William R. Hawkins is Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1785, "Were I to indulge in my own theory, I should wish [our states] to practice neither commerce nor navigation but to stand, with respect to Europe, precisely on the footing of China. We should avoid wars and all our citizens would be husbandmen."

Jefferson’s preference was not a wise choice, given that China would soon be carved into spheres of influence by European (and later Japanese) imperialists, who had all embraced the power of modern industrial systems. Jefferson was an agrarian, who equated the factory system with dirty smokestacks and urban slums.  He was content to let the Industrial Revolution stay in Europe.

Most Americans, however, including Washington and Hamilton, were not satisfied to remain an underdeveloped country and rejected Jeffersonian economics.  The northern states industrialized, and the population steadily moved westward to bring more land and resources into the national economy. The southern states limped along with their agrarian ideals, and a heavy dependence on retrograde slave labor, until they lost the Civil War to the more advanced North-Midwest based Union. With the debate over the shape of the economy and the route to material progress for the mass of the American people resolved the hard way, the United States emerged as the largest manufacturing economy in the world by the end of the 19th century, and has remained at the top of the international order every since.

China has also rejected Jefferson’s ideal, and has its eyes set on the goal of world industrial leadership in the 21st century. Beijing hopes, however, that the revival of Jeffersonian delusions by the environmental movement in the United States will help it to continue to shift manufacturing out of America to China, and change the world balance of power in its favor.

The Green movement had its roots in the New Left of the 1960s whose radical leaders believed that America was too rich and too powerful, with its leadership built on an unjust exploitation of the natural world and of foreign lands. They wanted to put an end to U.S. imperialism, triumphalism, and materialism. The movement has worked to slow down growth in America on every front.

Consider the January 2, 2008  New York Times column by UCLA geography professor Jared Diamond on how to solve the world energy and resource crisis.  Diamond writes, “We could have a stable outcome in which all countries converge on consumption rates considerably below the current highest levels. Americans might object: there is no way we would sacrifice our living standards for the benefit of people in the rest of the world. Nevertheless, whether we get there willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable.” He argues, “Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life.” He believes, “In the last year, there have been encouraging signs. Australia held a recent election in which a large majority of voters reversed the head-in-the-sand political course their government had followed for a decade; the new government immediately supported the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”

Diamond undoubtedly thinks well of the UN Climate Change Conference held in Bali, Indonesia, December 3-14, 2007.  It is easy for more reasonable people to poke fun at this gathering. As colder weather swept through the northern latitudes, delegates headed for a tropical resort to complain about “global warming.” They then spent two weeks in luxurious surroundings, calling on more common folk to cut back on their materialism. But behind the more pretentious statements about “green” lifestyles and mankind’s allegedly harmful effects on the environment, old fashioned realpolitik was much in evidence.

China assumed the leadership of the Group of 77 underdeveloped countries and successfully demanded that the burden of cleaning up the environment fall only on the “rich,” developed nations. The adopted Bali “roadmap” calls for, “Measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, by all developed country Parties.” However, these objectives don’t apply to al countries: “Nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner.”

Though the convoluted language of the two sections may sound similar, there is a reason the developed and developing countries are treated separately. While developed countries will have “quantified” targets, the developing countries are provided with a variety of reasons to opt out of any limitations. The double standard will allow China (and others) to continue to provide safe havens for high-emission industries that will need to relocate from those developed countries that enact uneconomical regulations to meet UN targets.

Any international agreement that does not apply to developing countries is unworkable in terms of the stated goals of the environmental movement. According to the UN International Energy Agency’s 2007 World Energy Outlook, 74 percent of the increase in global energy use between now and 2030 will be in the developing countries, with China leading the way.

On my trips to Beijing, Shanghai, and the Zhuhai economic zone, it became painfully obvious that China’s leaders care nothing about pollution. The worst smog I have ever seen in the West would be a breath of fresh air over there.  I know people who have come back with respiratory ailments after living in China for just a few years.  The relocation of industry from America or Europe is a movement to a land where emissions and energy use per unit of output is significantly higher.  According to the OECD, China’s carbon-dioxide emissions per unit of output are five times greater than America’s. And last July, the Chinese government said that power consumption per unit of GDP had climbed 3.64 percent year-on-year in the first six months of 2007. Seventy percent of Chinese energy use is in the industrial sector.

China’s lax regulations are a competitive advantage, as firms do not have to factor into prices the full social costs of operations. Beijing does plan to improve its performance, but more as a result of rising energy costs than global warming theory. However, under the UN plan, the “rich” countries are to foot the bill, with “incentives for the transfer of technology to developing country Parties in order to promote access to affordable environmentally sound technologies.” Rather than develop clean industries at home, protected from lower cost “dirty” rivals overseas, the United States is expected to continue the transfer of manufacturing to China in the short-run, then pay to clean up those foreign factories later through the UN.

It’s not too late to head off this self-defeating course of action. The Bali roadmap is only a guide to two more years of negotiations to reach an agreement by 2009 to replace the Kyoto Protocol (which expires in 2012). The U.S. did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol because developing countries like China were not bound by it. Any such double-standard should again be rejected. Furthermore, in the name of public health (rather than the dubious claims of climate change), U.S. trade law should restrict imports from countries whose environmental standards are lower than those imposed on American producers. The temptation to relocate overseas to gain a commercial advantage from irresponsible behavior must be eliminated. And America’s preeminent position as the world’s largest, most prosperous economy must be protected from foreign rivals and domestic radicals who want to bring it down. I want my children, and their children, and their children’s children, ad infinitum to enjoy an even better life than mine, not worse one.

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