China's Emergence as a Superpower (2015 onwards)

[Firn]

Forget to post the wind potential of China. Obviously such maps should be just taken as a very rough guide at a more or less current state of technology. Developments as those outlined above increase the capacity per area.



The growth of Wind power can be better illustrated with a graph:





That Solar starts to shares some of the problems of Wind is a sign of the times:

Around 9% of China’s solar PV capacity was forced to sit idle for the first six months of 2015, NEA reports, with the northwestern regions of Gansu and Xinjiang home to the majority of dormant generators.

As the pace of renewable electricity capacity accelerates, some sections of the Chinese grid have been unable to absorb the new generation adequately, forcing authority bodies to either delay solar PV connection or leave idle those solar farms that cannot be satisfactorily integrated into the grid.

Of course this also happens to some fossil plants but the nature of renewables with a high initial investment and free energy input make such grid problems a lot riskier for the investors.




Growth has been strong indeed:

According to the latest statistics from China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), installed capacity for the country’s PV power generation reached 37.95 GW as of the end of September, with 31.70 GW provided by PV power stations and 6.25 GW coming from distributed PV power projects. For the nine months, the country added 9.9 GW of PV power generation capacity, an increase of 161 percent when compared with the same period of a year earlier. The amount includes 8.32 GW from PV power stations and 1.58 GW from distributed PV power projects.

I don't know of course the specifics of the Chinese dealmaking but I found the return on investment rather interesting:

China Photovoltaic Industry Association chairman Gao Jifan explained that, throughout the whole industry chain, the internal rate of return for development projects at China’s PV power stations has been ranging between 8 percent and 10 percent, significantly higher than the average level for the manufacturing sector overall.

There is no doubt that China could in the long run replace fossil fuel and even nuclear with renewables when it comes to the production of electricity. It's a question of rather simple math and investmentsm into a process which will take time. But what about heating and transport?

[Firn]

Transport has also undergone a massive transformation in the last decades, be it by air or land, car or train, bicycle or electroscooter. And indeed China has led the world in two-wheeled electromobility, with around 200 million electric two-wheelers moving now mostly people through it's cities and villages.

2015 has been the year where China, the world's largest car market, also took the lead (no pun intended) in electric cars with up to 250000 units sold.

[AdamG]

BEIJING - China has created three new military units and will update equipment as well as modernising its command structure, state media said on Friday, as part of a major overhaul of the armed forces announced by President Xi Jinping in November.

Xi's push to reform the military coincides with China becoming more assertive in its territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas. China's navy is investing in submarines and aircraft carriers and its air force is developing stealth fighters.

At a ceremony on Thursday, Xi inaugurated a new general command unit for the army, a missile force and a strategic support force for People's Liberation Army (PLA), state news agency Xinhua said.

State television showed Xi handing over a large red flag to Li Zuocheng, the new head of the land command force. Li was previously commander of the key Chengdu military region, which includes restless and strategically vital Tibet.

The missile force is taking over from the Second Artillery Corps to control the country's nuclear arsenal but keeping the same commander, Wei Fenghe.

Xinhua said Xi urged the new unit to "enhance nuclear deterrence and counter-strike capacity, medium- and long-range precision strike ability, as well as strategic check-and-balance capacity to build a strong and modern Rocket Force".

His reforms include establishing a joint operational command structure by 2020 and rejigging existing military regions, as well as cutting troop numbers by 300,000, a surprise announcement he made in September.



In a separate report listing the powerful Central Military Commission's recommendations on the reform process, Xinhua said the troop cuts will focus on non-combat personnel.

Phasing out old equipment and developing new weaponry as well as reducing the number of models operated will be another big feature of the reforms, Xinhua said.

China has been moving rapidly to upgrade its military hardware, but integration of complex systems across a regionalised command structure has been a major challenge.

The troop cuts and broader reform programme have proven controversial, though, and the military's newspaper has published a series of commentaries warning of opposition to the reforms and concern about job losses.

Xi has also made rooting out deeply entrenched corruption in the military a top priority, and dozens of senior officers have been investigated and jailed. —Reuters

- See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story....g2Af9tjl.dpuf

[Firn]

China's jittery investors/speculators and the opaque regulators with rather counterproductive, often-changing rules offer a first-class movie.



Great stuff. Overall the service factor seems to do very well, put the index is mostly composed by SOE, among them many manufactores. But then again value and price are two different concepts and not necessarily tied closely together, at any rate not in the Chinese stock market.

Lots of movement in the reserves and the currencies, too...

[davidbfpo]

China's controversial campaign to hunt down alleged white-collar criminals living abroad netted 857 fugitives last year, the country's public security ministry said....Of those repatriated last year, 366 turned themselves in, the ministry said in a statement on its website late Wednesday -- implying that nearly 500 were seized against their will. The wanted individuals were returned from 66 countries and regions, the ministry said, including the United States, Spain and Italy, and over 70 percent had lived outside China for five years or more.

Link:http://www.iphone.afp.com/afpv3/AFP_....doc.7g9kn.htm

It would be interesting to know if any of those "visited" by Chinese representatives and not persuaded / seized later were legally extradited. How many nations would decline a request?

[Bill Moore]

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/a...4de47-62731673

After the Rise: China Enters Uncharted Waters

Although its previously explosive economic growth has slowed, China’s growing geopolitical clout continues to reshape the balance of power, regionally and beyond. From its relations with the U.S. and its aggressive actions in the South China Sea, to its regional foreign policy and economic prospects, China remains a mixed bag of promise, risk and uncertainty.

The article summarizes many challenges that China presents to the regional and global order. I only pasted one of these challenges below.

New Order: China’s Challenge to the Global Financial System

China is an economic titan, but until recently, its impressive rise had not been accompanied by a vision to reshape the global economic order, Daniel McDowell wrote last April. However, with the introduction of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the promotion of the yuan as a global currency, that began to change, as Beijing slowly works to revise foundational elements of the U.S.-led economic order.

[AdamG]

Taiwan was once the principal target of China’s hybrid warfare activities. Not any more, says Michael Raska. Members of the European Union have also become the focus of Beijing’s strategic influence operations, especially those countries that are part of China’s 16+1 regional cooperation formula.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Libra...g=en&id=195268