United against the divide

By Meng Si from ChinaDialogue| Dec 02


On November 30, while the Cancun climate negotiations in Cancun were stumbling on, at the climate village an hour's drive from the main venue, over 30 Chinese and American youths were discussing their personal views of how to move forward. Although the arguments in the climate talks going back and forth are becoming more and more intense between China and the US, the two countries' younger generations are opening channels of mutual understanding with hope for the future.

"We hope to encourage both sides to recognise that cultural exchange is necessary before political exchange," said Wang Yiting, one of the organisers. She is a fourth year student at Mount Holyoke College majoring in environment and international relations and was a member of the COP15 China Youth Delegation last year, which also had an exchange with the American youth team. The participants of this exchange included members of the China Youth Delegation, student union, United States sustainable development and ladder climate networks. A considerable number of the young people involved have a climate-related professional background or work in related fields.

It has been a rough year since the start of the Copenhagen talks. During the Tianjin conference, the US was "very disappointed" with China - a great carbon-dioxide-emitting nation - and its refusal to compromise on the issue of verifying emissions reduction efforts (the words of US delegation head, Jonathan Pershing) while Chinese delegate Su Wei accused the United States of using the transparency issue to evade emissions reduction responsibilities.

"Chinese people attach great importance to traditional family values," said Peking University student, Shi Xiangying, one of the Chinese youths to deliver a speech. She demonstrated how "well-behaved" Chinese youths in school are and their academic burdens. She also talked about the abundance of social activities. American youth, Ethan Buckner described the diversity of American families.

In addition, the two sides discussed topics that were more related to climate change. "I was very impressed by the data Chinese students provided, such as detailed charts," said Dr Xu Anqi from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, who was invited to participate in the dialogue. Her recommendation of this exchange on her twitter page was quickly noted and retweeted by some American journalists.

"Chinese culture is characterised by having a good reputation, so the most well-known Chinese cities around the world are often the most affluent cities in China, but this is far from reality." Said Peking University student Chen Yingao. She gave an introduction to the actual problems in China, including population, and believes that China's accession into the WTO, making it a "world factory," has an enormous impact on the country.

American youth Jarey Schy presented the situation of lobby groups in the government's lobbying fund: "There was a peak value of US$3.49 billion in 2009, which was just in time to introduce the climate bill," Schy said. In his ranking of lobbyists, the biggest fund, reaching US$680 million, came from the US Chamber of Commerce. Schy introduced lobbyists including the US Chamber of Commerce, General Electric, and Exxon Mobil, which all represent traditional energy industries.

"This exchange will be much deeper than that of Copenhagen," Wang Yiting said, "in Cancun, we will conduct two seminars and organise private exchanges about issues of interest for both sides." She also mentioned that after the exchange this year, there will be follow-up activities, such as promoting university cooperation projects between the two countries.

"We get to the root of our differences by discussing anything from culture to the establishment of systems. Maybe it won't be able to push the negotiating parties to resolve specific differences, which is why we want to deepen this understanding among youths - in order to evoke change in the future," Wang Yiting said.

Back at the negotiating table, the China-US antagonism seems to have relaxed. The delegates of the two countries, Xie Zhenhua and Jonathan Pershing, have publicly talked about the active dialogue between China and the United States. "I feel we have made some progress," Pershing said in a news conference on 29 November. However, there is a long road ahead.

"Mutual trust between China and the United States has great significance for addressing many global issues. The exchanges we promote have an unprecedented significance in the world," a member of the Chinese youth delegation said.

The photo is China and US youth meeting Jonathan Pershing, chief of US delegation.

"shared vision, diversified humanity"thoughts from an interview during Cancun

cross-posted on http://chinausyouthclimate.weebly.com/

It turns out that only when thoughts and events of the past two weeks are gathered into one thread that I have the “aha” moments. Thus, please excuse my relative silence here.

This whole entry started with an interview with a newspaper reporter from Hong Kong…


“We are knowledge-based idealists,” I just dubbed the phase on the spot when the journalist Binglin from the Southern Morning Post questioned if we ever touched base on the reality of what was truly going on. Jared and Ruanxi were with me at the interview. It was a rather provocative chat so I decided to write my version of it here, knowing that we might all have different interpretations of the same conversation.

The skeptics coming at our China-U.S. youth climate exchange are fair. We are young and inexperienced. Not knowing much about the real meaty stuff at stake could turn out to be very “rosy,” said Binglin, “this (here in Cancun) is not the reality. When you go back home, that is real; that is where people continue to buy SUVs and live in big houses.”

“I think we are pretty sure that these are two levels of realities,” I rebutted, and “the one at home is the cast of the one here, and vice versa.” Citing again one of Holly’s presentations on the three pillars of “saving the planet” model, I told him that being able to raise your voice to one decision-maker presumably has a greater impact than to one Joe Brown. This is not to say the “top-down” approach is the only solution. Grassroots organizers like Jared and folks from the China Youth Climate Action Network know better their own “circle of influence.” We simply need both.

A more immediate reality is that we cannot stay satisfied as grassroots organizers who only try to educate the public of the issue of climate change and advocate for a greener life-style. There are three pillars – policy, economics then lifestyle. What influence policy – presumably the most important deciding factor—are also economic drivers and public opinions. Occasions like Cancun, in Holly’s words, are “global policy in the making” and where we could use the bright spot to amplify our influence.


“But still, these two countries are so different and complex. Even if you young people get to collaborate, does that mean anything?” The very persistent journalist Binglin pushed on.

“But we get together because we all want to do something to prevent catastrophic disasters on our planet,” Jared argued, which is the foremost important shared vision we recognize among ourselves. “Besides, when you actually get to make the efforts to listen to and understand a seemingly stranger, you will find a lot of commonalities.”

“We are all human beings, the difference of gene composition between two Chinese might as well be higher than that between one Chinese and one American, according to some genetics studies in the U.S.”

“But tell me, didn’t you come to interview us with the assumption that we are just very different and it is naïve for us to think we can have meaningful agreement?”I turned the interview in reverse.I had enough of his prejudice, not to mention his very first question whether the China Youth Delegation was funded by the Chinese government. The second assumption was reasonable given historical trends, but I didn’t feel comfortable.

He agreed, nodding his head.

I pressed on. “Yes, we did each come with a certain agenda, but we also try to keep an open mind to be receiving. Youth is very receiving and adaptable. That’s why we represent the hope for the future.”

“And better, you learn to appreciate the difference.” At least this is something I am also trying to emphasize, besides only connecting on the commonalities. The neo-liberalism ideology that has been prevalent in the western societies since the Enlightenment and is also on its way to force onto other geographic territories, places human being as the center of the political system. Then you have democratic representation, human rights and market mechanism, etc. It believes in its universal application.. But it is not that there are no other alternatives in operation. We have family-centered, tribe-centered, gender-centered, just to name a few.

And that different political systems are in place for various historical reasons and have their right reasons to exist could be an alternative assumption for our collaboration. If not more open. And if assumption is a prerequisite for the human society to operate.

Admittedly I was a little bit pissed off when Binglin came to interview us because his boss wanted to find out if we were funded by the Chinese government as its propaganda machine. However I also appreciate his spirit of a searching journalist and his courage of recognizing the inadequacy in his reasoning.

For us, it was absolutely very provocative conversation as well. Dialogue sparks deep thinking. We come together, willing to try to find critical areas of commonalities on which we can build our collaboration, and to innovate solutions having understood the raison-d’être of our perspective cultural and political systems.