April 2nd. The news source Xinhuanet also reported:

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