"On June 26th, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability sat down for a Congressional Hearing titled, 'Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare.' This was one of many Congressional hearings aimed at tackling the 'China threat.'

As a general premise, I didn’t have a lot of hope for the hearing. Language is crucial, and the title says it all: any action by the US is merely “defense” against acts of political warfare committed by China. And still, I was disappointed. Not only was it filled with racist, paranoid rhetoric, but it was supremely unjust, lacking any level of self-awareness, and almost certainly operated solely as an agenda-pushing cover for whatever act of warfare our government sought to commit next."

In the current political climate, we see a need to provide accessible, trustworthy information regarding the benefits of U.S.-China cooperation, which often go unacknowledged. With this report, we aim to not just recount facts, but to celebrate the many avenues of collaboration between China and the Heartland which have strengthened our economies, progressed our shared knowledge, and enriched our communities."

"Bill C-70 will only fuel CSIS‘s selective racial profiling, targeting those considered affiliated with Canada‘s adversaries. Communities themselves will be divided. Understanding and overcoming those divisions to the degree possible will be challenging, for social movements and also for the Hogue Commission when it resumes hearings this fall."

Part two of a three-part series on Canada‘s emerging national security state.

"Under its terms of reference, the Hogue Commission was tasked with examining all forms of election interference as well as interference in communities and institutions. Its recommendations, due by the end of this year, were expected to guide the introduction of new legislation to deal with ‘foreign interference.’ 

However, the passage of Bill C-70 has short circuited the process, introducing drastic reforms that civil liberty groups say will likely have a 'chilling effect — on freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and on privacy, and it could well be used to profile people on political, racial, religious, or nationality grounds. The law will allow the undermining of academic freedom, freedom of the press, the right to protest and engage in dissent, and efforts at international cooperation and solidarity.' Bill C-70 also poses major challenges for the Hogue Commission. Officially termed the 'Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions,' (aka, the Foreign Interference Inquiry) it is headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue and began hearings last fall."

This is part three of a three part series on Bill C-70.

Published: July 18, 2024
Written by: Max Bearak

China, the world‘s biggest source of planet-warming greenhouse gases for most of the past two decades, is seemingly on the verge of bending its emissions curve from years of steep growth into a flat plateau.

...The biggest factor in the shift is changes to how China produces its electricity. In short, renewable sources are replacing coal, the most polluting fossil fuel.

Last year alone, China installed more solar panels than the United States has in its entire history, and connected most of them to its electricity grid.

The amount of wind and solar power under construction in China is now nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined, a report has found.

Research published on Thursday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), an NGO, found that China has 180 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar power under construction and 159GW of wind power. That brings the total of wind and solar power under construction to 339GW, well ahead of the 40GW under construction in the US.

The researchers only looked at solar farms with a capacity of 20MW or more, which feed directly into the grid. That means that the total volume of solar power in China could be much higher, as small scale solar farms account for about 40% of China’s solar capacity.