Emerging Powers news roundup

COPENHAGEN

Key concessions from the United States and China jolted climate negotiations in Copenhagen, providing optimism a day before President Obama was due to join other world leaders seeking a new international agreement on controlling greenhouse gases.

The Obama administration announced that it would join allies in raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to help the world's poorest countries adapt to climate change. The amount, a number that stunned many environmentalists with its size, appears to meet the top demand of China, whose stalemate with the U.S. had bogged down the negotiations.

In response, the Chinese signaled that they were moving toward satisfying the top American demand, that developing nations such as China and India limit their greenhouse gas emissions as their economies grow and that those limits must be subject to outside verification. More

After a dramatic walkout earlier in the week, Africa appeared to scale back its demands for funds from rich countries to help deal with climate change in return for certainty that promised funds will actually be delivered and for the right to a say in how the money is managed. But some developing world leaders accused the African Union of selling out, with the G77 accusing the EU of being the real author of the offer and wanting to see the "destruction of Africa." More

In Copenhagen, ‘Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai’ is back in vogue with the two sides holding meetings up to six times a day, according to India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. India and China are both part of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group of countries that have decided to coordinate their negotiating stance at the UN climate talks. Interestingly, it is the Chinese who have clearly taken the lead of this group, calling for meetings and constantly updating its members of developments. More

Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate for economics and Harvard University professor, criticised India’s approach to the climate talks, and exlained where he thought India could learn from China, and vice versa. More

According to the German news magazine Spiegel, ‘China and the United States are playing a decisive role in Copenhagen. Both major powers are accusing each other of doing too little to stop the climate disaster. Europeans and developing nations are demanding the two agree to greater reductions in CO2 emissions. Will 'Chimerica' derail a real deal in Copenhagen?’ More

In a New Yorker feature, Evan Osnos analysed Beijing’s crash program for clean energy. More

Political commentator Liang Jing analysed ‘Global climate change, humanity’s predicament and China’s opportunity’. More

DEALS IN AFRICA

The US$2.68 billion China Union plan to revitalise Liberia's Bong Mines has not taken off, almost a year after it was first signed. Initial concerns about the little-known Chinese mining company's ability to raise such sums now seem well founded.

Seeing no progress on the ground, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was one of a handful of African presidents to attend the ministerial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in November. She talked with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and got him to promise that the China Development Bank would bankroll China Union. More

Reuters EXCLUSIVE-Guinea-Chinese deal rests on $100 mln deposit
A Chinese fund has paid Guinea's ruling junta a $100 million deposit to guarantee a mining deal but the vast future proceeds seen flowing from the accord remain uncertain, Guinean sources have told Reuters. More

‘In Botswana, China Is Everywhere’ More

Mr Yu Wenzhe, Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, said the two countries are exploring new opportunities for faster development as the world undergoes unprecedented changes and adjustment. More

The focus in Sino-African trade, which grew to nearly $107 billion last year, tends to be on the high-profile activities of big Chinese state firms on the resource-rich continent. But in fact, private enterprises run by Chinese nationals and the Chinese diaspora make up 80% of all Chinese companies in Africa, according to research from Standard Bank Group Ltd., the biggest African lender. More

Patriotic Front (PF) president Michael Sata has condemned Chinese investment in Africa, which he said was designed to benefit only Chinese nationals. Speaking via telephone on Voice of America’s Straight Talk Africa programme, Mr Sata charged that the relationship between China and Africa was purely that of horse and rider in favour of the Chinese. More

CHINA IN THE WORLD

With the turn of a ceremonial valve, China’s president, Hu Jintao, opened a big natural gas pipeline from central Asia to China on Monday, significantly increasing China’s access to the fuel and providing the first major alternative to exporting the region’s gas through Russia. More

The new pipeline complicates the EU's energy ambitions in Central Asia. More

A CNPC-led group of oil firms bid successfully to develop Iraq's Halfaya oilfield, in Iraq's second oilfield auction since the 2003 U.S. invasion. The contract is the third big deal CNPC has secured in Iraq. It was the first to sign a major oil deal since the war with a contract for the Ahdab oilfield. In June, it formed part of a BP-led consortium that won the only contract awarded at the first round to develop the supergiant Rumaila field. More

In the first 10 months of the year China already exceeded the number of new jobs it aimed to create in 2009, state media said on Saturday, in another sign the country is emerging from the global economic crisis. More

In a Forbes feature Gady Epstein argued that
‘... China resembles nothing so much as Japan shortly before its stock and property markets melted down two decades ago. A speculative frenzy of borrowing and bidding up is at work. If and when prices crash, there will be hell to pay’.
More

‘Twenty-two Rules for Businessman from Zhejiang Province’; This document was reportedly found on the wall of a Zhejiang businessman’s office, and has since been circulated widely among Chinese bloggers. More

The New York Times hosted a discussion on ‘China’s Changing Views on Race’ More

Zimbabwean Vimbayi Kajese has become China’s - and possibly Asia’s - first-ever black African television presenter. More

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Stephen Marks is research associate and project coordinator with Fahamu's China in Africa Project.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.