Affirmative

Plan
====Plan: the United States federal government should substantially increase its diplomatic and economic engagement with the People’s Republic of China over the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank with the purpose of joining the bank.====

The AIIB’s Environmental and Social Framework allows for flexible interpretation and ineffective implementation – must ensure follow-through that prioritizes __sustainability__
Larsen and Gilbert 3/14/16 [Gaia, Senior Associate in the WRI's Sustainable Finance Center, where she leads its work on financial institutions and climate finance readiness, Sean, China director and Director of Sustainability Reporting Framework at the Global Reporting Initiative, “Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Releases New Environmental and Social Standards. How Do They Stack Up?”, World Resources Institute, 3/4/16, []] MG Last week, the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ( AIIB ) released its [|Environmental and Social Framework], which will help guide how the bank deals with its investments’ impacts on people and the environment. With authorized capital of $100 billion and promises to deliver aid with less bureaucracy, //the AIIB could play a big role in re-shaping countries around the region//. Negotiations over its formation have been punctuated by [|questions over what standards it would apply] to govern its investments. For its part, the AIIB has committed to being [|“lean, clean and green”]and to applying world-class standards. So what can we see in the newly released Framework? The Highs and Lows First, the Framework does indeed send a signal that AIIB is acting on its commitment to meet the international standards used by development banks to consider impacts on people and the environment before committing funds to a development project. The Framework lays out a vision, a policy, and three supporting standards that are broadly similar in nature to those of the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other established multilateral development banks. On some issues, the AIIB has embraced more progressive positions than some of its peers. For example, the AIIB excludes financing for commercial logging operations in tropical or old-growth forests, which goes beyond the current commitment made by the World Bank. On other subjects, the AIIB’s commitments are not quite as strong. For example, the AIIB has not followed the lead of the ADB or International Finance Corporation (IFC) in giving Indigenous Peoples the right to consent to activities taking place on their lands. In general, though, the Framework’s vision recognizes many of the issues such as climate change, gender, biodiversity and ecosystems, resettlement, labor practices and Indigenous Peoples that AIIB will encounter as it begins to make investments. It also makes very important commitments around transparency, information disclosure and public participation that exceed those of a number of national development banks, including key players such as the China Development Bank and the China Export-Import Bank. //Following through on these commitments will be critical// to building trust and confidence in the bank’s approach. Looking Ahead: Going from Guidance to Implementation Looking ahead, there are two key areas for next steps. First, // policies are the starting point, but implementation requires //// as much—if not more—attention //. // The Framework // contains the building blocks for a robust system, but // leaves much room for interpretation //. It states that requirements should be implemented “in proportion to the risk,” and // allows for variation //// under certain circumstances //. While these provisions are not unreasonable, //interpretation of this language will require subjective, professional judgments, and will define how the Framework shapes engagement with clients in practice. The Framework will need to be supported by more detailed operating procedures and efficient consultation processes to help guide these judgments.// Equally important, // sustainability //// will have to be socialized within the bank and built into the institutional culture such that it is truly accepted as “integrated.” ////It must be seen as part of the role of investment officers, and not just a compliance requirement overseen by a risk management team.// The second important area of work will be how the AIIB proactively guides investment priorities towards green and inclusive growth. If implemented correctly, the Framework document can help the AIIB reduce risks and mitigate negative impacts. However, //particularly in a post-Paris world, banks need to go beyond avoiding risks to proactively assessing whether infrastructure projects place nations and the world on the right development track towards achieving global targets on// [|//climate//]//,// [|//landscape restoration//]//,// [|//inclusive growth//] //and other goals.// Research is increasingly showing that green growth may have winners and losers at the sectoral level (e.g., oil industry vs. solar industry), but that it does not present major trade-offs at the level of whole economies. For example, the [|New Climate Economy] has found that the differential between business-as-usual and climate-friendly investment is only $270 billion per year globally, just 5 percent more. To be fair, this is a challenge facing many MDBs, which means that //the AIIB has an opportunity for leadership and leap-frogging as it builds its systems from the ground up//. The Framework outlines a vision that includes “supporting green growth” and “assisting clients in achieving their nationally determined contributions” and “developing knowledge.” // The question now lies in how to best do this // such that performance targets around, for example, climate change mitigation and adaptation , natural capital enhancement, or gender equity are treated as equal in importance to metrics of GDP growth and the bank’s own financial performance.The AIIB has put forward a good starting point for ensuring that its investments support sustainable infrastructure. //But it also has an opportunity to take more pioneering approaches// as it looks at what it means to help clients develop infrastructure that moves our economies and societies to a model of long-term, sustainable growth. // As the AIIB moves forward, the next steps will be as important as the first in ultimately determining the nature of its contribution to development. //

Without a change to its procedures the AIIB will fuel mega infrastructure projects and a massive expansion of coal use
Bankwatch 15 [CEE Bankwatch Network, international non-governmental organisation with member organisations from countries across central and eastern Europe that monitors activities of IFIs to promote sustainable projects, “New Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank struggles to convince on environment and sustainability issues”, 12/17/15, []] MG The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the China-led financial institution, has emerged as a multilateral development bank with the backing of 57 members in record time. Jin Liqun, president designate of the new financial institution set up to provide financing for infrastructure projects in south east Asia and countries along the Silk Road route in South Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the periphery of Europe, has declared that the AIIB will be a ‘lean, clean, and green’ institution which upholds the highest standards of 21st century governance. //Early doubts, though, hang over these aspirations.// A second review of the AIIB’s draft environmental and social framework (ESF) is currently ongoing, and the bank’s Articles of Agreement require its Board of Directors to approve the final version before any formal decisions can be taken on policies or projects. In the absence of a functioning board, the AIIB has nonetheless leapt into the process of lining up its project pipeline for 2016, including naming infrastructure projects in Pakistan as forthcoming investments for the institution. The AIIB’s loan book, which has a capital base of USD 100 billion, is to be capped in the short - to medium-term at USD 100 billion. Other multilateral development lenders such as the Asian Development Bank have agreed to identify projects for co-financing with the AIIB, while the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says it will be ready to present the AIIB with several projects ripe for immediate co-financing from next year. Just last month, an official from Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance was quoted praising the AIIB 's readi ness to provide USD 1 billion in loans to Indonesia over the next four years, //including for coal-fired power projects//. This was backed up by a reported assertion that "… AIIB imposes looser environmental requirement in disbursing its loans, making it the preferred creditor for financing Indonesia’s coal-fired power plant projects". This statement was retracted and replaced with "AIIB – as opposed to other multilateral lenders like Asian Development Bank or the World Bank – allowed its financing to be used for Indonesia’s coal-fired power plant projects." Such sweeping and conflicting statements about the AIIB's future financing of coal projects in Indonesia prior to the approval of a functioning Board of Directors – which has yet to be elected into office – are highly alarming. Yet they chime with China’s previous suggestion that a technical panel will make expert decisions on AIIB funded projects rather than the bank’s board in tandem with the guidance of an internal sector investment policy. What remains critically missing is a sector investment policy for coal. Indeed, during one of the few effective dialogue sessions held with civil society organisations via video conferencing, the AIIB’s chosen format for conducting a succession of hurried public consultations on its first ESF back in September, the bank was unable to either clarify in principle or in detail its procedures for project approval and for time-bound information disclosure related to investments which will have ‘significant’ to ‘irreversible’ environmental and social impacts. Currently, at the time of writing, the final draft of AIIB’s environmental and social policies is being negotiated behind closed doors. //What remains critically missing is a sector investment policy for coal//, or an analysis of the known and irreversible environmental, social and health risks specific to coal, enabling quantification and avoidance strategies that could offer guidance on the viability and prudence of planned coal projects. The EBRD, the World Bank, as well as the European Investment Bank have all adopted climate and energy policies in recent years which limit their funding of highly polluting coal-fired power plants. Some shareholder countries within these public development banks which have effectively stopped financing coal projects are also founding members of the AIIB, including 14 EU member states. While the non-regional/European members of the AIIB make up a small percentage of the total shareholders, it is unclear whether these EU countries have acted during the AIIB’s set-up negotiations to support restricted financing of unabated coal projects, consistent with the policies they have supported at the other multi-laterals. //Regrettably, the apparent lack of tough talking on the issue of coal at the AIIB negotiating table would suggest that policy incoherence can be tolerated.// Similarly, the European countries concerned risk forfeiting their relevance by muting their agreed climate and energy policy targets to fit in with the new kid on the block’s intention to help drive forward more unabated coal projects at precisely the wrong moment. This is unacceptable in the wake of the Paris climate summit’s historic agreement which many observers have viewed as spelling the beginning of the end for the fossil fuels era. Jin Liqun has meanwhile gone on the record to suggest that coal power is a human rights issue for people living in poor countries with no access to power, and that the AIIB therefore ought to make exceptions for the funding of new coal. However, a recent study from the Overseas Development Institute (one of many published recently) shows that in practice new generation capacity does not translate directly into new electricity connections or – even – lower prices for existing poor consumers. In short, the construction of new coal plants is no silver bullet for solving energy poverty. As //the AIIB appears to be set on autopilot// mode //for providing funding for big-ticket energy and transport infrastructure projects//, doubts persist about whether sustainable development goals will be hamstrung by unwarranted, unfit policies which fail to protect communities and the environment in which they inhabit from the predictable, well-documented and irreversible harms associated with mega-scale infrastructure projects, including coal. How can the latest entrant to the multilateral development lender sphere plan to uphold the ‘clean and green’ agenda and foster sustainable economic development, as prescribed by its founding articles, if not through the adoption of measurable policies compatible with the type of environmental and social due diligence standards already practiced by other multilateral development banks? // Without //// some rapid-fire injection of ambition and responsibility into its policies and procedures, the new beginnings under way at the AIIB threaten to see a return to the darkest, unregulated days of international development finance. //

Infrastructure development in Asia key to global climate change --- ensuring strong AIIB standards is critical
Nassiry and Nakhooda 16 [Darius, head of international cooperation department at Global Green Growth Institute, Director at Millennium Challenge Corporation where he led teams for development of investment programs in Asia, Smita, Climate finance fellow at World Resources Institute, “The AIIB and investment in action on climate change”, Working Paper 433, April 2016, []] MG The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ( //the AIIB// or the Bank) //is poised to be an important new actor in international development finance//, led by developing countries to scale up investment in infrastructure. // The choices that Asian countries make about how to meet their infrastructure needs, particularly in key sectors such as energy and transport, will fundamentally affect the planet’s ability to achieve low emission and climate resilient development, and keep global temperature changes “to well below” 2°C degrees above pre-industrial temperatures //, as stated in the Paris Agreement on climate change. As a new multilateral development bank (MDB) conceived to tackle pressing development challenges of the 21st century, //the AIIB has an opportunity establish a new approach to infrastructure investment that prioritizes renewable energy, climate resilience and sustainable development//. Indeed, the AIIB has the potential to exceed the practices of other MDBs in these areas by finding new approaches that resonate with member needs and priorities. As the founding member of the AIIB and its largest shareholder, there is a strong case for China to support such an emphasis given its leadership in clean energy industries. The AIIB’s investments can help expand markets for renewable energy, and change the narrative around the emphasis of China’s overseas investments as one focused on clean sustainable development , rather than resource extraction. Asian countries are already emerging as leaders in clean energy with new business models that meet the needs of poor people within poor countries. Most countries in the region are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. A focus on low emission paths to sustainable development represents an investment in a future with major long-term commercial benefits formany members of the AIIB. The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) that Asian countries have proposed and their emerging priorities with respect to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a basis for the AIIB to develop its investment strategies. The AIIB should set targets around clean energy investment, and developed country members could make concessional funds available to support the achievement of these goals. Incentives should be structured so staff emphasise low emission development options and climate resilience. Tools such as the use of carbon footprinting and shadow pricing to reflect the externalities of fossil fuel emissions should be used to inform the AIIB’s investment decisions. Such measures could enable the Bank to achieve its stated aim to be “lean, clean and green”.

Warming is real, anthropogenic, and threatens extinction
Griffin, 15 – Professor of Philosophy at Claremont, David, “The climate is ruined. So can civilization even survive?”, 4-14, [] Although most of us worry about other things, climate scientists have become increasingly worried about the survival of civilization. For example, Lonnie Thompson, who received the U.S. National Medal of Science in 2010, said that //virtually all climatologists "are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization."// Informed journalists share this concern. The climate crisis "threatens the survival of our civilization," said Pulitzer Prize-winner Ross Gelbspan. Mark Hertsgaard agrees, //saying that the continuation of global warming "would create planetary conditions all but certain to end civilization as we know it."// These scientists and journalists, moreover, are worried not only about the distant future but about the condition of the planet for their own children and grandchildren. James Hansen, often considered the world's leading climate scientist, entitled his book "Storms of My Grandchildren." The threat to civilization comes primarily from the increase of the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, due largely to the burning of fossil fuels. Before the rise of the industrial age, CO2 constituted only 275 ppm (parts per million) of the atmosphere. But it is now above 400 and rising about 2.5 ppm per year. Because of the CO2 increase, the planet's average temperature has increased 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Although this increase may not seem much, it has already brought about serious changes. The idea that we will be safe from "dangerous climate change" if we do not exceed a temperature rise of 2C (3.6F) has been widely accepted. But many informed people have rejected this assumption. In the opinion of journalist-turned-activist Bill McKibben, "the one degree we've raised the temperature already has melted the Arctic, so we're fools to find out what two will do." His warning is supported by James Hansen, who declared that "a target of two degrees (Celsius) is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." The burning of coal, oil, and natural gas has made the planet warmer than it had been since the rise of civilization 10,000 years ago. Civilization was made possible by the emergence about 12,000 years ago of the "Holocene" epoch, which turned out to be the Goldilocks zone - not too hot, not too cold. But now, says physicist Stefan Rahmstorf, "We are catapulting ourselves way out of the Holocene." //This catapult is dangerous, because we have no evidence civilization can long survive with significantly higher temperatures//. And yet, the world is on a trajectory that would lead to an increase of 4C (7F) in this century. In the opinion of many scientists and the World Bank, this could happen as early as the 2060s. What would "a 4C world" be like? According to Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (at the University of East Anglia), "during New York's summer heat waves the warmest days would be around 10-12C (18-21.6F) hotter [than today's]." Moreover, he has said, above an increase of 4C only //about 10% of the human population will survive.// Believe it or not, some scientists consider Anderson overly optimistic. The main reason for pessimism is the fear that the planet's temperature may be close to a tipping point that would initiate a "low-end runaway greenhouse," involving "out-of-control amplifying feedbacks." This condition would result, says Hansen, if all fossil fuels are burned (which is the intention of all fossil-fuel corporations and many governments). //This result "would make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans."// Moreover, many scientists believe that runaway global warming could occur much more quickly, because the rising temperature caused by CO2 could release massive amounts of methane (CH4), which is, during its first 20 years, 86 times more powerful than CO2. Warmer weather induces this release from carbon that has been stored in methane hydrates, in which enormous amounts of carbon -- four times as much as that emitted from fossil fuels since 1850 -- has been frozen in the Arctic's permafrost. And yet now the Arctic's temperature is warmer than it had been for 120,000 years -- in other words, more than 10 times longer than civilization has existed. According to Joe Romm, a physicist who created the Climate Progress website, methane release from thawing permafrost in the Arctic "is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle." The amplifying feedback works like this: The warmer temperature releases millions of tons of methane, which then further raise the temperature, which in turn releases more methane. The resulting threat of runaway global warming may not be merely theoretical. Scientists have long been convinced that methane was central to the fastest period of global warming in geological history, which occurred 55 million years ago. Now a group of scientists have accumulated evidence that methane was also central to the greatest extinction of life thus far: the end-Permian extinction about 252 million years ago. Worse yet, whereas it was previously thought that significant amounts of permafrost would not melt, releasing its methane, until the planet's temperature has risen several degrees Celsius, recent studies indicate that a rise of 1.5 degrees would be enough to start the melting. What can be done then? Given the failure of political leaders to deal with the CO2 problem, it is now too late to prevent terrible developments. //But it may -- just may -- be possible to keep global warming from bringing about the destruction of civilization. To have a chance, we must, as Hansen says, do everything possible to "keep climate close to the Holocene range" -- which means, mobilize the whole world to replace dirty energy with clean as soon as possible.//

Warming perpetrates “slow violence” against the most vulnerable populations
Nelson 16 – Sara Nelson is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of Minnesota. Her research explores the political economy of conservation and environmental management (Sara Nelson, 2/17/16, “The Slow Violence of Climate Change”, JacobIn, [|https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/cop-21-united-nations-paris-climate-change/)//A-Sharma]

The Paris Agreement, achieved December 12 at the twenty-first Conference of the Parties to the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP21), has been heralded as a “turning point for humanity” and “a new type of international cooperation.” In his remarks to the General Assembly following the close of COP21, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called it “a triumph for people, the planet, and multilateralism.” //More critical voices have pointed to the “////wrinkles////” that mar the agreement, while influential climate scientist James Hanson has dismissed it as “////just worthless words// .” Most commentary falls in a middle ground, viewing the agreement as an important, if faltering,step in the right direction: even if we’re not entirely happy with what has been achieved, that something was achieved at all signals a “political will” for change. But the drama and significance of the COP as an event isn’t primarily about the emergence of an agreement. The history of international climate negotiations — with the exception of the spectacular failure at Copenhagen — boasts a long line of Outcomes, Accords, and even Protocols. Throughout, emissions have continued not only unabated, but [|at an accelerated pace]. Bolivian president Evo Morales remarked on this uncomfortable truth at last year’s COP20 in Lima, when he admonished delegates for having little to show for over two decades of climate change negotiations other than “a heavy load of hypocrisy and neocolonialism.” The COP as an event, then, does not simply represent the failure to contend with the ongoing catastrophe of climate change. //Its very process perpetrates what Rob Nixon calls the “slow violence” of climate change. Nixon uses this term to describe how contemporary imperialism transfers its toxic byproducts to peoples and ecosystems at the peripheries of the global economy, challenging us to recognize imperial violence in the cumulative, attritional, and mundane forms of death and disease that do not resolve into moments of spectacular destruction//. Climate change, for Nixon, //is the ultimate expression of slow violence, a “////temporal and geographical outsourcing////” of environmental devastation to the most vulnerable populations and to future generations, a “discounting” of lives and livelihoods that cannot prove their worth in economic terms.// But if climate change is “slow violence” in terms of its cumulative effects, it is equally slow in its execution — and nothing illustrates this quite so effectively as the trudging pace of international negotiations. Geopolitical power operates here in decidedly non-spectacular ways, through the procedural minutiae of negotiations over subtleties of wording. The drama of urgency around the production of an outcome distracts from the reality of negotiations as a long process of strategic refusal, whereby wealthy countries deny their historical responsibility for global emissions and thereby lock in catastrophic climate trajectories. Rather than heralding the success of an agreement or rejecting it outright as a failure, we should attend to the COP as an instance of slow violence in action.

====Independently, there will be a __race to the bottom__ among multilateral development banks and poorly planned infrastructure development --- impact on the environment will be __even greater than climate change__==== Laurence 16 --- Research Professor and Australian Laureate at James Cook University (Bill, “Will New Mega-Banks Force A 'Race to The Bottom' For The Environment?”, ALERT Conservation, 4/4/2016, []), “LJH” If you care about the environment and human rights, there's good reasons to be very, very nervous. The last few years have seen the rise of major investment banks, such as the recently founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ( AIIB ) as well as the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), which though founded in the 1950s has grown dramatically in recent decades. //Some had hoped these 'new' banks would promote sustainable and socially equitable development, but it now seems they could end up doing precisely the opposite//. //The new banks//, along with the traditional big lenders such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Asian, African, and Inter-American Development Banks, //are very fond of funding infrastructure -- roads, dams, gas lines, mining projects, and the like.// That’s important because we are living in the most explosive era of infrastructure expansion in human history. During their 2014 summit, the G20 nations argued for US$60-70 trillion in new infrastructure investments by 2030 -- which would more than double the total value of infrastructure globally. And the mega-banks are playing a key role in promoting this tidal wave of new investments. For instance, the next few decades are expected to see some 25 million kilometres of new paved roads, thousands of additional hydroelectric dams, and hundreds of thousands of new mining, oil and gas projects. PANDORA’S BOX //The environmental impacts of the modern infrastructure tsunami could easily dwarf climate change and many other human pressures, as thousands of projects penetrate into the world’s last surviving wild areas.// Roughly nine-tenths of the new projects are occurring in developing nations, often in the tropics or subtropics, which harbor the planet’s biologically richest and environmentally most critical ecosystems. //In these contexts, new infrastructures such as roads can open a Pandora’s box of environmental problems, such as promoting widespread deforestation, habitat fragmentation, poaching, fires, illegal mining, and land speculation//. For instance, recent research in the Brazilian Amazon by ALERT director Bill Laurance and colleagues showed that 95 percent of all deforestation occurs within 5.5 kilometers of a legal or illegal road. In Brazil, 12 new dams planned for the Tapajós River (and their associated road networks) are expected to increase Amazon deforestation by nearly 1 million hectares. Across the Amazon, over 330 dams are now planned or under construction.In the Congo Basin, an avalanche of new logging roads has opened up vast areas of rainforest to poachers armed with lethal modern technologies such as rifles and cable snares. As a result, in the last decade two-thirds of all Forest Elephants have been slaughtered for their valuable ivory tusks. FEARS OF FAST-TRACKING Brazil’s BNDES has been heavily criticized for funding scores of environmentally and socially harmful projects such as mega-dams in the Amazon. Fears were raised that China’s AIIB would behave similarly, especially when it announced that it would be using ‘streamlined’ procedures for evaluating its projects. //Such fast-tracking procedures would differ from those used by other major lenders such as the World Bank//, which after years of criticism have gradually implemented measures designed to limit the environmental and social impacts of its projects. Even these safeguards are often inadequate -- as ALERT's Bill Laurance, Thomas Lovejoy, and others argued in a recent article -- but at least they are a big improvement over past practices. When China opened up its AIIB to other countries, 30 nations initially joined as founding members. Among these were many western economies, including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Norway, and Australia. At the time, many hoped that its broadened membership would encourage the AIIB to moderate its hard-charging stance -- fostering environmental and social safeguards more akin to those of the existing major lenders. RACE TO THE BOTTOM But in fact the exact opposite appears to be happening. //Rather than the AIIB raising its game, the World Bank has recently announced that it will be weakening its environmental and social safeguards.// It is doing so, it says, in order to remain ‘competitive’ with other international lenders -- most notably the AIIB. What will this mean? The global economy has slowed for the moment, giving environmental planners perhaps ten seconds of breathing space -- but make no mistake, the infrastructure tsunami is still happening. If the global economy rebounds to a degree, the feeding frenzy-like pace of projects seen in recent years could easily return. This could be bad news for the global environment and socially disempowered peoples. For instance, a 2009 analysis found that many developing nations had become ‘pollution havens’ for projects funded by China or Chinese investors, who were attracted to nations with weak environmental controls. Notably, other advanced (OECD) economies showed no such tendency. //With the AIIB essentially forcing the World Bank to lower its standards, will other major lenders follow suit? Will there simply be a ‘race to the bottom’ among big lenders in order to remain competitive?// Are the western nations that have joined the AIIB going to stand idly by and watch this happen? Or do they have enough influence and determination to make a difference? With China, India, and Russia holding the biggest shares of the bank’s capitalization, it’ll be an uphill battle. Time will soon tell. //Right now, for the environment and human rights, the signs are all pointing in the wrong direction//.

Biodiversity loss is a threat multiplier, it outweighs and triggers their impacts
Torres 2016 -the founder of the X-Risks Institute, an affiliate scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

Phil, "Biodiversity loss: An existential risk comparable to climate change," Apr 11, thebulletin.org/biodiversity-loss-existential-risk-comparable-climate-change9329 According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the two greatest existential threats to human civilization stem from climate change and nuclear weapons. Both pose clear and present dangers to the perpetuation of our species, and the increasingly dire climate situation and nuclear arsenal modernizations in the United States and Russia were the most significant reasons why the Bulletin decided to keep the Doomsday Clock set at three minutes before midnight earlier this year. But there is another existential threat that the Bulletin overlooked in its Doomsday Clock announcement : biodiversity loss. This phenomenon is often identified as one of the many consequences of climate change, and this is of course correct. But biodiversity loss is also a contributing factor behind climate change. For example, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and elsewhere reduces the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by plants, a natural process that mitigates the effects of climate change. So the causal relation between climate change and biodiversity loss is bidirectional. Furthermore, there are myriad phenomena that are driving biodiversity loss in addition to climate change. Other causes include ecosystem fragmentation, invasive species, pollution, oxygen depletion caused by fertilizers running off into ponds and streams, overfishing, human overpopulation, and overconsumption. All of these phenomena have a direct impact on the health of the biosphere, and all would conceivably persist even if the problem of climate change were somehow immediately solved. Such considerations warrant decoupling biodiversity loss from climate change, because the former has been consistently subsumed by the latter as a mere effect. Biodiversity loss is a distinct environmental crisis with its own unique syndrome of causes, consequences, and solutions —such as restoring habitats, creating protected areas (“biodiversity parks”), and practicing sustainable agriculture. The sixth extinction. The repercussions of biodiversity loss are potentially as severe as those anticipated //from climate change, or even a nuclear conflict//. For example, according to a 2015 study published in Science Advances, the best available evidence reveals “an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way.” This conclusion holds, even on the most optimistic assumptions about the background rate of species losses and the current rate of vertebrate extinctions. The group classified as “vertebrates” includes mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and all other creatures with a backbone. The article argues that, using its conservative figures, the average loss of vertebrate species was 100 times higher in the past century relative to the background rate of extinction. (Other scientists have suggested that the current extinction rate could be as much as 10,000 times higher than normal.) As the authors write, “The evidence is incontrovertible that recent extinction rates are unprecedented in human history and highly unusual in Earth’s history.” Perhaps the term “Big Six” should enter the popular lexicon—to add the current extinction to the previous “Big Five,” the last of which wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. But the concept of biodiversity encompasses more than just the total number of species on the planet. It also refers to the size of different populations of species. With respect to this phenomenon, multiple studies have confirmed that wild populations around the world are dwindling and disappearing at an alarming rate. For example, the 2010 Global Biodiversity Outlook report found that the population of wild vertebrates living in the tropics dropped by 59 percent between 1970 and 2006. The report also found that the population of farmland birds in Europe has dropped by 50 percent since 1980; bird populations in the grasslands of North America declined by almost 40 percent between 1968 and 2003; and the population of birds in North American arid lands has fallen by almost 30 percent since the 1960s. Similarly, 42 percent of all amphibian species (a type of vertebrate that is sometimes called an “ecological indicator”) are undergoing population declines, and 23 percent of all plant species “are estimated to be threatened with extinction.” Other studies have found that some 20 percent of all reptile species, 48 percent of the world’s primates, and 50 percent of freshwater turtles are threatened. Underwater, about 10 percent of all coral reefs are now dead, and another 60 percent are in danger of dying. Consistent with these data, the 2014 Living Planet Report shows that the global population of wild vertebrates dropped by 52 percent in only four decades—from 1970 to 2010. While biologists often avoid projecting historical trends into the future because of the complexity of ecological systems, it’s tempting to extrapolate this figure to, say, the year 2050, which is four decades from 2010. As it happens, a 2006 study published in Science does precisely this: It projects past trends of marine biodiversity loss into the 21st century, concluding that, unless significant changes are made to patterns of human activity, there will be virtually no more wild-caught seafood by 2048. Catastrophic consequences for civilization. The consequences of this rapid pruning of the evolutionary tree of life extend beyond the obvious. There could be surprising effects of biodiversity loss that scientists are unable to fully anticipate in advance. For example, prior research has shown that localized ecosystems can undergo abrupt and irreversible shifts when they reach a tipping point. According to a 2012 paper published in Nature, there are reasons for thinking that we may be approaching a tipping point of this sort in the global ecosystem, beyond which the consequences could be catastrophic for civilization. As the authors write, a planetary-scale transition could precipitate “substantial losses of ecosystem services required to sustain the human population .” An ecosystem service is any ecological process that benefits humanity, such as food production and crop pollination. If the global ecosystem were to cross a tipping point and substantial ecosystem services were lost, the results could be “widespread social unrest, economic instability, and loss of human life.” According to Missouri Botanical Garden ecologist Adam Smith, one of the paper’s co-authors, this could occur in a matter of decades—far more quickly than most of the expected consequences of climate change, yet equally destructive. Biod iversity loss is //a “threat multiplier”// that,by push ing societies to the brink of collapse, will exacerbate existing conflicts and introduce entirely new struggles between state and non-state actors. Indeed, it could even fuel the rise of terrorism. (After all, climate change has been linked to the emergence of ISIS in Syria, and multiple high-ranking US officials, such as former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and CIA director John Brennan, have affirmed that climate change and terrorism are connected.) The reality is that we are entering the sixth mass extinction in the 3.8-billion-year history of life on Earth, and the impact of this event could be felt by civilization “in as little as three human lifetimes,” as the aforementioned 2012 Nature paper notes. Furthermore, the widespread decline of biological populations could plausibly initiate a dramatic transformation of the global ecosystem on an even faster timescale: perhaps a single human lifetime. The unavoidable conclusion is that biod iversity loss constitutes an existential threat in its own right. As such, it ought to be considered alongside climate change and nuclear weapons as one of the most significant contemporary risk s to human prosperity and survival.

Prioritize solutions to warming-its impacts are underrepresented in decision calculus
Nixon 11 (Rob Nixon is the Rachel Carson Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison, NY Times Contributor and former is an affiliate of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies the Harvard University Press 2011 “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor” Pg 2-3 http://www.elimeyerhoff.com/books/nixon-rob--slow-violence-and-the-environmentalism-of-the-poor.pdf) Underlying his plan is an overlooked but crucial subsidiary benefit that he outlined: offloading rich-nation toxins onto the world’s poorest continent would help ease the growing pressure from rich-nation environmentalists who were campaigning against garbage dumps and industrial effluent that they condemned as health threats and found aesthetically offensive. Summers thus rationalized his poison-redistribution ethic as offering a double gain: it would benefit the United States and Europe economically, while helping appease the rising discontent of rich-nation environmentalists. Summers’ arguments assumed a direct link between aesthetically unsightly waste and Africa as an out-of-sight continent, a place remote from green activists’ terrain of concern. In Summers’ win-win scenario for the global North, the African recipients of his plan were triply discounted: discounted as political agents, discounted as long-term casualties of what I call in this book “slow violence,” and discounted as cultures possessing environmental practices and concerns of their own. I begin with Summers’ extraordinary proposal because it captures the strategic and representational challenges posed by slow violence as it impacts the environments—and the environmentalism—of the poor. Three primary concerns animate this book, chief among them my conviction that we urgently need to rethink —politically, imaginatively, and theoretically—what I call “ slow violence. ” By slow violence I mean a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at al l. Violence is customarily conceived as an event or action that is immediate in time, explosive and spectacular in space, and as erupting into instant sensational visibility. We need, I believe, to engage a different kind of violence, a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive, its calamitous repercussions playing out across a range of temporal scales. In so doing, we also need to engage the representational, narrative, and **strategic challenges** posed by the relative invisibility of slow violence.Climate change, the thawing cryosphere, toxic drift, biomagnifi cation, deforestation, the radioactive aftermaths of wars, acidifying oceans, and a host of other slowly unfolding environmental catastrophes present formidable representational obstacles that can hinder our efforts to mobilize and act decisively. The long dyings—the staggered and staggeringly discounted casualties, both human and ecological that result from war’s toxic aftermaths or introduction [3] climate change—are underrepresented in strategic planning as well as in human memory. Had Summers advocated invading Africa with weapons of mass destruction, his proposal would have fallen under conventional definitions of violence and been perceived as a military or even an imperial invasion. Advocating invading countries with mass forms of slow-motion toxicity, however, requires rethinking our accepted assumptions of violence to include slow violence. Such a rethinking requires that we complicate conventional assumptions about violence as a highly visible act that is newsworthy because it is event focused, time bound, and body bound. We need to account for how the temporal dispersion of slow violenceaffects the way we perceive and respond to a variety of social afflictions —from domestic abuse to posttraumatic stress and, //in particular, environmental calamities//. A major challenge is representational: how to devise arresting stories, images, and symbols adequate to the pervasive but elusive violence of delayed effects. Crucially, slow violence is often not just attritional but also exponential, operating as a major threat multiplier ; it can fuel long-term, proliferating conflicts in situations where the conditions for sustaining life become increasingly but gradually degraded. Politically and emotionally, different kinds of disaster possess unequal heft. Falling bodies, burning towers, exploding heads, avalanches, volcanoes, and tsunamis have a visceral, eye-catching and page-turning power that tales of slow violence, unfolding over years, decades, even centuries, cannot match. Stories of toxic buildup, massing greenhouse gases, and accelerated species loss due to ravaged habitats are all cataclysmic, but they are scientifically convoluted cataclysms in which casualties are postponed, often for generations.

No war---deterrence, interdependence, social changes, and political and business elites
__Next year will be the seventieth anniversary of the end of the last global conflict. There have been points on that timeline__ — such as the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and a Soviet computer malfunction in 1983 that erroneously suggested that the U.S. had attacked, and perhaps even the Kosovo War in 1999 __— when a global conflict was a real possibility. Yet today__ — __in the shadow of a flare up which some are calling a new Cold War between Russia and the U.__ S. — I believe __the threat of World War III has__ __almost faded into nothingness.__ That is, __the probability of__ __a world war is the lowest it has been in decades, and perhaps the lowest it has ever been since the dawn of modernity__. ¶ __This is certainly a view that current data supports. Steven Pinker's studies into the decline of violence reveal that deaths from war have fallen and fallen since World War II__. But we should not just assume that the past is an accurate guide to the future. Instead, we must look at the factors which have led to the reduction in war and try to conclude whether the decrease in war is sustainable. ¶ __So what's changed?__ Well, the first big change after the last world war was __the arrival of mutually assured destruction__. It's no coincidence that the end of the last global war coincided with the invention of atomic weapons. __The possibility of complete annihilation provided a huge disincentive to launching and expanding total wars.__ Instead, __the great powers now fight proxy wars like Vietnam and Afghanistan (the 1980 version, that is), rather than letting their rivalries expand into full-on, globe-spanning struggles against each other__. Sure, __accidents could happen, but the possibility is incredibly remote____.__ More importantly __, nobody in power wants to be the cause of Armageddon.__ ¶ __But what about a non-nuclear global war? Other changes — economic and social in nature — have made that highly unlikely too.__ ¶ __The world has become much more economically interconnected__ __since the last global war__. __Economic cooperation treaties and free trade agreements have intertwined the economies of countries around the world__. This has meant there has been a huge rise in the volume of global trade since World War II, and especially since the 1980s. ¶ __Today consumer goods__ like smartphones, laptops, cars, jewelery, food, cosmetics, and medicine __are produced on a global level, with supply-chains criss-crossing the planet__. An example: The laptop I am typing this on is the cumulative culmination of thousands of hours of work, as well as resources and manufacturing processes across the globe. It incorporates metals like tellurium, indium, cobalt, gallium, and manganese mined in Africa. Neodymium mined in China. Plastics forged out of oil, perhaps from Saudi Arabia, or Russia, or Venezuela. Aluminum from bauxite, perhaps mined in Brazil. Iron, perhaps mined in Australia. These raw materials are turned into components — memory manufactured in Korea, semiconductors forged in Germany, glass made in the United States. And it takes gallons and gallons of oil to ship all the resources and components back and forth around the world, until they are finally assembled in China, and shipped once again around the world to the consumer. ¶ __In a global war, global trade becomes a nightmare__. Shipping becomes more expensive due to higher insurance costs, and riskier because it's subject to seizures, blockades, ship sinkings. Many goods, intermediate components or resources — including energy supplies like coal and oil, components for military hardware, etc, may become temporarily unavailable in certain areas. Sometimes — such as occurred in the Siege of Leningrad during World War II — the supply of food can be cut off. This is why countries hold strategic reserves of things like helium, pork, rare earth metals and oil, coal, and gas. These kinds of breakdowns were troublesome enough in the economic landscape of the early and mid-20th century, when the last global wars occurred. But in today's ultra-globalized and ultra-specialized economy? The level of economic adaptation — even for large countries like Russia and the United States with lots of land and natural resources — required to adapt to a world war would be crushing, and huge numbers of business and livelihoods would be wiped out. ¶ In other words, __global trade interdependency has become,__ to borrow a phrase from finance, __too big to fail__. ¶ It is easy to complain about the reality of big business influencing or controlling politicians. But __big business has just about the most to lose from breakdowns in global trade. A practical example__ : __If Russian oligarchs make their money from selling gas and natural resources to Western Europe, and send their children to schools in Britain and Germany, and lend and borrow money from the West's financial centers, are they going to be willing to tolerate__ Vladimir __Putin starting__ a regional war in Eastern Europe (let alone a __world war)? Would the Chinese financial industry be happy to see their multi-trillion dollar investments in dollars and U.S. treasury debt go up in smoke? Of course, world wars have been waged despite international business interests, but the world today is far more globalized than ever before and well-connected domestic interests are more dependent on access to global markets, components and resources, or the repayment of foreign debts__. __These are huge disincentives to global war____.__ ¶ But what of the military-industrial complex? While other businesses might be hurt due to a breakdown in trade, surely military contractors and weapons manufacturers are happy with war? Not necessarily. As the last seventy years illustrates, it is perfectly possible for weapons contractors to enjoy the profits from huge military spending without a global war. And the uncertainty of a breakdown in global trade could hurt weapons contractors just as much as other industries in terms of losing access to global markets. That means weapons manufacturers may be just as uneasy about the prospects for large-scale war as other businesses. __Other changes have been social__ __in nature__. Obviously, democratic countries do not tend to go to war with each other, and the spread of liberal democracy is correlated against the decrease in war around the world. But __the spread of internet__ __technology and social media has brought the world much closer together__, too. __As late as the last world war, populations were separated from each other__ by physical distance, by language barriers, and __by lack of mass communication tools__. __This means that it was easy for war-mongering politicians to sell a population on the idea that the enemy is evil.__ It's hard to empathize with people who you only see in slanted government propaganda reels. __Today, people from enemy countries can come together in cyberspace and find out that the "enemy" is not so different, as occurred in the Iran-Israel solidarity movement of 2012.__ ¶ More importantly, violent incidents and deaths can be broadcast to the world much more easily. __Public shock and disgust at the brutal reality of war__ broadcast over YouTube and Facebook __makes it much more difficult for governments to carry out large scale military aggressions__. __For example, the Kremlin's own pollster today released a survey showing that 73 percent of Russians disapprove of Putin's handling of the Ukraine crisis,__ with only 15 percent of the nation supporting a response to the overthrow of the government in Kiev. There are, of course, a few countries like North Korea that deny their citizens access to information that might contradict the government's propaganda line. And __sometimes countries ignore mass anti-war protests — as occurred prior to the Iraq invasion of 2003 — but generally a more connected, open, empathetic and democratic world has made it much harder for war-mongers to go to war__. ¶ __The greatest trend, though, may be that the world as a whole is getting richer__. Fundamentally, __wars arise out of one group of people deciding that they want whatever another group has__ — land, tools, resources, money, friends, sexual partners, empire, prestige — and deciding to take it by force. __Or they arise as a result of grudges or hatreds from previous wars of the first kind. We don't quite live in a superabundant world yet, but the long march of human ingenuity is making basic human wants__ like clothing, water, food, shelter, warmth, entertainment, recreation, and medicine __more ubiquitous throughout the world. This means that countries are less desperate to go to war to seize other people's stuff.__
 * Aziz 14 ** (John Aziz is the former economics and business editor at TheWeek.com, Don't worry: World War III will almost certainly never happen, 3/6/14, http://theweek.com/article/index/257517/dont-worry-world-war-iii-will-almost-certainly-never-happen)

Solvency
====Plan will stimulate reform and innovation in the existing international economic order --- including the World Bank, IMF and ADB. __Direct U.S. engagement__ is critical to begin the process and ensure that hydroelectric dams or coal plants aren’t funded.==== Elgin-Cossart & Hart, 9/22/15 --- *Senior Fellow at American Progress, where she works on issues involving foreign policy, international development, and global conflict, AND **Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at American Progress (Molly Elgin-Cossart and Melanie Hart, “China’s New International Financing Institutions; Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Investment Standards,” [], article downloaded 4/23/16, JMP)**
 * In recent years, China has moved into development finance in a very big way. In July 2014, China took the lead in bringing together the major emerging national economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—known as the BRICS—to form the New Development Bank, or NDB, an international lending institution that will provide at least $50 billion in development funding to emerging markets. Then, in June 2015, China led a group of more than 50 nations to launch the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, another China-led development bank that plans to invest at least $100 billion to build new infrastructure projects across Asia. The AIIB launch was a major coup for Beijing because it was not just a developing country initiative. Multiple G7 nations, including France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, rushed to join the AIIB as founding members. Importantly, the United Kingdom joined despite reported objections from the United States, which chose to stay out of the AIIB and openly criticized the United Kingdom’s decision to join. With the AIIB, China is now playing a leading role not only among emerging nations, but among major developed economies as well. In addition to these two multilateral initiatives, China is also rolling out two new unilateral lending programs: China’s South-South Cooperation Fund, which will provide $20 million annually to support climate work in developing nations, and the $40 billion China Silk Road Fund that will fund projects associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative , which is China’s new marquis outbound investment initiative. Based on dollar amounts alone the NDB, AIIB, and Silk Road Fund stand to operate on par with existing financial institutions, such as the World Bank Group and the Asian Development Bank, which operate on capital bases—money both paid in and pledged by member nations—of $223 billion and just more than $160 billion, respectively. Once the new organizations get rolling, borrowing nations will have a much larger menu of lending options to choose from. The U.S.-dominated World Bank and the Asian Development Bank—in which the United States is the first and second largest shareholder, respectively—will no longer be the biggest lending game in town, particularly in the broader Asia-Pacific region. From a Chinese perspective, challenging U.S. dominance is exactly the point. Chinese leaders are throwing capital into these new lending institutions because they are frustrated with Washington’s refusal to support reforms in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, that would give China and other emerging nations more voting power—and more lending responsibility—on par with their growing economic clout. The U.S. Congress has been the biggest roadblock to reform in the IMF. The Obama administration has made multiple attempts to move forward on IMF governance reform. But those changes require congressional approval, and Congress has refused to support reform even though the proposed changes would not substantially reduce the U.S. votes in the IMF relative to other member nations. U.S. congressional representatives may have been resisting these reforms in an attempt to deny China’s aspiration for a stronger voice in the current international financial architecture. But instead of containing China, U.S. inaction emboldened China to go out and form its own institutions. Even more importantly from Beijing’s perspective: when China stepped up to the plate, other nations were willing to follow, even major developed nations such as the United Kingdom. Now the major U.S.-led institutions face stiff competition from new Chinese-led institutions where the United States is not a member. It would be easy to assume that this shift in the balance of lending power poses strategic threats to the United States and the U.S.-led global financial architecture. However, the //U// nited //S// tates does want China to take on more responsibilities in development finance, and Beijing is not going to put more Chinese money on the table without having a say about where that money is spent . That is certainly an understandable position. If Washington can help Beijing implement responsible lending practices within these new banks, then China’s challenge may be just what America’s existing infrastructure needs to get out of a stagnant rut. Current U.S.-led organizations such as the World Bank, IMF, and Asia Development Bank, or ADB, are not keeping pace with changing global investment needs ; these pre-existing institutions are not attracting enough capital from lender nations to fill escalating investment needs, and their outdated governance structures have failed to effectively leverage lending capital from China and other rising economies. //The alacrity with which the AIIB was formed points to the potential of the AIIB and other new international institutions// —such as the BRICS’ New Development Bank— //to stimulate much needed reform and innovation in the existing international economic order// . Development lending, just like other markets, benefits from competition. At present, however, //China and its new lending partners are going to need more engagement and support from the////U// nited //S// tates and existing financial institutions to kick off this positive cycle. This issue brief will provide an overview of the existing international financial order, how China’s new financial institutions fit in to the status quo system, and what the United States should do to make sure these new banks drive a race to the top in finance for sustainable investment. The existing order In many ways, the formation of the AIIB is a symptom of a larger problem: //the current development financing system is outdated and badly in need of reform// . The World Bank, IMF, and ADB simply are not putting forward enough capital to meet current development needs, borrowers complain of unreasonable demands and delays, and the structure of these institutions has not evolved over time to fit a changing global economy. Within these institutions, China and other fast-rising economies can shift from borrowers to lenders as their economies grow. But regardless of how much capital they are willing to put forward, they are not granted decision-making power on par with the original founding nations. The World Bank is badly in need of a new strategy. Lending has declined in recent years, driven by low capital infusions from World Bank members and increased competition from regional development banks and private institutions. Commitments from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development—the branch of the World Bank that loans to middle-income countries—averaged more than $25 billion per year during the 1980s and 1990s. But support has since declined to around $15 billion per year, although 2014 saw an increase to $18.6 billion. Lack of adequate, stable resources—the result of low capital infusions and inconsistent capital increases—has been a continual problem. The proliferation of ad-hoc trust funds—which began as a way to co-finance specific projects but are now mostly focused on global public goods that cross borders, such as climate change or public health initiatives—point to the inadequacy of the World Bank’s traditional lending instruments to tackle complex global problems. The Asian Development Bank is facing similar challenges. The United States is the second largest shareholder in the Asian Development Bank, behind Japan; China is number three. The combined capital base of the World Bank and ADB is less than $400 billion, not enough to meet growing infrastructure investment needs in developing Asia-Pacific nations. China’s new kids on the block The New Development Bank was the first new Chinese-led institution to come online. It was established in July 2014 by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa at the annual BRICS Summit with $100 billion in authorized capital and $50 billion in subscribed capital. The NDB is structured to heavily favor the founding BRICS members, and any contributions from new members may not reduce the BRICS’ voting shares below 55 percent or increase the new members’ shares beyond 7 percent of the total voting shares. The ADB has similar minimum regional representations. The protected dominance in voting shares, along with a requirement that the president and vice president hail from BRICS countries, are likely to discourage other large economies from joining. While the BRICS claim that they are aiming for a more inclusive governance structure compared to existing institutions, their terms belie these claims. In contrast, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is more open, with 57 founding members, compared to five for the BRICS bank. AIIB’s Articles of Agreement specify an open procurement policy, which means non-AIIB members can provide goods and services for AIIB-funded projects. However, China will be the largest shareholder and host the headquarters of the AIIB. While the call for members opened the floodgates that led to a diplomatic coup for China, //the result of AIIB’s broader membership roster is that it is much more likely to adopt more stringent governance and higher environmental and social standards// , with strong support from countries such as South Korea and Australia. Non-Asian members will be limited to 25 percent of the AIIB’s voting share and therefore will have less influence on its decisions. As far as these big new multilateral institutions are concerned, while the //U// nited //S// tates won’t be writing the lending rules in the Asia-Pacific, neither will the Chinese. //There is a great deal of potential// , then, //for these new institutions to create the impetus for revitalizing the global lending system as a whole in both old and new multilateral development banks, and in the process, create a race to the top.// The standards question There is a clear need for new investment capital in the developing world. The estimated need of infrastructure investments in Asia alone over the coming years is more than $1 trillion annually. The AIIB’s $100 billion capitalization would make the AIIB two-thirds the size of the ADB. Given that the needs for Asian infrastructure have been estimated in the trillions, there is more than enough space for multiple lenders in the region. In terms of investment demand, the AIIB and NDB are clearly filling a gap. //The unanswered question is which type of projects these new development banks will support, and that is determined by the standards they employ for project approval.// If these institutions adopt strong standards that safeguard people and the environment, they will support new development projects with a positive impact on borrowing nations and regions. //High environmental and social standards at the AIIB and NDB could even push existing international lending institutions to tighten their own project standards and streamline their processes to become more efficient.// On the other hand, if the AIIB and NDB adopt standards that are too lax , they could //wind up funding a wave of problematic projects such as hydroelectric dams that devastate the local environment or coal plants that accelerate global warming// . Although most of its neighbors in the region welcome Chinese lending—including via the AIIB— Beijing is already encountering push back from nations that initially welcomed Chinese investment but later turned sour on China after it became clear that the projects brought unacceptable environmental damage or were poorly constructed . Striking the right balance on lending standards for development aid is a difficult task. The AIIB has said it will require projects to be legally transparent and protect social and environmental interests ; the AIIB secretariat is currently circulating a draft environmental and social framework for public comment. //The NDB, however, has been silent on the specifics of its standards.// On the environmental front in particular, the question remains: should a development bank support energy developments that provide cheap fossil energy but also increase local air pollution, possibly damaging local public health and speeding global climate change? //The World Bank is a pioneer in the area of establishing safeguards but can hardly claim unambiguous success.// There is tension between alignment with borrower priorities and the often slow and arduous process of safeguards and accountability. This trade-off will only become sharper as recipient countries grow in economic size and are presented with more lending options, as will be the case when the AIIB and NDB come online. The World Bank’s introduction of mandatory environmental and social safeguards followed the 1991 Pelosi Amendment. The U.S. Congress passed the provision, sponsored by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to force the World Bank to conduct environmental assessments for proposed projects and reject those with significant negative environmental effects . This led to the rapid expansion of safeguard expertise at the bank. Additional governance safeguards were developed during former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz’s 2005 reforms. Yet //even with safeguards in place, the system is far from perfect// . In 2010, the World Bank green-lighted a $3.75 billion development loan for the Medupi coal-fired power plant project in South Africa. At that time, South Africa was suffering severe power shortages, and the World Bank believed that coal-fired power was the best option for bringing energy online in large quantities and at low rates despite the projects expected environmental costs. The bank required the plant to incorporate emission-control equipment, but the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Norway, and Italy all viewed the proposed power station project as a potential environmental disaster. Those nations supported sustainability over fast fixes and were frustrated by their inability to block World Bank funding for the Medupi project. In October 2013 , as part of President Barack Obama’s climate action plan, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that the United States would no longer support multilateral development bank funding for new coal-fired power plants “except in narrowly defined circumstances.” The Obama administration took that unilateral step because it wanted to ensure that American taxpayer dollars would not be used to support development projects that undermine public health and climate security. The World Bank adopted a similar policy and now limits funding for new coal-fired power projects to so-called rare circumstances. The United Kingdom, France, and several other industrialized lending nations have followed suit. __ On this issue, the World Bank and the major industrialized lending nations are now presenting a relatively united front. //The question now becomes, will the AIIB and NDB support or undermine these efforts to strengthen development-lending standards?//__ On coal-fired power, will AIIB and NDB adopt a similar stance, or will they step in to build all of the dirty-coal plants that the World Bank refused to fund? If the AIIB and NDB go with the latter approach, //that could severely undermine the global battle to combat climate change//.If instead the new bank s adopt a reasonably high-standards approach, then the projects that they fund will complement what the World Bank is already doing. //The new lending institutions could even wind up challenging the World Bank to further tighten its own standards, thus driving a global race to the top.// Of course, setting high lending standards is not an easy thing to do. A Center for American Progress research team recently visited potential AIIB borrowing nations across Southeast Asia to find out what emerging markets in the broader Asia-Pacific region expect from the AIIB and how they are communicating those expectations to China and other AIIB member nations. Many Southeast Asian nations are lobbying against high AIIB project standards. They argue that if standards are set too high, then some nations will not qualify for a single AIIB loan. Indonesia, for example, has been unable to move forward on projects with the World Bank because Indonesia cannot meet the bank’s high project standards. Indonesia and many other emerging markets expect China to provide a helping hand to its developing neighbors. These nations expect that it will be easier to secure loans through the AIIB than it would be for them to obtain funding from the World Bank.On the other hand, Beijing understands the political damage China will face if the AIIB, NDB, and Silk Road Fund become synonymous with dirty-coal plants and crumbling infrastructure. China is already facing some of these problems with its outbound foreign direct investment. In Myanmar, for example, officials in that nation forced Chinese investors to halt construction of the planned Myitsone dam after local citizens complained that the dam would flood critical historical areas and damage biodiversity. As a consequence of that project’s controversy, China’s image has been severely undermined among the Myanmar people. In Malaysia, citizens are complaining about bauxite-mining operations that supply aluminum production in China but flood surrounding areas with poisonous byproducts, including cadmium, lead, and thorium. Can China thread the needle between providing funding where it is most needed, while at the same time setting standards high enough to ensure that AIIB will not trigger Asia’s next environmental disaster? //Chinese leaders have indicated that they do indeed want to aim high.// AIIB Interim Secretary Jin Liqun has stated that the bank will aim to operate in a “lean, clean, and green” fashion and absolutely will not replicate China’s “pollution first mistakes” —which required expensive clean up— in AIIB borrowing nations. However, //in private conversations, it is clear that Chinese leaders have not yet figured out how they are going to keep that promise// . Unfortunately, the AIIB’s draft environmental and social framework , released last week, does not look promising . The framework is the set of loan application and loan assessment guidelines that will determine the types of projects the AIIB will support and the environmental and social measures project borrowers will need to employ to remain compliant with AIIB lending standards. //While the current draft suggests that the AIIB secretariat is making environmental and climate protection a high priority in principle, the language in the draft framework contains plenty of loopholes.//// It appears extremely likely that the AIIB will support new coal projects, creating massive climate risk. // __//There is no explicit ban on coal-fired power plants.// Coal-fired power is not even mentioned in the “environmental and social exclusion list,” __ which is the list of banned projects, nor does the draft specify limitations or conditions on funding coal projects, such as certain levels of efficiency, //or how they will promote cleaner alternatives// . The AIIB guidelines include the following statements: Loan applicants should assess a project’s potential climate impacts and “develop mitigation or adaptation measures, as appropriate.” Based on the current draft, there is no specificity regarding the mitigation or adaptation measures that would be “appropriate” or required in a specific circumstance. Project developers could potentially decide that it would be “appropriate” to do nothing. “Consider alternatives and implement technically and financially feasible and cost-effective options to reduce Operation-related greenhouse gas emissions during design and operation.” Based on the current draft, project developers could apparently “consider” various alternatives and then reject them on the grounds that they are too expensive to employ. “For Operations that are expected to or currently produce more than 25,000 tons of CO2-equivalent annually, where technically and financially feasible, quantify direct emissions from the facilities owned or controlled within the physical boundary of the Operation.” Based on the current draft, project developers can apparently get out of this requirement by claiming that it is not “technically and financially feasible” to report the project’s greenhouse gas emissions. Most of the draft environmental and social guidelines depend on the host country’s own regulatory framework; if a project does not violate host country standards, then it will be eligible for funding. Based on this draft, //the AIIB could wind up funding projects that benefit powerful local interest groups but violate international environmental standards and would therefore not be eligible for World Bank funding// . Such projects often anger local communities and can lead to massive environmental and social disasters that turn host governments against these project as well. If the AIIB begins lending based on these current draft environmental and social guidelines , not only is there //a massive risk of climate and environmental damage// , but many AIIB projects could create political headaches for Beijing and undermine China’s image as a good economic partner in the Asia-Pacific region . The current draft is just that—a draft—and the AIIB secretariat released the draft because it wanted to consult with a large array of experts and hear their ideas for modifying this draft. Now that the draft is out, //this is an ideal time for the////U// nited //S// tates //to engage// . That doesn’t mean the//U// nited //S// tates needs to join the AIIB ; but the//U// nited //S// tates could work with institutions of which it is a member, such as the World Bank, IMF, and ADB, and the new Chinese-led institutions to //improve and unify standards across the board// by building on the hard-won lessons learned by the World Bank and other international financial institutions and multilateral development banks. Given the risks if proper safeguards are not in place, it behooves new and old institutions to cooperate. The AIIB and NDB, especially, will be preoccupied with obtaining a high credit rating, which will allow them to loan on favorable terms, and they will therefore need to carefully assess lending risks. World Bank President Jim Kim’s remarks ahead of the 2015 annual spring World Bank/IMF meetings reflected the realization of this when he said, “If the world’s multilateral banks, including the new ones, can form alliances, work together, and support development that addresses these challenges, we all benefit.” Recommendations The IMF and the World Bank are already engaging the AIIB and NDB to help these new banks learn from best practices in the west, // but there is also a need for the //// U // nited // S // tates // to engage directly // . Currently, if one were to ask Chinese officials and international financial experts what the U.S. position is on the new China-led financial institutions, they would say the //U// nited //S// tates opposes the new banks and would point to the fact that Washington reportedly tried to block its allies from joining the AIIB and failed. In addition, the Chinese would note that the United States in essence turned AIIB membership into a choice between it and China—and China won. Moving forward, the //U// nited //S// tates needs to take a more balanced approach to China-led development financing and make it very clear that America welcomes China and other nations to step up to the plate and provide much needed development financing, //as long as those projects meet reasonable environmental and social investment standards// . The Obama administration is certainly moving in that direction with official statements, but the //U// nited //S// tates //still does not have actual direct engagement on this issue// . This week’s U.S.-China presidential summit is a great opportunity to begin rectifying that situation. Specifically, when it comes to the new development banks, the //U// nited //S// tates should support a review of current and expected future global financing needs and engage in discussions about how the institutions—new and old—can complement each other in their investment focus . Even with the new institutions online, a funding gap will remain. Thus //it is important to develop a shared understanding of the needs and where the highest priorities lie, as well as the comparative advantage of each institution in undertaking specific projects// . As part of this exercise, all development banks—the World Bank, the regional development banks, and the new institutions such as the AIIB—should come together around a shared vision and objectives based on achievement of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals summit in late September in Washington. The //U// nited //S// tates //should work with China to formulate sustainable investment standards that are acceptable to both developed and developing countries// . The //U// nited //S// tates and China have already tackled the developed versus developing country divide under the //U// nited //N// ations Convention on Climate Change . The two nations can apply the same model to international development finance. //If the////U// nited //S// tates //and China can identify a set of common standards that both nations can accept, it is highly likely those standards will be acceptable to other nations as well// .As they did in the climate negotiation realm, Washington and Beijing will need to think outside the box to find a model that indicates complementarity without requiring complete agreement across all parameters. For example, //China—or the AIIB secretariat—could issue a lending policy on coal-fired power that parallels the U.S. policy, even if it does not perfectly match it// . Conclusion It is clear that the world of development finance is becoming more diverse and fragmented and that can be a great thing for the //U// nited //S// tates: Washington can finally let China and other rising economies carry more water around the world . Investment needs are too great to leave potential lending nations on the sidelines. As more lending options emerge, however, standards are going to become even more critical for shaping the types of projects development banks fund around the world. The //U// nited //S// tates faces a stark choice between leading a cross-bank standardization effort or stepping back and ceding that role to others . //America has much to gain from helping China find its way forward on this issue. From a U.S. perspective, leaning in should be the only option on the table.//**

Independently, __harmonizing__ sustainable investment standards demonstrates U.S.-China global climate leadership Hart et al., 6/13/16 **(Melanie Hart, Pete Ogden, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at the Center for American Progress. Pete Ogden is a Senior Fellow at the Center. Kelly Sims Gallagher is professor of energy and environmental policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. 6-13-2016, "Green Finance: The Next Frontier for U.S.-China Climate Cooperation," Center For American Progress, [] //PD)//**
 * // International finance: Going green or brown? __In the post-Paris era, the__// __U__//__nited__// __S__//__tates and China not only will need to grapple with domestic green finance challenges but also will play critical roles in determining whether the world meets the climate challenge through their roles in overseas investment and assistance. Moreover, there is reason to be concerned that__// __absent policy intervention, China’s overseas investments will skew “brown”—toward fossil-fuel-intensive energy infrastructure__//__—rather than “green”—toward a low-carbon pollution future.__// __This would undermine global efforts to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement__**//__.__** While this section of the brief focuses on policies in the United States and China that shape and direct overseas investments and assistance, it is important keep in mind the central role of the host country to which the investments flow in all of this. The Paris Agreement provides some very useful parameters in this regard, as virtually every country in the world has committed to a plan to reduce domestic emissions and, collectively, to the goal of limiting global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius. The United States has ramped up its international climate assistance over the past six years, reaching $15.6 billion of public support between 2010 and 2015. This includes bilateral assistance; public support provided by the U.S.’s development finance institution and export credit agency, which in turn leverages significant additional private green finance; and U.S. support though multilateral institutions such as the World Bank. As part of this effort, the United States has committed to provide $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund by 2020 and delivered its first installment of $500 million earlier this year. The other side of the coin is the extent to which the United States is working to limit its public support for overseas assistance and investment and public assistance for highly polluting technologies, infrastructure, and other projects that do not move countries along a path of sustainable economic development consistent with the Paris climate agreement. On this front, the United States also has made progress, though more work remains to be done. In 2013, President Barack Obama announced that the administration would not provide public support for new coal plants overseas except in “rare circumstances,” a policy now shared by the World Bank and a number of other countries around the world. The administration’s announcement also helped make possible a 2015 agreement by all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development export credit agencies to eliminate financing for new coal plants that were not ultra-supercritical by 2017, albeit with exceptions for supercritical coal power plants smaller than 500 megawatt capacity and subcritical coal power plants smaller than 300 megawatt capacity built in International Development Association-eligible countries. In addition, in 2014, President Obama issued executive order 13677, which requires U.S. government agencies to factor climate resilience considerations systematically into the federal government’s international development work. In other words, U.S. foreign assistance programs should not promote maladaptation to climate change or worsening resilience. __In China, the situation is more complicated and, from a climate perspective, potentially perilous if the necessary policy guidelines are not instituted quickly.__ On one hand, China has for the first time demonstrated a new willingness to participate directly and publicly in international climate aid efforts by launching and then pledging 20 billion renminbi, or $3.2 billion, for the new China South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change. China also supports green finance initiatives internationally though the World Bank and other multilateral development banks. In contrast to these instances of positive investment strategies that promote sustainable economic growth and development through cleaner energy, adaptation, and climate resilience, **//**the Chinese government does not appear to have any overarching technical guidelines or policies governing its overseas development investments or aid to avoid negative investment outcomes. // Unlike the United States, for example, __China does not impose limitations on public financing for highly polluting projects in other nations, such as high-emission coal plants__//__. The lack of overseas investment guidelines is triggering concerns that China may continue to make green investments at home and brown investments abroad.__ // Some observers speculate that this investment inconsistency could be intentional. Coal, steel, cement, and other pollution-intensive heavy industry sectors are suffering from overcapacity in China. Where overcapacity is particularly acute, investing in heavy industry projects abroad is generally seen as a winning strategy for creating new export markets to absorb excess production in an era of declining demand at home. In the open market, firms would react to weaker demand by scaling back production or closing down. If clean energy policies swing demand from coal to renewable sources, the market should follow suit. In China, however, coal and other heavy industry sectors are dominated by state-owned enterprises with strong local government ties, access to cheap capital, and a tendency to leverage both of those advantages to keep their factories running regardless of the market’s ability to absorb what is produced. One thing those sectors have done when demand slows at home is to seek new markets abroad, often using state funds to do so. China’s new Belt and Road program is the epitome of that strategy. Under the program, Beijing is leveraging the nation’s diplomatic ties to help Chinese companies secure projects in other nations and then backing those projects through the country’s $40 billion Silk Road investment fund. __Some observers are concerned that rising overcapacity in China’s domestic coal sectors combined with unclear environmental and climate standards for outbound investments will__// __trigger a new wave of overseas Chinese coal investments that could counteract some of the good work China is doing at home to reduce greenhouse gas emissions__//__. Officials in Shanxi Province—one of China’s biggest coal-producing regions—state that they are actively pushing coal companies to “go out” and build projects in Indonesia, Pakistan, and other Belt and Road nations to draw down the province’s excess coal capacity. If the goal is to maximize coal consumption in other nations,__// __those investments could pose significant greenhouse gas emission risks.__ // The Global Economic Governance Initiative at Boston University has compiled a new data set on China’s overseas energy investments. Based on this data set, it appears that between 2001 and 2016, the Chinese government has supported the construction of more than 50 coal-fired power plants abroad. A majority of these power plants—58 percent—use subcritical coal technology, which is the most energy inefficient form of coal-fired power plant and therefore the type that is most carbon intensive. Most of the remainder were supercritical plants, which are approximately 12 percent more efficient than subcritical plants. One such plant, in Egypt, was an ultra-supercritical plant, which is the most energy efficient coal-fired power plant technology available. On an annual basis, this fleet of more than 50 coal-fired power plants was estimated to release 594 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 11 percent of total U.S. emissions in 2015 and 6 percent of total Chinese emissions in 2014—the latest year for which data are available. If a 30-year lifetime for these plants is assumed, they will emit 17,828 metric tons of carbon dioxide cumulatively, equal to slightly more than U.S. and Chinese emissions put together on an annual basis. //China already is one of the biggest providers of international energy assistance //__through the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. Now, it is establishing major new financial institutions, including the__ Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or __AIIB__ ; the New Development Bank, which is often referred to as the bank of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, or the BRICS Development Bank; President Xi’s signature Belt and Road initiative; and China’s South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change. In light of this, //guideline clarifications for both bilateral development aid and overseas investments represent an important opportunity for U.S.-China collaboration going forward// . Not only would clarified policy statements be useful to guide investments and potentially harmonize standards, but //the two nations could also once again demonstrate joint leadership//__. China and the United States could collaborate on positive, climate-friendly investment strategies—including on specific projects—and establish information-sharing protocols regarding these investments. Moreover, both countries could experiment with a wider range of investment programs, learning from each other’s successes__ . __The most recent U.S.-China joint statement__ —on the occasion of President Xi’s September 2015 visit to Washington, D.C.— __provides a promising diplomatic opening for bilateral engagements__ . During the visit, China pledged to “strengthen green and low-carbon policies and regulations with a view to strictly controlling public investment flowing into projects with high pollution and carbon emissions both domestically and internationally.” For its part, __the United States reaffirmed its existing commitment to end “public financing for new conventional coal-fired power plants except in the poorest countries__ .” Both nations reiterated these commitments at the June 2016 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, or S&ED, meetings in Beijing. Given this alignment, the United States and China could work to maximize economic benefits for developing countries while minimizing environmental, social, and climate risks. Policy recommendations The United States and China have a near-term opportunity to work together on their respective implementation plans for the Paris climate agreement. __It is critical for both nations to get the implementation right__ —not only because they are the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters but also __because__// __U.S. and Chinese policy successes can provide a blueprint for the rest of the world to follow__// . To that end, __U.S. and Chinese leaders should__ expand cooperation as follows: Enhance bilateral cooperation on domestic policy. This would include work in the areas of gases other than carbon dioxide, improved measurement capabilities for land-use change and the forestry sector, technological innovation, and resilience. Devise common definitions for “climate finance” and “green finance” and set up a new collaborative initiative on domestic clean energy finance policy. The United States and China have different economic and political systems, so the same financing solutions will not always apply in both nations. However, China and the United States have enough in common that both would benefit from the exchange of best practices and lessons learned as they relate to clean energy finance. __Clarify guidelines for both bilateral development aid and overseas investments.__// __Not only would clarified policy statements be useful to guide investments and potentially harmonize standards, but the two countries could also once again demonstrate leadership by collaborating on positive, climate-friendly investment strategies and projects__**//__.__** Establish information-sharing protocols regarding these investments to promote transparency, learning, and improved practices over time. Launch a U.S.-China collaboration on mobilizing green finance abroad. These types of foreign investment should be aimed at helping the least-developed countries achieve the goals and targets that they set for themselves—such as their Nationally Determined Contributions—as part of the Paris Agreement. Conclusion Just as __the__//U// nited //S// tates __and China____played decisive roles in the world’s ability to reach a climate agreement in Paris,__// __the two countries will play decisive roles in the world’s ability to fulfill the terms of the accord//__ . This will require that the United States and China not only mobilize green financing domestically—which is necessary to meet both countries’ respective national clean energy and carbon pollution reduction commitments—but also that they use their individual public overseas investment tools and assistance to help achieve the targets committed to in Paris. Through engagement and cooperation, green finance can be another constructive plank in the U.S.-China climate relationship.

====China has a huge incentive to accept collaboration on environmental standards --- it has a __willingness__ to improve its environmental standards and enforcement but it needs greater __expertise__ and __experience__ --- can’t rely on host government regulations to ensure effective protections==== Ma 14 (Yuge Ma, DPhil Candidate at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI), University of Oxford, 12-5-2014, "The Environmental Implications of China’s New Bank," Diplomat, [] //PD)// // On October 24 this year, 21 Asian countries signed an agreement in Beijing that signaled the launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), whose main backer is China. The agreement authorized $100 billion in capital for the new bank, with an initial subscribed capital of around $50 billion. But will the new bank be able to implement best practice when it comes to governance and environmental concerns? According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) – Japan-led and the largest existing multilateral development bank in Asia – between now and 2020 the Asia and Pacific regions will require infrastructure investment of at least $8 trillion. As China’s Xinhua news agency commented, the existing international financial system is insufficient to meet this huge demand. This gives China ample scope to play a crucial role. While the Western world might fear losing influence in the growing Asian market or a potential challenge to the U.S.-led international order, the AIIB raises another concern: the potential threat Chinese money might represent to established international standards of foreign aid In her book By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest Is Changing the World (Oxford University Press, 2014), Elizabeth Economy, senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and her colleague Michael Levi argue that the best way to understand the local implications of Chinese overseas investments is to observe how it operates at home, where neither the Chinese government nor companies pay much attention to environmental protection. //Despite the fact that China had established a nationwide system of environmental impact assessment// (EIA), //in practice it is hamstrung by widespread data fraud, corruption, and political intervention from local officials//. Only now is the Chinese government beginning to govern this chaotic field. However, the authors have also observed some improvements in Chinese companies’ social and environmental awareness in recent years. The first is top down: in order to reduce unsustainable development, China’s leadership has been encouraging companies, especially state-owned enterprises, to engage in more corporate social responsibility-related international initiatives by launching a set of policy incentives that apply to both domestic and overseas investments. The second change is coming from outside. As more Chinese companies go abroad, they are receiving more exposure to the best practices of their foreign counterparts. In addition, China’s Ministry of Commerce has encouraged Chinese companies to be more active in the United Nations Global Compact and other international rating systems to improve their international image. Finally, the third change is from the bottom up, and refers to the growing public awareness of the negative environmental and social impact of Chinese investment and active NGO participation in pushing Chinese companies to change their behavior. Still, none of the above motivations have been sufficient to meaningfully alter the fundamental logic of growth-at-any-cost. //Without strict environmental regulations and effective enforcement from their host countries, Chinese corporations still can’t stop using// the tried and tested – albeit outdated – //methods they have used over decades//. When Chinese energy-related projects have entered more mature markets, such as Australia, Canada, and even Poland and Brazil, the host countries’ environmental authorities and vibrant civil society groups have forced them to accept much stricter environmental laws. As a result Chinese investors have had to pay a very high price to learn those lessons, leading to unforeseen profit losses. Cai Jinyong, the first Chinese national to become CEO of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) said in a recent interview that Chinese overseas investment projects are generally good at construction, but weak at long-term management. The environmental impact is an important component of managing a sustainable project in terms of both financial and social consequences. Put simply, //even though Chinese companies want to improve their environmental practices// – not always the case in countries without de facto environmental regulations – //a lack of expertise and experience remains a significant obstacle//. Xi Jinping has promised that the principles of AIIB will be equality, inclusiveness and efficiency, while Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei has declared that AIIB will learn from the best practice in the world and adopt international standards of environmental protection. Yet, infrastructure-hungry Asian countries are themselves causing severe environmental degradation – air pollution, water scarcity and soil contamination to name a few.They also suffer from weak government accountability and lack of civil society participation in environmental issues. //It is unlikely they will be able to enforce “international standards” on Chinese-financed projects solely on their own. // Elizabeth Economy argued in a recent opinion article that the international world, especially //the US, should see the creation of the AIIB as a chance to introduce robust environmental standards to China-led infrastructure investments in Asia//. An editorial in The Hindu urged India, presumably the AIIB’s second largest shareholder, to work closely with China “to ensure that best practices are followed in projects for procurement and materials and in terms of labour and environmental standards.” But // will China readily accept involvement from the U.S. //, its close allies, and other emerging countries // in its ambitious multilateral initiative // , which aims to increase its political and economic influence in the region? One thing we can be sure about is the //Chinese leadership understands very well that its long-term international influence// does not solely depend on hard power; it also //relies on soft power, mainly the social and environmental consequences of its extensive global presence// .As Joseph Nye, creator of the popular “soft power” concept said last year: “The development of soft power need not be a zero-sum game. All countries can gain from finding each other attractive.” // Leaders from the U.S., China, and other Asian countries //, developed or developing, // will need political wisdom as well as professional collaboration to ensure the sustainable development of the most populous and fastest-growing region in the world //.

Institutions are key to solve warming—individual action fails and trades off CAG 10—Climate Change Communication Advisory Group. Dr Adam Corner School of Psychology, Cardiff University - Dr Tom Crompton Change Strategist, WWF-UK - Scott Davidson Programme Manager, Global Action Plan - Richard Hawkins Senior Researcher, Public Interest Research Centre - Professor Tim Kasser, Psychology department, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, USA. - Dr Renee Lertzman, Center for Sustainable Processes & Practices, Portland State University, US. - Peter Lipman, Policy Director, Sustrans. - Dr Irene Lorenzoni, Centre for Environmental Risk, University of East Anglia. - George Marshall, Founding Director, Climate Outreach, Information Network - Dr Ciaran Mundy, Director, Transition Bristol - Dr Saffron O’Neil, Department of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia. - Professor Nick Pidgeon, Director, Understanding Risk Research Group, School of Psychology, Cardiff University. - Dr Anna Rabinovich, School of Psychology, University of Exeter - Rosemary Randall, Founder and director of Cambridge Carbon Footprint - Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh, School of Psychology, Cardiff University & Visiting Fellow at the, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. (Communicating climate change to mass public audience, http://pirc.info/downloads/communicating_climate_mass_audiences.pdf) This short advisory paper collates a set of recommendations about how best to shape mass public communications aimed at increasing concern about climate change and motivating commensurate behavioural changes.¶ Its focus is not upon motivating small private-sphere behavioural changes on a piece-meal basis. Rather, it marshals evidence about how best to motivate the ambitious and systemic behavioural change that is necessary – including, crucially, greater public engagement with the policy process (through, for example, lobbying decision-makers and elected representatives, or participating in demonstrations), as well as major lifestyle changes. ¶ Political leaders themselves have drawn attention to the imperative for more vocal public pressure to create the ‘political space’ for them to enact more ambitious policy interventions. 1 While this paper does not dismiss the value of individuals making small private-sphere behavioural changes (for example, adopting simple domestic energy efficiency measures) it is clear that such behaviours do not, in themselves, represent a proportional response to the challenge of climate change. As David MacKay, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate change writes: “Don’t be distracted by the myth that ‘every little helps’. If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little” (MacKay, 2008).¶ The task of campaigners and communicators from government, business and non-governmental organisations must therefore be to motivate both (i) widespread adoption of ambitious private-sphere behavioural changes; and (ii) widespread acceptance of – and indeed active demand for – ambitious new policy interventions.¶ Current public communication campaigns, as orchestrated by government, business and non-governmental organisations, are not achieving these changes. This paper asks: how should such communications be designed if they are to have optimal impact in motivating these changes? The response to this question will require fundamental changes in the ways that many climate change communication campaigns are currently devised and implemented. ¶ This advisory paper offers a list of principles that could be used to enhance the quality of communication around climate change communications. The authors are each engaged in continuously sifting the evidence from a range of sub-disciplines within psychology, and reflecting on the implications of this for improving climate change communications. Some of the organisations that we represent have themselves at times adopted approaches which we have both learnt from and critique in this paper – so some of us have first hand experience of the need for on-going improvement in the strategies that we deploy. ¶ The changes we advocate will be challenging to enact – and will require vision and leadership on the part of the organisations adopting them. But without such vision and leadership, we do not believe that public communication campaigns on climate change will create the necessary behavioural changes – indeed, there is a profound risk that many of today’s campaigns will actually prove counter-productive. ¶ Seven Principles¶ 1. Move Beyond Social Marketing¶ We believe that too little attention is paid to the understanding that psychologists bring to strategies for motivating change, whilst undue faith is often placed in the application of marketing strategies to ‘sell’ behavioural changes. Unfortunately, in the context of ambitious pro-environmental behaviour, such strategies seem unlikely to motivate systemic behavioural change.¶ Social marketing is an effective way of achieving a particular behavioural goal – dozens of practical examples in the field of health behaviour attest to this. Social marketing is really more of a framework for designing behaviour change programmes than a behaviour change programme - it offers a method of maximising the success of a specific behavioural goal. Darnton (2008) has described social marketing as ‘explicitly transtheoretical’, while Hastings (2007), in a recent overview of social marketing, claimed that there is no theory of social marketing. Rather, it is a ‘what works’ philosophy, based on previous experience of similar campaigns and programmes. Social marketing is flexible enough to be applied to a range of different social domains, and this is undoubtedly a fundamental part of its appeal.¶ However, social marketing’s 'what works' status also means that it is agnostic about the longer term, theoretical merits of different behaviour change strategies, or the cultural values that specific campaigns serve to strengthen. Social marketing dictates that the most effective strategy should be chosen, where effective means ‘most likely to achieve an immediate behavioural goal’. ¶ This means that elements of a behaviour change strategy designed according to the principles of social marketing may conflict with other, broader goals. What if the most effective way of promoting pro-environmental behaviour ‘A’ was to pursue a strategy that was detrimental to the achievement of long term pro-environmental strategy ‘Z’? The principles of social marketing have no capacity to resolve this conflict – they are limited to maximising the success of the immediate behavioural programme. This is not a flaw of social marketing – it was designed to provide tools to address specific behavioural problems on a piecemeal basis. But it is an important limitation, and one that has significant implications if social marketing techniques are used to promote systemic behavioural change and public engagement on an issue like climate change. ¶ 2. Be honest and forthright about the probable impacts of climate change, and the scale of the challenge we confront in avoiding these. But avoid deliberate attempts to provoke fear or guilt. ¶ There is no merit in ‘dumbing down’ the scientific evidence that the impacts of climate change are likely to be severe, and that some of these impacts are now almost certainly unavoidable. Accepting the impacts of climate change will be an important stage in motivating behavioural responses aimed at mitigating the problem. However, deliberate attempts to instil fear or guilt carry considerable risk. ¶ Studies on fear appeals confirm the potential for fear to change attitudes or verbal expressions of concern, but often not actions or behaviour (Ruiter et al., 2001). The impact of fear appeals is context - and audience - specific; for example, for those who do not yet realise the potentially ‘scary’ aspects of climate change, people need to first experience themselves as vulnerable to the risks in some way in order to feel moved or affected (Das et al, 2003; Hoog et al, 2005). As people move towards contemplating action, fear appeals can help form a behavioural intent, providing an impetus or spark to ‘move’ from; however such appeals must be coupled with constructive information and support to reduce the sense of danger (Moser, 2007). The danger is that fear can also be disempowering – producing feelings of helplessness, remoteness and lack of control (O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole, 2009). Fear is likely to trigger ‘barriers to engagement’, such as denial2 (Stoll-Kleemann et al., 2001; Weber, 2006; Moser and Dilling, 2007; Lorenzoni, Nicholson-Cole & Whitmarsh, 2007). The location of fear in a message is also relevant; it works better when placed first for those who are inclined to follow the advice, but better second for those who aren't (Bier, 2001).¶ Similarly, studies have shown that guilt can play a role in motivating people to take action but can also function to stimulate defensive mechanisms against the perceived threat or challenge to one’s sense of identity (as a good, moral person). In the latter case, behaviours may be left untouched (whether driving a SUV or taking a flight) as one defends against any feelings of guilt or complicity through deployment of a range of justifications for the behaviour (Ferguson & Branscombe, 2010). ¶ Overall, there is a need for emotionally balanced representations of the issues at hand. This will involve acknowledging the ‘affective reality’ of the situation, e.g. “We know this is scary and overwhelming, but many of us feel this way and we are doing something about it”.¶ 3. Be honest and forthright about the impacts of mitigating and adapting to climate change for current lifestyles, and the ‘loss’ - as well as the benefits - that these will entail. Narratives that focus exclusively on the ‘up-side’ of climate solutions are likely to be unconvincing. While narratives about the future impacts of climate change may highlight the loss of much that we currently hold to be dear, narratives about climate solutions frequently ignore the question of loss. If the two are not addressed concurrently, fear of loss may be ‘split off’ and projected into the future, where it is all too easily denied. This can be dangerous, because accepting loss is an important step towards working through the associated emotions, and emerging with the energy and creativity to respond positively to the new situation (Randall, 2009). However, there are plenty of benefits (besides the financial ones) of a low-carbon lifestyle e.g., health, community/social interaction - including the ‘intrinsic' goals mentioned below. It is important to be honest about both the losses and the benefits that may be associated with lifestyle change, and not to seek to separate out one from the other.¶ 3a. Avoid emphasis upon painless, easy steps. ¶ Be honest about the limitations of voluntary private-sphere behavioural change, and the need for ambitious new policy interventions that incentivise such changes, or that regulate for them. People know that the scope they have, as individuals, to help meet the challenge of climate change is extremely limited. For many people, it is perfectly sensible to continue to adopt high-carbon lifestyle choices whilst simultaneously being supportive of government interventions that would make these choices more difficult for everyone. ¶ The adoption of small-scale private sphere behavioural changes is sometimes assumed to lead people to adopt ever more difficult (and potentially significant) behavioural changes. The empirical evidence for this ‘foot-in-thedoor’ effect is highly equivocal. Some studies detect such an effect; others studies have found the reverse effect (whereby people tend to ‘rest on their laurels’ having adopted a few simple behavioural changes - Thogersen and Crompton, 2009). Where attention is drawn to simple and painless privatesphere behavioural changes, these should be urged in pursuit of a set of intrinsic goals (that is, as a response to people’s understanding about the contribution that such behavioural change may make to benefiting their friends and family, their community, the wider world, or in contributing to their growth and development as individuals) rather than as a means to achieve social status or greater financial success. Adopting behaviour in pursuit of intrinsic goals is more likely to lead to ‘spillover’ into other sustainable behaviours (De Young, 2000; Thogersen and Crompton, 2009).¶ People aren’t stupid: they know that if there are wholesale changes in the global climate underway, these will not be reversed merely through checking their tyre pressures or switching their TV off standby. An emphasis upon simple and painless steps suppresses debate about those necessary responses that are less palatable – that will cost people money, or that will infringe on cherished freedoms (such as to fly). Recognising this will be a key step in accepting the reality of loss of aspects of our current lifestyles, and in beginning to work through the powerful emotions that this will engender (Randall, 2009). ¶ 3b. Avoid over-emphasis on the economic opportunities that mitigating, and adapting to, climate change may provide. ¶ There will, undoubtedly, be economic benefits to be accrued through investment in new technologies, but there will also be instances where the economic imperative and the climate change adaptation or mitigation imperative diverge, and periods of economic uncertainty for many people as some sectors contract. It seems inevitable that some interventions will have negative economic impacts (Stern, 2007).¶ Undue emphasis upon economic imperatives serves to reinforce the dominance, in society, of a set of extrinsic goals (focussed, for example, on financial benefit). A large body of empirical research demonstrates that these extrinsic goals are antagonistic to the emergence of pro-social and proenvironmental concern (Crompton and Kasser, 2009).¶ 3c. Avoid emphasis upon the opportunities of ‘green consumerism’ as a response to climate change.¶ As mentioned above (3b), a large body of research points to the antagonism between goals directed towards the acquisition of material objects and the emergence of pro-environmental and pro-social concern (Crompton and Kasser, 2009). Campaigns to ‘buy green’ may be effective in driving up sales of particular products, but in conveying the impression that climate change can be addressed by ‘buying the right things’, they risk undermining more difficult and systemic changes. A recent study found that people in an experiment who purchased ‘green’ products acted less altruistically on subsequent tasks (Mazar & Zhong, 2010) – suggesting that small ethical acts may act as a ‘moral offset’ and licence undesirable behaviours in other domains. This does not mean that private-sphere behaviour changes will always lead to a reduction in subsequent pro-environmental behaviour, but it does suggest that the reasons used to motivate these changes are critically important. Better is to emphasise that ‘every little helps a little’ – but that these changes are only the beginning of a process that must also incorporate more ambitious private-sphere change and significant collective action at a political level.¶ 4. Empathise with the emotional responses that will be engendered by a forthright presentation of the probable impacts of climate change. ¶ Belief in climate change and support for low-carbon policies will remain fragile unless people are emotionally engaged. We should expect people to be sad or angry, to feel guilt or shame, to yearn for that which is lost or to search for more comforting answers (Randall, 2009). Providing support and empathy in working through the painful emotions of 'grief' for a society that must undergo changes is a prerequisite for subsequent adaptation to new circumstances.¶ Without such support and empathy, it is more likely that people will begin to deploy a range of maladaptive ‘coping strategies’, such as denial of personal responsibility, blaming others, or becoming apathetic (Lertzman, 2008). An audience should not be admonished for deploying such strategies – this would in itself be threatening, and could therefore harden resistance to positive behaviour change (Miller and Rolnick, 2002). The key is not to dismiss people who exhibit maladaptive coping strategies, but to understand how they can be made more adaptive. People who feel socially supported will be more likely to adopt adaptive emotional responses - so facilitating social support for proenvironmental behaviour is crucial.¶ 5. Promote pro-environmental social norms and harness the power of social networks¶ One way of bridging the gap between private-sphere behaviour changes and collective action is the promotion of pro-environmental social norms. Pictures and videos of ordinary people (‘like me’) engaging in significant proenvironmental actions are a simple and effective way of generating a sense of social normality around pro-environmental behaviour (Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein and Griskevicius, 2007). There are different reasons that people adopt social norms, and encouraging people to adopt a positive norm simply to ‘conform’, to avoid a feeling of guilt, or for fear of not ‘fitting in’ is likely to produce a relatively shallow level of motivation for behaviour change. Where social norms can be combined with ‘intrinsic’ motivations (e.g. a sense of social belonging), they are likely to be more effective and persistent.¶ Too often, environmental communications are directed to the individual as a single unit in the larger social system of consumption and political engagement. This can make the problems feel too overwhelming, and evoke unmanageable levels of anxiety. Through the enhanced awareness of what other people are doing, a strong sense of collective purpose can be engendered. One factor that is likely to influence whether adaptive or maladaptive coping strategies are selected in response to fear about climate change is whether people feel supported by a social network – that is, whether a sense of ‘sustainable citizenship’ is fostered. The efficacy of groupbased programmes at promoting pro-environmental behaviour change has been demonstrated on numerous occasions – and participants in these projects consistently point to a sense of mutual learning and support as a key reason for making and maintaining changes in behaviour (Nye and Burgess, 2008). There are few influences more powerful than an individual’s social network. Networks are instrumental not just in terms of providing social support, but also by creating specific content of social identity – defining what it means to be “us”. If environmental norms are incorporated at this level (become defining for the group) they can result in significant behavioural change (also reinforced through peer pressure).¶ Of course, for the majority of people, this is unlikely to be a network that has climate change at its core. But social networks – Trade Unions, Rugby Clubs, Mother & Toddler groups – still perform a critical role in spreading change through society. Encouraging and supporting pre-existing social networks to take ownership of climate change (rather than approach it as a problem for ‘green groups’) is a critical task. As well as representing a crucial bridge between individuals and broader society, peer-to-peer learning circumnavigates many of the problems associated with more ‘top down’ models of communication – not least that government representatives are perceived as untrustworthy (Poortinga & Pidgeon, 2003). Peer-to-peer learning is more easily achieved in group-based dialogue than in designing public information films: But public information films can nonetheless help to establish social norms around community-based responses to the challenges of climate change, through clear visual portrayals of people engaging collectively in the pro-environmental behaviour.¶ The discourse should be shifted increasingly from ‘you’ to ‘we’ and from ‘I’ to ‘us’. This is starting to take place in emerging forms of community-based activism, such as the Transition Movement and Cambridge Carbon Footprint’s ‘Carbon Conversations’ model – both of which recognize the power of groups to help support and maintain lifestyle and identity changes. A nationwide climate change engagement project using a group-based behaviour change model with members of Trade Union networks is currently underway, led by the Climate Outreach and Information Network. These projects represent a method of climate change communication and engagement radically different to that typically pursued by the government – and may offer a set of approaches that can go beyond the limited reach of social marketing techniques.¶ One potential risk with appeals based on social norms is that they often contain a hidden message. So, for example, a campaign that focuses on the fact that too many people take internal flights actually contains two messages – that taking internal flights is bad for the environment, and that lots of people are taking internal flights. This second message can give those who do not currently engage in that behaviour a perverse incentive to do so, and campaigns to promote behaviour change should be very careful to avoid this. The key is to ensure that information about what is happening (termed descriptive norms), does not overshadow information about what should be happening (termed injunctive norms). ¶ 6. Think about the language you use, but don’t rely on language alone¶ A number of recent publications have highlighted the results of focus group research and talk-back tests in order to ‘get the language right’ (Topos Partnership, 2009; Western Strategies & Lake Research Partners, 2009), culminating in a series of suggestions for framing climate-change communications. For example, these two studies led to the suggestions that communicators should use the term ‘global warming’ or ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’, respectively, rather than ‘climate change’. Other research has identified systematic differences in the way that people interpret the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’, with ‘global warming’ perceived as more emotionally engaging than ‘climate change’ (Whitmarsh, 2009).¶ Whilst ‘getting the language right’ is important, it can only play a small part in a communication strategy. More important than the language deployed (i.e. ‘conceptual frames') are what have been referred to by some cognitive linguists as 'deep frames'. Conceptual framing refers to catchy slogans and clever spin (which may or may not be honest). At a deeper level, framing refers to forging the connections between a debate or public policy and a set of deeper values or principles. Conceptual framing (crafting particular messages focussing on particular issues) cannot work unless these messages resonate with a set of long-term deep frames.¶ Policy proposals which may at the surface level seem similar (perhaps they both set out to achieve a reduction in environmental pollution) may differ importantly in terms of their deep framing. For example, putting a financial value on an endangered species, and building an economic case for their conservation ‘commodifies’ them, and makes them equivalent (at the level of deep frames) to other assets of the same value (a hotel chain, perhaps). This is a very different frame to one that attempts to achieve the same conservation goals through the ascription of intrinsic value to such species – as something that should be protected in its own right. Embedding particular deep frames requires concerted effort (Lakoff, 2009), but is the beginning of a process that can build a broad, coherent cross-departmental response to climate change from government.¶ 7. Encourage public demonstrations of frustration at the limited pace of government action¶ Private-sphere behavioural change is not enough, and may even at times become a diversion from the more important process of bringing political pressure to bear on policy-makers. The importance of public demonstrations of frustration at both the lack of political progress on climate change and the barriers presented by vested interests is widely recognised – including by government itself. Climate change communications, including government communication campaigns, should work to normalise public displays of frustration with the slow pace of political change. Ockwell et al (2009) argued that communications can play a role in fostering demand for - as well as acceptance of – policy =S&ED (Affirmative 2 of 2)=

No S&ED is scheduled for 2017
Farnsworth 2016 - VP, Council of Americas and Americas Society

Eric, "The Strategic and Economic Dialogue: Outcomes and Opportunities," Jun 28, www.chinausfocus.com/finance-economy/the-strategic-and-economic-dialogue-outcomes-and-opportunities/

These are not issues that will go away any time soon. In fact, as China’s dash for growth continues to impact the global economy, they may become even more complicated and more acute. It’s essential that venues such as the Strategic and Economic Dialogue continue to function as a way to channel disagreements and seek mutually beneficial solutions. The pressure will be on the next U.S. administration to continue the discussions. And the pressure will be on both the United States and China to ensure these discussions deliver concrete results.

War is increasingly likely – diplomatic dialogue is key
Coonan, 7-9 -16—Chris, citing Jerome A Cohen, director of the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University, “Armed conflict threat as regional rivals await South China Sea ruling,” [] --br

Days before an international arbitration court rules on the disputed territory in the South China Sea, the threat of //armed conflict// hangs over the Asia Pacific. Beijing has stepped up sovereignty claims and is accusing the US of trying to isolate China. Although US president Barack Obama’s plan to build an “Asian Pivot” is on the back burner, the US has been steadily expanding its influence, publicly voicing its disapproval of what it sees as China’s militarisation of the South China Sea. It has sent aircraft carriers to the area and is staging military exercises with allies. Annoyed major players China believes Washington is trying to become more powerful in the Asia Pacific region at China’s expense, but Beijing is finding it difficult to find sympathy locally, as it has annoyed nearly all the main regional players including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, with its claims and aggressive activities in the maritime region. One of these is a land reclamation programme in the Spratly archipelago. China’s sovereignty claims are based on the “nine-dash line” which encompasses nearly all of the South China Sea, including the Spratlys, the Paracels and remote sandbars. The Philippines has asked the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to affirm its right to areas within 200 nautical miles of its coastline, under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). While the nine-dash claim will most likely be ruled inconsistent with the UN convention, China is expected to ignore the ruling. Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China exerted “indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands and the adjacent waters”. “The Chinese government holds a consistent and clear position of not accepting nor recognising any ruling made by the arbitral tribunal set up at the unilateral request of the Philippines,” said Hong. An article in the Communist Party’s organ Qiushi described the arbitration as “a political farce under ‘legal’ pretexts aiming to fake ‘a new reality’ which provokes both principles of international law and order.” Control of the region is strategically important, because €4.5 trillion in maritime trade passes through it every year, and the South China Sea contains rich oil and gas reserves. Satellite footage shows China has installed runways that can carry military aircraft and placed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands. Yu Lingli, a commentator on US-China relations, said. “With its strong economic growth and greater economic prowess, China is better able to protect its boundaries, so the US now accuses China of changing its position and challenging the world order. But let’s not forget, this all started with the US decision to expand its strategic position in the Asia Pacific region. The US shouldn’t be involved,” said Yu. Beijing is staging military manoeuvres in the region ahead of the ruling and state media are full of editorials attacking the US and denying accusations it is trying to bully its smaller neighbours. In one show, Beyond the Waves, the state broadcaster CCTV accused the US of trying to isolate China. “The US has spared no effort to drive a wedge between China and its neighbours,” said one commentator, while another said: “Would you accept a traffic court giving a verdict on the status of your property?” Another presenter said: “When you claim your every right to the South China Sea, you go too far.” The state newspaper Global Times even urged the military to //prepare for confrontation.// “I personally don’t think there will be an armed conflict. So far, the US and surrounding countries in the South China Sea are putting on a lot of pressure and competing for public opinion and support,” said Yu. Historical claim China’s claim has no formal basis outside the country’s own maritime laws, but the government claims a historical foundation, saying China was the first country to discover and name the island group, and has a history of continuous use and authority over 2,000 years. After the ruling, the big question will be how China proceeds. If China ignores the ruling, and flouts international law, it could further aggravate nerves in the region and eventually //armed conflict// could result. Some believe //there can still be dialogue// that will not involve Beijing giving ground on an issue it has made central to its ambition to boost its standing in the area by matching its economic strength with strategic influence. “China and the Philippines, after the arbitration decision, can renew their negotiations and settle the issues by taking account of the decision without formally mentioning it. ‘Face’ is crucial, of course. //But with every Beijing propaganda blast, it will become harder to save//,” wrote Jerome A Cohen, director of the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University.

The plans updated mechanism in the S&ED Prevents Conflicts in the SCS
Xiaochen and Yudi 7/19/16 Chen Xiaochen is a researcher at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China Chang Yudi, RDCY intern researcher, and Pang Jiakai, RDCY intern, also contributed research. July 19th 2016“Seeking a US-China Consensus in the South China Sea”, [] //Deej//

//Tension in the// S// outh //C// hina // S// ea does not necessarily mean an impasse. If think tanks and political circles of both China and the// U// nited //S// tates could realize the importance of disparities management and control, frank strategic dialogues, prudent thinking, and consensus seeking, along with the proceeding of substantial academic exchange, would have a positive effect on the// S// outh //C// hina //S// ea tensions and U.S.-China relationship. First of all, managing and controlling differences is the top priority to cool down the tensions in the short run. This will take time. Rome was not built in a day; the South China Sea dispute is complicated while U.S.-China relations is the most sophisticated relationship worldwide. We are fully aware of the divergences between the United States and China over the South China Sea issue. Nevertheless, the divergences not only imply conflict, but also indicate we should manage and control them. The Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) is an important shared rule, but not enough.Military and political circles in both countries should facilitate more channels for communication, whether in ordinary times or during an emergency. The lessons of history warn us that military affairs should not take precedence over politics; instead, the military field should be subject to the grand picture of international politics. Regardless of military or politics, all parties should consider disputes over the South China Sea in a political perspective and realize the limits of military means. Before President Barack Obama’s trip to China for the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, the two powers should cool down the tensions and manage this transitional yet sensitive period before and shortly after the U.S. general election. Second, frank and strategic dialogues are also essential for finding a viable solution to the tensions between China and the// U// nited //S// tates, //especially in terms of high-level exchanges//. As we all know, both countries have achieved a lot under the framework of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue ( S&ED ) from trade, finance, to investment. However, even as bureaucracies in both sides make the outcome list longer and longer, the shadow of security anxiety is still there. In fact, I would argue it is one of the problems with the S&ED — too enthusiastic about a long list of outcome, leaving no time or credit for frank discussion of strategic issues. Hence, I suggest the S&ED mechanism in future should adhere to its original purpose by focusing more on core issues of strategic importance. Let the strategic dialogues be frank and honest; let them focus more on strategic issues even is that means fewer outcomes for the media to broadcast.

The SCS is the world’s most dangerous hotspot – regional multilateral norms are try or die
Gewirtz, 16 — Paul, Director @ Yale Law School’s China Center. Law Professor with a speciality in Chinese law, and American foreign policy, Online: “Limits of Law in the South China Sea,” The Brookings Institution: Center For East Asia Policy Studies, May 8, [] --AWW

The vast South China Sea has become one of the world’s //most dangerous hotspots//. Through words and deeds, six claimants including China contend for control over numerous small land features and resource-rich waters, with the United States also heavily involved because of alliances and our own security and economic interests. //The great geo-political question of our age//, whether the United States as the established dominant superpower can co-exist with a re-emerging powerful China, sits on the sea’s horizon like a huge and taunting Cheshire Cat. Most of the contending countries have been aggressive in recent years, but China has been especially bold in staking out very broad claims to sovereignty and related rights to land features and waters in the South China Sea. It has also been bold in undertaking “land reclamations” that build on land features, turning claims into physical structures and threatening further militarization. Its //rapidly developing// naval //presence and capability//have raised added concerns among China’s weaker neighbors as well as the United States, whose military presence has greatly contributed to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific for decades. //The risk of accidents or small conflicts leading to dangerous escalations is constant. There is not yet a path ahead for resolving the many disputes// and controlling the serious risks they pose, but the U nited S tates has articulated an approach. We have stated that we do not take a position on the competing sovereignty claims but we have called for a law-based and rules-based resolution of the competing claims. As President Obama has recently said, the United States is committed to “a //regional order where international rules and norms// —and the rights of all nations, large and small— //are upheld.//

South China Sea conflict goes nuclear and is existential – it also crushes cooperation on other existential threats
Kuo, 7-10 —Mercy Kuo interviewing Kaiser Kuo – founder of Sinica Podcast, director of international communications @ Baidu (Chinese Google) and columnist at The Beijinger. Part of a series where M. Kuo engages with subject-matter experts, policy practitioners and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into the U.S. rebalance to Asia. “New Potus Brief: Getting US-China Relations Right,” The Diplomat, -us-china-relations-right/ --br

The simple answer is that these are two //frightfully well-armed nuclear powers//, and the cost of actual conflagration is //absolutely staggering//, just unthinkable. Likely trouble spots are few right now – really, //only// the South and East China Seas – but in the next four or eight years that number may well grow. The possibility of a severe economic dislocation in China raises the specter of political instability, which might have //disastrous consequences that would be felt globally//. The next U.S. president will need to make U.S.–China relations a real priority and “get it right” so that we have //some hope of tackling//, together, //the very biggest issues facing this planet//, not least of which is anthropogenic global warming. Without the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters working together, I truly fear the worst.

Now is a unique moment – China is likely to use force post the Hague ruling in fishing disputes
Johnson 2016 - senior reporter covering energy for Foreign Policy

Keith, "Can Indonesia Afford a Fish War with China?," Jul 8, foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/08/can-indonesia-afford-a-fish-war-with-china/

In recent years, Indonesia has tried to stay above the fray as other countries feuded with Beijing over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Now, though, Southeast Asia’s largest country is becoming increasingly assertive in pushing back against Beijing’s far-reaching claims, impounding Chinese fishing ships, deploying naval vessels to patrol its waters, and dispatching fighter jets to far-flung islands. Indonesia’s newfound stance could alter the regional balance of power before next week’s ruling from an international tribunal at The Hague, one that is widely expected to slam China’s pretense to ownership of nearly the entire South China Sea. Jakarta’s biggest beef with China isn’t about isolated reefs and rocks, the front-line flashpoints that have soured relations between China and its neighbors Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. In fact, Indonesia still maintains that it has no territorial dispute with China, unlike most of the other states in the region. Rather, far-ranging Chinese fishermen, subsidized by the Chinese government and protected by Chinese Coast Guard ships, are increasingly poaching in Indonesian waters. That’s bad news for a country that depends heavily on its fish and seafood exports, and a big reason why Indonesia has taken to blowing up vessels it catches fishing illegally, whether Chinese or not. The foreign fishing crews are usually repatriated, while Jakarta makes a point of publicizing the destruction of the boats to signal to China and others that it will not tolerate any encroachment on its fishing grounds. The Indonesian government, led for a change by a businessman rather than a general, is still trying to find a balance between bolstering economic ties with China and protecting what it sees as its national interest. The president, Joko Widodo, desperately wants to secure Chinese investment to build up the Indonesian economy, especially big-ticket infrastructure projects like China’s first overseas high-speed rail line. But Joko has also launched new maritime and defense strategies that make clear Jakarta’s wish to stake out a bigger security role that reflects its economic heft and large population. In recent months, Indonesia has taken a host of steps that suggest a much tougher line against Beijing. In late May, it publicly released its first defense white paper in nearly a decade, outlining plans for the archipelagic nation to become a “global maritime power,” especially in light of the tensions in the South China Sea. It also calls for stepped-up air and naval facilities on the Natuna Islands, where Jakarta already dispatched several F-16 fighters this spring. Jakarta has also started sending out Navy vessels to push back against muscled-up Chinese Coast Guard vessels that accompany the fishing fleet. To drive home the message, Joko held a cabinet meeting in late June on one of the warships that recently tussled with Chinese fishermen. “Joko is torn, but the trajectory is one of gradually becoming tougher,” said Evan Medeiros, a former Asia hand in the Obama administration and now managing director at the Eurasia Group. “The fact that he went out to the Natunas and conducted a cabinet meeting at the naval base, that is very significant symbolism for a country like Indonesia.” Since winning the presidency in 2014, Joko has stressed his goal of transforming Indonesia into a maritime powerhouse. That includes both greater economic development and an increased maritime presence, from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. He just announced plans for more oil and gas drilling and fishing near the Natunas. “We believe that our future is in the sea,” Joko said after the Natuna cabinet meeting in June. For its part, China has bristled at Indonesia’s newfound willingness to police its own waters. For the first time, China acknowledged that the two countries have overlapping claims in the waters around the Natuna Islands, an archipelago at the southern edge of the South China Sea, about halfway between Singapore and Brunei. The frictions between China and Indonesia have largely centered on fish. China believes that it has “historic rights” to all the waters in the S outh C hina S ea, whether for fishing or oil and gas drilling, though there is no such concept in international law. Indonesia argues that waters inside its 200-mile exclusive economic zone, as laid out explicitly in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, are its exclusive economic preserve, especially when it comes to fishing. But dwindling fish stocks in other parts of the Pacific are driving Chinese fishermen — with plenty of government encouragement and financial assistance — deeper into foreign waters. China and Indonesia are the first- and second-largest fish-catching countries in the world. The fishing tussle is turning into an outright fight. China uses its fishing fleet as an informal militia. It escorts private fishing vessels with oversized Coast Guard ships, usually former naval vessels, and conducts military training for its fishermen. To keep up, Indonesia has had to deploy naval vessels of its own — and for now they’re keeping Chinese ships at bay. “There has been an escalation on the Indonesian side in terms of the kinds of ships that are being sent,” said Don Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia program at Stanford University. What was once a purely economic tiff now has more serious overtones, he said. “Now that the Navy is involved in repelling Chinese fishermen, it is clearly about security, and that’s another indication of a marginal shift” in Indonesian thinking, Emmerson said. To be sure, there are plenty of divisions inside the Indonesian government. Some officials, including Maritime and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, are more hawkish about taking on China. Others, including Joko himself, have prioritized bolstering economic growth — which requires a more cooperative approach with China. Indeed, despite this year’s defense white paper, Indonesian military spending is set to fall this year, as the budget emphasis shifts to big infrastructure projects. “There are signs that Indonesia is becoming more concerned” about China and what it is doing in the South China Sea, Emmerson said, but he cautioned against “wishful thinking” in Washington about the depth of the Indonesian evolution. Still, Indonesia’s shift is important given the heft it has in the region — and the standoff role it has traditionally played. As a result of heavy-handed Chinese actions — from land grabs to the creation of artificial islands to the dispatch of oil rigs to foreign waters — countries like Vietnam and the Philippines have started to push back against Beijing. In January, the Philippines approved the return of U.S. naval forces after a quarter-century absence. The United States just lifted an embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam, and the former enemies are cooperating more on defense. Now, Indonesia seems poised to align itself closer to those countries that have adopted a firmer line with China while seeking stronger security ties to the United States. Given its history and the size of its population and economy, Indonesia is the “de facto” leader of the organization meant to speak for regional governments, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Medeiros said. While Joko in his two years in office has been reluctant to seize an international leadership role, Medeiros said, “when Indonesia speaks or acts, the rest of the region listens.” China has leaned heavily on ASEAN members to tone down public criticism of its island-building and coercive moves in the South China Sea, and that has not gone down well with Indonesia’s government. “I think China’s attempts to break ASEAN have really touched a nerve in Jakarta. They feel a certain sort of ownership over ASEAN as an institution,” a congressional staffer told Foreign Policy. With its tough tactics, Beijing has irritated a government that had been preoccupied with domestic affairs, and would have been content to avoid public clashes with China over territorial disputes. Beijing has “antagonized Indonesia much more than necessa ry,” the staffer said. Most importantly, just before the Hague tribunal ruling that will likely put Beijing on the spot, and perhaps even tempt Chinese leaders to lash out at what they see as a politically motivated witch hunt to check Beijing’s power, Indonesia’s changing tune could have important echoes in Beijing. “ The more that countries in the region demonstrate that they have the capability and the political willingness to push back ,” Medeiros said, “ that affects China’s strategic calculation.”

This Maritime Militia will spark a war that escalates
Chao 2016 - international relations doctoral student (Mellon Ethnopolitics Fellow) in Political Science @ UPenn

Brian C, "Coast Guards Could Accidentally Spark War in the South China S," Jun 28, nationalinterest.org/feature/coast-guards-could-accidentally-spark-war-the-south-china-16766?page=show

Chinese activities in the China Sea s over the past few years have caused growing consternation among other East and Southeast Asian countries, as well as countries concerned about peace and stability, such as the United States. Recent developments in the region (as recently as last week) have generated calls from U.S. foreign policy circles for a more robust response to Chinese land construction, broad jurisdictional claims, and aggressive actions against other claimants’ state and civilian vessels. Recent pieces, including those by David Barno and Nora Bensahel and by Aaron Picozzi and Lincoln Davidson, have joined the chorus calling on the United States to do more with more partners, to protect freedom of navigation, uphold the widely accepted interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and preserve peace and stability more generally—notably through an increased U.S. Coast Guard presence. Most Chinese actions taken have been through maritime constabulary forces —governmental maritime armed forces charged with law enforcement and other missions, aside from warfare. Such forces can be called coast guards, fishery protection squadrons, maritime police and myriad other names. In China’s case, these forces include the Coast Guard (itself a recent consolidation of multiple maritime constabulary forces) and the Maritime Safety Administration. In response to China Coast Guard presence and action in the South China Sea, analysts such as the ones noted above suggest that increasing the United States’ and regional partners’ maritime constabulary presence will counter the Chinese deployments in a manner less provocative than naval flotillas would. Such recommendations deserve reconsideration for several reasons. First, it is not clear that maritime constabulary forces —even if they are less provocative than naval forces— would lower the risk of conflict. In fact, the very issue of civilian involvement , noted ably by Picozzi and Davidson , is a complicating factor that can exacerbate the risk of conflict. Second, calls for increased U.S. Coast Guard presence fail to consider what lurks over the horizon: the P eople’s L iberation A rmy N avy, which serves an enabler of and a shield for aggressive Chinese coast-guard actions in the South China Sea. History offers us few historical guides for what the international community is witnessing in the South China Sea today. Naval-constabulary conflicts are rather rare, and the most famous example—the Anglo-Icelandic Cod Wars of the 1950s–1970s—is not a useful guide because there are too many important dissimilarities: the reversed power balance between sides, the object at stake and circumstances of the conflict, and the fact that one side (Iceland) had no recourse to a navy as a backup. Yet it seems logical to think that constabulary forces would be less provocative than naval forces and, by extension, would lower the risk of conflict. Maritime constabulary forces carry the imprimatur of law enforcement, not of war. Their vessels tend to be smaller and equipped with lighter, relatively less destructive weapons; their personnel usually have not received the level of martial training that we would expect of, say, a submariner. And by choosing to deploy a constabulary force rather than a navy, a country can signal to others that its intention is to prevent a dispute from escalating to something more serious. However, as the analyst Christian Le Mière has most notably pointed out, this very perception of constabulary forces as a more diplomatic and less combative tool risks lulling everyone into a false sense of calm. In fact, ironic risks abound. First, the perception by a constabulary force that it is simply upholding its domestic law (and not playing power politics) reinforces the perceived justness and authority of any actions it may undertake against adversaries. Constabulary forces may be more willing to take aggressive and dangerous actions because they think that the law (or at least their law) is on their side. Compounding this problem, constabulary forces may also underestimate the kinetic effects of their relatively weaker weapons and smaller boats, leading to a greater risk of miscalculation —both of the effects of any actions they take and the perception it will plant in the target. Constabulary forces’ political masters may decide that, because they sent a less provocative signal in the form of a coast guard, they can afford to send more vessels engaging in more clashes in a more aggressive fashion, under the mistaken belief that coast guards cannot start a conflict like navies can—another manifestation of the stability-instability paradox. And should dueling countries somehow manage to avoid this fate once, repeated encounters in the S outh C hina S ea between rival constabulary forces only increase the opportunity for something serious to break out due to misestimation and misperception. A final reason for caution is the escalation risk posed by civilian vessels: since many constabulary incidents involve not only other countries’ armed forces, but also civilian vessels, the behavior of civilians not accustomed to any extant legal nuances and bureaucratic “rules of the road” may complicate and enflame crises (the 2010 East China Sea incident in which a Chinese fishing vessel captain was arrested for ramming a Japanese coast guard vessel, sparking a diplomatic row, is an example). Chinese examples from the South China Sea in the 2010s abound; they need not be repeated here, for the sake of avoiding tedium. But for all these reasons, one should not be so optimistic that introduction of more maritime constabulary forces in the South China Sea—or wherever there are maritime disputes, for that matter—would necessarily make things better. Just because something seems less provocative does not mean it actually lowers the risk of provocation. But what if all the above risks could be avoided? Could not the Chinese and other coast guards somehow be able to operate in disputed waters peacefully without seeming to acknowledge others’ territorial claims? In the case of the South China Sea, this is harder than it appears, for while it is the China Coast Guard that currently grabs the headlines, it is simply the inner core of what analysts call the “cabbage strategy.” The PLA Navy sits over the horizon; indeed, one may speculate that Chinese constabulary forces have been able to be as assertive as they have been precisely because they know that their larger, deadlier cousins are not too far away. If the United States or other countries think that their constabulary forces can assert freedom of navigation and respective territorial claims without their own naval forces over the horizon, they are mistaken. A growing number of Chinese coast guard vessels are more capable than their Southeast Asian naval counterparts. Any de-escalatory signal a fellow claimant hopes to send to China by sending out a constabulary force will be disregarded, as it was at Scarborough Shoal. Before a combination of continued Chinese construction and at-sea clashes, the Philippines’ appeal to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and U.S. freedom-of-navigation patrols ushered in a new stage to this saga, I warned that the United States and others needed to respond earlier and more consistently to Chinese actions, lest feeble reactions lead to overconfidence and misperception on Beijing’s part. Alas, Washington and its regional partners find themselves in a more difficult situation today. The power imbalance between Beijing and its neighbors may help to explain why China is content for the moment to deploy its constabulary forces in the South China Sea—and why we see relatively fewer dangerous confrontations with Japan’s formidable maritime forces in the East China Sea. China has gotten away with so much already and is growing accustomed to exploiting its power imbalance. This pattern of “China does something, the rest complain” may prime Beijing to react particularly harshly if and when the United States and regional partners finally mount a unified, consistent, and potent response to China’s activities and questionable interpretation of the law of the sea. Whatever the U.S. response—be it a constabulary presence, stepped-up naval activities or joint naval patrols with regional partners— one must not underestimate the continued risk of conflict in the S outh C hina S ea, regardless of whether the hulls are battleship grey or coast-guard white.

Only having open channels of communication can prevent this version of the Thucydides Trap from going nuclear
Lam Peng Er 2016 - Senior Research Fellow, East Asian Institute

"China, the United States, Alliances, and War: Avoiding the Thucydides Trap?," Asian Affairs: An American Review Volume 43, Issue 2, 2016, p. 36-36

That the intelligentsia in the United States and China openly ponder and hold a conversation on the TT shows cognizance of its risks. David Lai observed, “This was probably the first time in the history of international relations that a rising power openly addressed the key issues in a power transition with the dominating nation in this system and pledged to avoid the mistakes that led past great powers to use force against each other to settle their differences over the emerging international order.” Logically speaking, the U nited S tates and China should and must avoid the TT, given their economic interdependency and the fact that they are both nuclear powers with a second-strike capability. Indeed, both nuclear powers have a MAD (mutual assured destruction) relationship, and nuclear deterrence may well be sufficient to keep the general peace. China also differs from the former Soviet Union in its avoidance of a Cold War-like confrontation with the United States, staying clear of being an ideological rival, or engaging in an arms race and promoting proxy wars in the third world. Contrary to some paranoia in China, the United States is believed not to be seeking to contain China, as succinctly put forward by then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who reflected on U.S. economic interdependency with China by rhetorically asking, “How do you deal toughly with your banker?” Besides economic interdependency and various confidence-building mechanisms, both countries have sought to strengthen their people-to-people relationship. Xi, at his talks with Obama in Washington, DC, in September 2015, said that “the Chinese side will subsidize 50,000 students from both sides to study in the other country in the coming three years, and welcomes the U.S. to expand the 100 Thousand Strong Foundation from universities to primary and middle schools, so as to achieve the goal of one million American students learning Chinese by 2020.” Presently, there are an estimated 200,000 Americans studying the Chinese language. If an increasing number of American and Chinese youths can speak each other's languages, they may well enjoy better cross-cultural understanding. However, there are at least four conceivable scenarios for China, the U nited S tates, and its allies to fall through the T hucydides T rap door. First, as rightly pointed out by President Xi, countries can make strategic miscalc ulations. Indeed, any serious student of history will note that political leaders were often guilty of hubris, folly, blunders, and stupidity in war and peace. There are no assurances that future leaders will always behave wisely and modestly. Second, while the United States still maintains a huge military gap between itself and China, there is still this question of how both powers would behave when the latter reaches comprehensive parity with the United States within a few decades. Third, there is a danger that China may exaggerate the “relative decline” of the U nited S tates while the United States may exaggerate the “China threat” or China as a challenger to the U.S.-led global order. Such distorted perceptions will accentuate the TT. Few Mainland Chinese elites seem to think a stronger-than-anticipated rebound of the United States is possible, given their narrative of a rising and unstoppable China. The fourth scenario is imponderable and is perhaps the most dangerous one, with the U nited S tates and China being dragged into war by actions of their smaller allies in the Korean peninsula, Taiwan Strait, E ast C hina S ea, and the S outh C hina S ea, just like the weaker allies of Sparta and Athens two and a half millennium ago. It is not inconceivable that an accidental collision of planes or ships “playing chicken” in the East and South China Seas might well lead to an escalation of tension and conflict, which will place tremendous stress on crisis management between the United States and China.

SQ containment strategies inevitably fail – high level dialogue needed
Ilamn 2016 - Currently works in Pacivis (Global Civil Society Research Center) of U of Indonesia

Zidy, "Is the South China Sea the Stage for the Next World War?," Jul 3, nationalinterest.org/feature/the-south-china-sea-the-stage-the-next-world-war-16833?page=show

What is happening today is that China has gathered enough power and is becoming powerful enough to match (or even surpass) America’s ability to project power throughout much of Asia. Power means leadership throughout history and with its newly gained power, China wants a bigger role in regional leadership. For sure, though it seems weird for most people, anyone who carefully study history will concede that this is a normal—though arguably regrettable—state behavior. One might point a finger towards Japan and Germany as comparisons —both of whose rise of power in recent times does not correspond with a regional crisis that risks regional war—and, therefore, accuse China’s behavior as not normal. However, history once again shows that both states are the anomaly—not China. As Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew once remarked, “Unlike other emergent countries, China wants to be China and accepted as such, not as an honorary member of the West.” It is clear from his observation that China has set its sights on displacing the United States as the dominant power that will dictate the regional order in the Asia region. This is not to say that we must agree with or accept all China wants to do. We may dislike how our rival thinks and behaves, but we have to understand them. //Without understanding how China thinks, a plausible solution to the current conflict will be hard to devise//. . Following the rise of China’s assertiveness, the United States introduced the term “pivot” (later rebranded as “rebalancing”) while her ally, Japan, has reinterpreted her constitution, allowing Tokyo to be more active both politically and militarily abroad. India, for her part, introduced an eastward-facing policy while trying to strengthen her maritime power to prevent Chinese incursion into the Indian Ocean. Facing the prospect of containment (instead of accommodation), the question of paramount importance for China ’s leaders is: how can China displace the U nited S tates (and, therefore, U.S.-led regional order) from Asia ? China seems to believe that the U.S.-led regional order is based on the U.S.-led political security regional order. This political security order in turn is based on the U.S. regional alliance system, which is known as hub-and-spoke system, encompassing Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand. This alliance system grants the United States access to forward bases that ensures her ability to rapidly project her power throughout the region whenever crisis erupts. Without such bases, the United States won’t be able to effectively project forces and, therefore, will have only marginal influence in a crisis. Thus, curtailing the United States’ capability to respond to a regional crisis means much less U.S. influence upon regional order. So, as the logic goes, breaking this alliance system will lead to a breakup of the U.S.-led regional order. Thus, the question now becomes: how can China break up the U.S. alliance system? Alliance, by its nature, means an insurant. By inking an alliance, the United States has assured her allies that she will help defend them in times of crisis. Just like a commercial insurance company, the success of the business rests on the insurer’s credibility. As long as U.S. allies believe that Washington will fulfill her words, the alliance system will hold up. However, if U.S. allies do not believe her words—thereby doubting the credibility of her words—the alliance system will unravel. A new question emerges as a consequence: how can China damage U.S. credibility so much that it will lead to the unraveling of its regional alliance system? For sure, there is no better way to damage one’s credibility than proving that one is unable to fulfill one’s words. Put it another way, China must show U.S. allies that the United States will not come by their side when they need her. That means instigating a conflict with U.S. allies, making sure they will call for U.S. assistance and, at the same time, making sure that the United States will not fulfill her insurance policy. It is a dangerous game to play for sure. Beijing must do its best to make sure the United States will not come by her allies’ side or else it will face a war with the United States—a grim possibility given both sides’ possession of nuclear weapons. In order to succeed, China must be sure that the conflict she is instigating is important enough for U.S. allies that they will call for U.S. assistance, but that the conflict per se is not important enough from the U.S. perspective, making it highly unlikely for her to fulfill her insurance. Put it simply, China must make sure that the conflict per se represents high stakes from U.S. allies’ perspectives while a negligible one from the U.S. perspective. A bunch of uninhabited rocks in the South China Sea (and East China Sea) will do just fine. It is a matter of sovereignty and territorial integrity—which can hardly be compromised—from the perspective of U.S. allies. While from the U.S. perspective, those rocks represent no more than what they are; that is, rocks. Those rocks have little strategic value and, thus, in themselves have little relevance for U.S. national interests. Entering the fourth year of China’s surge of assertiveness, it seems that China’s strategy has achieved some success. In South China Sea, U.S. responses are lackluster while showing a degree of indecisiveness. Arguably, the most infamous among those is the United States’ failure to properly assist the Philippines in protecting its sovereignty in Scarborough Shoal. However, responding to such a crisis with more resolve entails more risks. For sure //, a lower-risk option is available in the form of accommodating China’s aspiration by trying to develop some form of joint leadership in the Asian region//. While it is not too late for the United States to reverse the negative trend, she surely has much to do.

S&ED creates the channels necessary to ensure cooperation in moments tension
Garrison 2016 – Director of International Studies @ University of Wyoming

Jean and Marc Wall, "The Rise of Hedging and Regionalism: An Explanation and Evaluation of President Obama's China Policy," Asian Affairs: An American Review Volume 43, Issue 2, 2016, p 47-63

With each flare-up in tensions, cooler heads in both capitals stepped in. Deft diplomatic maneuvering calmed matters enough to allow Hu to travel to Washington t o attend the Nuclear Security Summit in April 2010. At the second round of the S trategic and E conomic D ialogue, Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged progress in addressing common interests. Again, when tensions escalated later in the year, the pragmatic engagers i n both Washington and Beijing went back to work to move the U.S.–China relationship back to a more cooperative track. Top officials from both sides crossed the Pacific seeking to tamp down rhetoric and prepare for more productive exchanges. These efforts were facilitated by an evident decision in Beijing to back away from the confrontational tactics that had stoked the backlash against China in the region. The move to reset relations soon saw results in the form of a thawing in the freeze on military contacts. The capstone of the efforts of the relationship's pragmatic engagers was the highly ceremonial but cordial state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Washington in January 2011. Both sides took pains to ensure that nothing detracted from the image of a return to normal interactions between the two countries. This positive tenor in U.S. official dealings with China carried forward with the convening of the third annual S trategic andE conomic D ialogue in May 2011, a gathering that stresse d the theme of a practical, no-nonsense approach to maintain overall stability and manage ongoing tensions.

SQ doesn’t solve – an extension of S&ED that includes higher level officials ensures that mistrust stays in check
Dai 2016 - Former State Councilor of China

Bingguo, "On Building a New Model of Major-Country Relations Between China and the United States," Jun 20, [|www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zzjg_663340/bmdyzs_664814/xwlb_664816/t1350752.shtml]

For the past decades, China and the US have basically sticked to the path of major-country relations designed by the leaders of the older generation. Although there have been wind and rain, even thunder storm at times, China-US relations have kept moving forward, and reached a level unimaginable decades ago. The breadth and depth of China-US relations today are both unprecedented. The fact that China and the US, two countries with different social systems and development levels, have taken their relations to such a height is indeed a miracle in human history. It has well proven that this path works. During their historic meeting in 2013, President Xi and President Obama reached strategic consensus on jointly building a new model of major-country relations, and laid out the fundamental goals and direction as well as the underlying framework for growing China-US relations in keeping with the new realities of the 21st century. This is the first time in human history that an emerging power and an established power have reached //strategic consensus on avoiding the "Thucydides Trap"//. It is a continuation of the strategic thinking of the old-generation political leaders of the two countries and a result of thorough consideration as well as patient, candid communication and dialogue involving the leadership and strategic communities of the two countries over many years. It is an incisive summary of the experience and lessons of human history, and a major decision welcomed by the people of the two countries and the world at large. China and the US are both countries that value credibility. I trust the two countries will honor their words with actions and deliver their promises. Then, how to build the new model of major-country relations between China and the US in the years to come? Here are some of my thoughts: First, generations of political leaders of both countries must focus firmly on the goal of building the new model of major-country relations and press ahead unswervingly no matter what difficulties may stand in the way. It is also important to have the understanding and support of the two peoples and involve them in the building of that relationship. In simple language, I think there should be no "ceiling" for the growth of China-US relations, but there must be a "bottom line". There is no "ceiling" for we may cooperate as well as we can, although we won't form an alliance. There must be a "bottom line", that is to say, the two countries shall not enter into confrontation or conflict. There must be no cold war, //let alone a hot war.// Second, l eaders and diplomats of both countries should maintain and even //increase timely, candid and in-depth strategic dialogue and communication.// This will help increase mutual trust and avoid misreading or misjudgment. The US needs to take an accurate view of China's development and strategic intention, well develop cooperation with China in different fields, and not to see whatever China does as a challenge to the US. China must be clear-headed about the fact that it is still a developing country and will remain so. We must focus on our own development and not attempt to challenge the superpower status of the US. The two sides should see each other as friends and partners, not a rivalry and enemy. This is very important. Third, there is no precedent for us to follow in building the new model of major-country relationship. It is fine if some people have different ideas. They can keep thinking until they think it through and the two sides can always continue the discussion. But our people will not agree if a small number of people want to deny or undo the consensus reached between the two presidents. They should know that building the new model of major-country relationship has great strategic value for the US. I once said to American friends that they mustn't miss something good. Is there another emerging country in the history, who, like China, has said voluntarily to the established country that it wants no confrontation and no conflict but mutual respect and win-win cooperation? Did the rising US say this to the UK? Those trying to reverse our presidents' consensus should correct their position and support the US government along the path of building the new model of major-country relationship with China. Otherwise, they will only regret when they "lose China". In a word, there will be difficulties on the way for China and the US to build the new model of major-country relationship. The path will be bumpy, but it leads to a bright future.

By developing already existing mechanisms, the plan solves any alt causes
Yung 2016 - Donald Bren Chair of Non-Western Strategic Thought at the U.S. Marine Corps University

Christopher and Wang Dang, "THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA CAN GET ALONG IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA," Jul 6, warontherocks.com/2016/07/the-united-states-and-china-can-get-along-in-the-south-china-sea/

China and the United States have fundamentally different philosophies about thenature and meaning of the sea. Historically for modern China, the sea is first and foremost a means of access by enemies to threaten and humiliate the country. In contrast, the United States views the sea as a potential barrier to foreign threats and simultaneously a means for the United States to push out and advance its own interests. This explains the tension over U.S. Navy surveillance and reconnaissance operations (SRO). The United States regards as its right the ability to fly surveillance aircraft or sail surveillance ships within China’s exclusive economic zone but outside China’s territorial waters and contiguous zone. China, however, sees U.S. SROs as an affront to Chinese sovereignty, intrusive in nature, and potentially threatening to China’s security. Complicating this divergence of interests and perspectives is the security dilemma involved when a hegemon is confronted by a rising challenger — the so-called Thucydides Trap. An additional complication is the vexing fact that all the present hot spots or potential conflict scenarios between the two countries reside in the maritime domain. There remains the possibility that China and the United States could tangle with each other over a crisis emerging from a Taiwan, a South China Sea, or an East China Sea scenario. Nevertheless, t here are enough overlapping interests in the maritime domain towarrant serious thought about //deepening and strengthening cooperative programs already in existence.// The convergence of interests is substantial enough that new programs that can foster habits of cooperation and reduce tensions deserve consideration. During President Obama’s visit to China in November 2014, the two sides signed memoranda of understanding on encounters at sea. The annex on air-to-air encounters was signed during President Xi’s state visit to the United States in September 2015. Now both sides should ensure that all parties adhere to the agreements. They could even consider conducting joint or separate training sessions for sailors and pilots from both sides. Th e U nited S tates and China should build on existing cooperative activities between their respective coast guards, while sustaining and, if possible, extending cooperation on anti-pollution measures, ocean observation, marine scientific research, and prevention of marine hazards. Moreover, the two powers could expand on the military-to-military cooperation that has taken place within the maritime domain over the past few years. In particular, the United States should consider inviting China to exercises such as the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise that it conducts annually with Southeast Asian militaries. China and the United States should also work to establish a working group at ASEAN to discuss maritime security cooperation and dialogue. Cementing these cooperation efforts would ensure that although Chinese and American maritime interests may vary, the joint interest in preserving stability remains paramount.

Plan
====Plan: The United States federal government should diplomatically engage the People’s Republic of China by offering to indefinitely extend and include higher-level officials at the Strategic & Economic Dialogue.====

Warming is anthropogenic and causes extinction
Adams 16 --- has a degree in agriculture and cites studies done by NASA and the IPCC

(Andrew, Prince George Citizen, 4/16/16, “There is no debating scientific facts,” http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/opinion/columnists/there-is-no-debating-scientific-facts-1.2229437)//ernst//

// Last week I wrote about the signs of early spring and put a few jabs at climate change deniers. This column did exactly what I had hoped. It sparked conversation on the topic. Those who commented on the article were in fact climate change deniers, stating random outliers of data in the overall trend, which is akin to the Republican senator of Oklahoma who brought a snowball to the senate floor as evidence that global warming was a hoax. I am so glad this type of outlandish behavior has not manifested itself in Canadian politics as of yet. Weather is what you get and climate is what you expect. This week I hope to explain climate change to those who don't fully understand the science behind it. I write this column with a mere bachelor of science and only a handful of classes in a human and environmental interaction masters program before I left school to tackle other adventures that I felt academia would only prevent me from doing all the while furthering my student debt. So while I am not an expert on this topic I do however have an understanding of the scientific process and natural processes that allow us to understand climate change. Glancing into my personal library one could reasonably make the statement that I may have a better understanding than your average Joe. __ It's true the climate has always been changing. __ While observed records of our climate indeed are not extreme in age, pollen in lake sediment, trapped air bubbles and neutrons in glaciers can give us a reasonable degree of accuracy (of the past 800,00 years according to NASA) when looking to the past climate fluctuations. __ In our last century ____ of climatic observations we have observed an overall increase of approximately .74 degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures according to NASA and the IPCC. __ While this number does not seem significant, it is when you live in an extreme environment such as the arctic. Think back to your history book's description of the Franklin expedition, now remember last week's stories from CBC on the cruise ships traveling the Northwest Passage with thousands of people aboard the ships. __ 97 percent of climate scientist agree that this warming ____ (which is happening) is not caused by orbital variation nor sun spots or solar flares. These experts agree this climate change is anthropogenic. __ While I believe Prince George has no doubt its share of scientific geniuses, I don't believe that there is a scientific genius in P.G. that is more informed on climate change than the leading 97 percent of top climate scientists. It is true that the climate has been warm before and this is not the problem. The problem is the rate at which the change is occurring. __ According to NASA, "As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of four to seven degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. __ " //We are now in the sixth great extinction on Earth. I// n fact geologists are now calling our current Epoch the Anthropocene as our industrial existence has now left its mark geologically on Earth forever. __ In 1750, there was 250 PPM of carbon dioxide (the most important greenhouse gas) in our atmosphere now there is 400 PPM. __ If you were to drive a car somehow up through our atmosphere for 100 kilometres you would then be in outer space. This is how small our atmosphere is. __ It is ludicrous to think that all of our industrial emissions have not been able to change the composition of our thin veil of an atmosphere __ It saddens me that some still deny these dire facts because we have work to do and no time to waste. There is no one to blame but ourselves. To those who think this is a nefarious plot against the common man from the government and scientists, I think you must first assume our government is intelligent enough to push such a plot as this onto the public and ask yourself, why would they do such a thing, what would be the benefit, and also, "Have I been spending too much time on YouTube watching conspiracy theories?" P.s. The Earth is not flat.

Initiatives by the US and China are necessary to solve, but dialogue through the plan is necessary
Shi et al 2014 - Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Longyu Shi, Weichen Ma, Guofan Shao, Lina Tang, Yangyang Wang & Haowei Wang, "The US and China need to turn ongoing bilateral dialogue into immediate joint mitigation," International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology Volume 22, Issue 1, 2015, p 25-29

Climate change mitigation is an important consideration for sustainable development at both national (Halsnæs et al. 2008) and local levels (Stead 2014). The US and China are the world’ s two largest energy consumers and the two largest producers of GHGs. The cooperation on climate change between the two ‘great powers’ is critically important for sustainable development around the world (Brenton 2013). However, such bilateral cooperation has experienced many difficulties, restricting its goal toward sustainable development. The major problems are the //mutual distrust// between the two countries and the priority of economic development over climate change mitigation within each of them. These problems would not exist if both the US and China emphasize on sustainable development around the world. It is the differences in socioeconomic, political, and technical aspects between the US and Chin a that make the bilateral cooperation theoretically meaningfuland practically helpful. The two countries should not only respect their differences but also take advantage of their differences. It is cheaper to prevent natural disasters beforehand than to manage them after the disasters in the long run. Pursuing short-term economic growth will threaten sustainable development and thus is more costly. Although the worst climate change is yet to come, //there is not much time available for climate negotiations between the US and China.// G2’s cooperation is supposed to have synergic effects but nothing can happen without action.

Empirically, S&ED drives critical climate initiatives
Reynolds 2016 - writer and foreign policy analyst based in New York

Ben, "Climate Change Outcomes of the 2016 Strategic and Economic Dialogue," Jun 30, www.chinausfocus.com/finance-economy/climate-change-outcomes-of-the-2016-strategic-and-economic-dialogue/

At this year’s S&ED, the U.S. and China launched a new effort under the Climate Change Working Group on Power Consumption, Demand, and Competition to increase the use of renewable energy in China. The irony of this effort is palpable. China is already the world’s largest market for solar panels, and the U.S. has levied steep tariffs on solar panel imports from Chinese manufacturers to protect its domestic industries. One of the best ways the U.S. could encourage the adoption of solar panels would be the removal of these tariffs, which hike the price of solar panels for U.S. consumers. Finally, the U.S. and China reiterated their commitment to the “Race to Zero Emissions” initiative, which is designed to encourage the deployment of zero-emissions buses in American and Chinese cities. U.S. transit agencies currently operate only around 300 zero emissions buses, while China operates at least 1,600 zero emissions buses and over 15,000 alternative fuel buses. The U.S. federal government currently offers modest subsidies to encourage local transit authorities to adopt zero emissions buses, but adoption could likely be greatly improved with a more generous contribution. The various initiatives detailed above are all relatively modest, but they represent small, productive steps toward the establishment of sustainable societies in China and the United States. If anything, these steps are better than nothing – they at least represent a minor commitment to meet the emissions targets established by the U.S. and China at the Paris Agreement. As I have previously argued, even if every country in the world were to religiously stick by its pledges under the Paris Agreement, we would still fail to prevent potentially catastrophic global warming within the 21st century. It is obvious that a more radical restructuring of the global economy is necessary, but we have to start somewhere. More than anything, //the challenge of climate change should highlight the absolute necessity of U.S.-China cooperation and the extraordinary dangers of a deepening rivalry.// Climate change poses a potentially existential threat to contemporary society. The U.S. and China are the world’s two largest emitters of carbon dioxide, and some scientists have suggested that a strong enough pact between the two countries would be enough to put the world back on track to relative climate stability. But the changes necessary to achieve climate stability will require painful compromises and sacrifices, neither of which will be feasible if the world’s largest emitters view each other with suspicion. The strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China continues to deepen, and this trend seems likely to continue under a presumptive Clinton administration. Yet, because of the challenge of climate change, we need the U.S. and China to embrace unprecedented levels of cooperation now more than ever. There are few historical examples of the leaders of competing great powers embracing peaceful cooperation to secure the common good. It will take a serious reorientation to ensure that we place t he fate of our children before the struggle for heg emony.

US-China climate cooperation facilitates __mitigation and adaptation__ strategies globally – solves extinction
Li 14 – MA in Global Studies @ U Denver, Int’l Affairs Coordinator @ UN

(Xiaoyu, “China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future,” China Institute of International Studies, http://www.ciis.org.cn/english/2014-01/13/content_6606656.htm)

Cooperation on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and consequence management. China-US cooperation will be //increasingly critical to the global response to climate change//. New scientific studies warn that the //worst-case scenarios// for climate change impacts are the //most likely outcomes//. Scientific assessments also maintain that anthropomorphic climate change is partly responsible for extreme weather events that the world is already experiencing at an increasing rate, from the floods in Pakistan and the heat wave in Russia to the melting glaciers and ice sheets and the “superstorm” Sandy that inflicted unprecedented destruction on New York and New Jersey. It is highly likely that global climate change will be a key issue in the coming two decades as the world faces increasing climate-induced humanitarian disasters and infrastructure destruction //requiring immediate and// expensive relief as well as costly, //long-term adaptation//. Climate change likely will increase social and political instability in many areas of the world, including emerging economies and developed countries. It also will likely renew political pressure for emissions reductions, especially by China and the United States, the world’s two biggest emitters. China-US cooperation in all these areas will be //critical// to whether the //world cooperates// and how //effective// any cooperation is in responding to thepotentially//existential threat// posed by global climate change. The two countriesalsocan build on decades of bilateral cooperation on energy and environment to //seize opportunities// for lucrative joint energy technology development that would //substantially// benefit Chinese and US businesses as well as//lower costs and widely disseminate// clean energy //technologies//.

Expert consensus that warming is real and existential – ignites a cascade that exceeds cost-benefit analysis
Treich and Rheinberger, 15 —Christoph Rheinberger (Professor of Health Policy and Management @ Harvard) and Nicolas Treich (Professor at the Toulouse School of Economics). Citing Weitzman (economist @ Harvard) and Bostrom (prof @ Oxford). “On the economics of the end of the world as we know it,” The Economist, [] -- br

CLIMATE change //puts humanity at risk//. The Pope’s celebrated encyclical letter on the subject released last month emphasised this risk “for our common home”, arguing that “doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain”. But apocalyptic predictions are often made by religious groups. So, how serious is this claim? Perhaps for the first time in history, there seems to be a //broad consensus// among scientists. They claim that our planet might face a frightening future if we cannot agree to take //decisive actions here and now//. Changes to how seawater circulates in the Atlantic, the melting of glaciers on Greenland and in the Antarctic, and rising sea levels might all result from inaction. Accounting for these catastrophic scenarios is a huge challenge for scientists and economists alike. So, what should we do in the face of //existential risks//? One, perhaps extreme, view is that the mere possibility of massive human extinction should inspire us to do everything we can to avoid it. The counterargument goes that we face several other existential risks and focusing on one may be shortsighted. In his fascinating book “Catastrophe: Risk and Response”, published in 2004, Richard Posner argues that we do not do enough to hedge against catastrophic risks such as climate change, asteroid impacts or bioterrorism. In light of the “competition” of existential risks, how much should humanity invest in the mitigation of climate change? Conventional wisdom holds that we should limit global warming to 2°C. To justify this target, economists seek to compare the cost of reducing current emissions with its benefits. Indeed, there is a trade-off: investing more resources today in climate-change prevention leaves less to combat other immediate risks. Interestingly, the Pope’s letter recognises that “decisions must be made based on a comparison of the risks and benefits foreseen for the various possible alternatives”. However, estimating these benefits means that we need to determine the value of a reduction in preventing a possible future catastrophic risk. This is a thorny task. Martin Weitzman, an economist at Harvard University, argues that the expected loss to society because of catastrophic climate change is //so large that it cannot be reliably estimated//. A cost-benefit analysis —economists’ standard tool for assessing policies— cannot be applied here as reducing an infinite loss is infinitely profitable. Other economists, including Kenneth Arrow of Stanford University and William Nordhaus of Yale University, have examined the technical limits of Mr Weitzman’s argument. As the interpretation of infinity in economic climate models is essentially a debate about how to deal with the threat of extinction, Mr Weitzman’s argument depends heavily on a judgement about the value of life. Economists estimate this value based on people’s personal choices: we purchase bicycle helmets, pay more for a safer car, and receive compensation for risky occupations. The observed trade-offs between safety and money tell us about society’s willingness to pay for a reduction in mortality risk. Hundreds of studies indicate that people in developed countries are collectively willing to pay a few million dollars to avoid an additional statistical death. For example, America’s Environmental Protection Agency recommends using a value of around $8m per fatality avoided. Similar values are used to evaluate vaccination programmes and prevention of traffic accidents or airborne diseases. Mr Posner multiplies the value of life by an estimate of Earth’s future population and obtains an illustrative figure of $336m billion as the cost of human extinction. Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, argues that this approach ignores the value of life of unborn generations and that the tentative figure should be much larger—//perhaps infinitely so//. T he value of life as a concept is a natural candidate for a tentative estimation of the benefit of reducing extinction risk. Yet the approach seems somewhat awkward in this context. The extinction risk here is completely different from the individual risk we face in our everyday lives. Human extinction is a risk we all share—and it would be an //unprecedented event that can happen only once//. A lack of reliable data exacerbates the profound methodological and philosophical difficulties faced by climate change economists. Extinction is a threat to future generations, while evaluating and designing prevention policies is an urgent challenge today. The United Nations conference in Paris this December offers a chance to take appropriate steps to protect future generations from this risk. Many economists do not believe in the current pledge-and-review mechanism, and favour the implementation of a generalised carbon-trading system instead. While the Pope dismisses that solution out of hand, his attacks on technological innovation and capitalism, however, may not be very effective in overcoming the current inertia that climate negotiations suffer from.

Higher Level Officials in the S&ED overcome current failures and solve a laundry list of impacts
Kuo 7/20/16 Mercy Kuo is an advisory board member of CHINADebate and was formerly managing director at the Committee of 100. Dr. Kuo was previously director of the Southeast Asia Studies and Strategic Asia Programs at the National Bureau of Asian Research. “Assessing The US-China Strategic And Economic Dialogue”, [] //Deej//

// - There are embedded answers to elections in here too. Some warrants say that voters don’t care //

// - Also AT what S&ED has done so far //

//The Rebalance author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into the U.S. rebalance to Asia. This conversation with Dr. Daniel B. Wright – Founder, President, and CEO of GreenPoint Group, formerly U.S. Treasury Department’s Managing Director for China and the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) where he provided strategic counsel to the Secretary of Treasury Henry M. Paulson, Jr. for this Cabinet-level economic exchange with China, and co-led in the development of the U.S.-China Ten Year Energy and Environmental Cooperation Framework, a nonresident senior fellow with the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, ​a board member of the U.S.-China Strong Foundation, and ​ member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations – is the 52nd in “The Rebalance Insight Series”. As a foundational leader of the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) launched in 2006, precursor to the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) upgraded in 2009, assess the arc of the SED’s key achievements and the direction it might take under a new U.S. presidency. The SED’s most important contribution – that continues today through the S&ED – has been the creation of “new habits of cooperation” between our political leaders – providing more senior, more direct, and more comprehensive communication that matches the growing importance of the U.S.-China relationship. The S&ED has helped leaders of both countries keep the relationship on an even keel and advance shared interests, manage diverging views, and address critical domestic and global challenges – finance, trade and investment, environmental sustainability and climate change, cyber and other thorny regional issues, to name a few. “New habits” do not often grab headlines, but ask senior U.S. government leaders from either administration – Bush or Obama – who have participated in the dialogue and he or she will attest to how this communication mechanism has strengthened U.S. national interest as we relate to China. While the S&ED has at times been criticized for “all talk, no walk” and “mission creep”, the dialogue has also produced concrete achievements – especially those that require cross-agency coordination and high-level support. Most notable during the early years, the SED delivered break-through agreements in bilateral air services t hat has more than doubled non-stop routes between our countries; China’s commitment to an emissions trading regime that is bringing market forces to address air pollution; and a bilateral tourism promotion agreement that has expanded lucrative tourist trade. During the Obama administration, S&ED engagement has led to forward movement in several key areas, including a breakthrough on the bilateral investment treaty (BIT) and a fundamental reorientation in how China thinks about its investment regime; strengthened cooperation on intellectual property rights protection; and support for policies that are designed to shift China’s economy to a pattern of sustainable growth. Looking forward, I hope that a new U.S. president will accurately assess the importance of China to U.S. national interests, and then determine how best to achieve those objectives.// Key to that success will be high-level, effective communication and coordination between leaders of the world’s two largest economies. It would be shortsighted to eliminate the S&ED, a mechanism that has now been used to great effect by both a Republican and Democratic administration. // Engagement is the better choice. Better to continue and improve the S&ED. Options to strengthen the mechanism could include: tighten participant numbers to discipline the size and streamline the focus; meet more frequently; and// strengthen the role of the White House in the dialogue//. In what ways have the SED talks contributed to the U.S. rebalance to Asia? Correctly understood, the rebalance to Asia is about the United States shifting more attention, expertise, and resources to Asia in ways that reflect evolving global economic and security realities. U.S. national interests should be advanced through proportional attention and allocation of resources. The S&ED contributes to the U.S. rebalance to Asia by strengthening direct Cabinet-secretary level attention and understanding of issues through direct relationship and dialogue with Chinese counterparts. This should be welcome. How would you evaluate the impact of the U.S.-China Ten Year Energy and Environmental Cooperation Framework (TYF)? The TYF is an excellent example of the importance and effectiveness of the S&ED. When we created the TYF under the SED in 2007-2008, we intended to begin a strategic conversation with China about emerging energy and environmental needs of national and global importance. At the time, the Chinese government would not officially use the phrase “climate change” in public. However, by setting in motion a high-level, interagency process that worked constructively with Chinese counterparts on strategic, longer-term priorities, which also had opportunity for immediate, concrete cooperation – issues like water, air, energy, and transportation – we advanced collaboration among decision makers from both Beijing and Washington. Today, almost ten years since the TYF’s founding, U.S. and Chinese leadership acknowledge that the TYF’s process got the ball rolling on what would eventually become game-changing bilateral cooperation on climate change and the globally important results delivered in Paris in 2015. The TYF is a powerful example of how the process of working together through the TYF framework allowed the two sides to realize the importance of collaborating on the issues at stake, paving the way for even more ambitious cooperation. What top three challenges face a new U.S. administration in strengthening U.S.-China cooperation? Our biggest challenge is at home. Change and anxiety within both countries create dangerous dynamics among our populations that tempt our leaders to respond to populist trends with isolationism. Rather, the current juncture requires strong leadership that is responsive to the needs of the U.S. domestic population while also navigating the challenges and benefits of the China relationship. Secondly, and related, a new U.S. administration will need to manage our China relationship within a shifting global context – low growth, tricky markets, deepening impact of technology, stubborn inequalities, and evolving geopolitics. These uncertainties increase the need for enlightened leadership that is able to manage the U.S.-China relationship within a difficult global context. Finally, although we live in an age of information abundance, our deficit of understanding persists. Information does not equal understanding. U.S.-China relations evidences this gap. A new U.S. administration will need to build a leadership team that includes senior officials with deep understanding on how to effectively engage China. How should the next U.S. president – Democratic or Republication – communicate the strategic importance of U.S.-China relations to the American public and allies? Buy-in from the American public is of crucial importance. I often say that Washington and Beijing are necessary to but no longer sufficient for a constructive U.S.-China relationship. Our populations must support a growing relationship that works well for both societies. This is especially important today given the headwinds of isolationism and populism in the United States. The next U.S. president will need to move beyond politics to objectively understand and advance U.S. national interests as they relate to China. For the American public, interests lean more heavily towards the benefits of the economic and trade relationship and what the new administration is doing to advance the interests of the American public. Communicating the positive realities of the U.S.-China economic relationship is a good place to start: China was the United States’ third largest goods export market in 2015; one million American jobs are attributed to trade with China; inbound Chinese investment to the United States totaled $15.7 billion in 2015; and the U.S. and China account for nearly 40 percent of global economic growth. Equally important, a new U.S. administration will need to assure the American population that it is competent in managing the divergent views and conflicts that arise from such a deep and complex relationship. Finally, a new U.S. president should actively encourage sub-national levels of cooperation – governors, mayors, schools, non-profits, such mechanisms as the U.S.-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) and the U.S.-China Strong Foundation, which have been quieter but deeply strategic dimensions of the S&ED process. We must win the support and trust of the common person to increase the chances of a productive and stable U.S.-China relationship that benefits America, China, and the world. It is critical that the next U.S. president gets it right. We must deepen these habits of cooperation. This will require leadership.

High level dialogue in the S&ED is necessary to overcome the rising probability of conflict in the SCS and electoral rhetoric
Ge 7/17/ 16 Su Ge is president of China Institute of International Studies. “Restrain things from escalation: expert on Sino-US relations”, [] //Deej

Last week's ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague has led some observers to suggest there is a growing polarization of camps among those who do and don't back China's position on the dispute with the Philippines. This includes some who have suggested the dispute could eventually end up in an armed conflict. Su Ge, President of the China Institute of International Studies, says rational thinking is going to be what's needed to ensure that scenario doesn't become a reality. " Do not feed each other, and do not let things escalate . When you send planes too close, and you might feed the rationale to the Chinese military. That is precisely the reason, just as you have the military capabilities in Guam, and because you are so close, we have to have capabilities to defend these islands to make sure lives and properties are safe." Compounding the issue is the timing of the ruling, which comes amid the current presidential election campaign in the United States. The 4-year cycle often increases political rhetoric, as candidates on both sides of the aisle have been known to use the United State s' relationship with China as a way to galvanize support among the voter base in both the Democratic and Republican camps. Pundits and candidates on both sides have been critical of the outgoing Obama administration for being too soft on China. Elizabeth Economy, Director of the American Council on Foreign Relations, says Chinese officials need to look past the stump speeches and work toward shoring up the broader relationship. "It may not be the new candidates come in and say we have to be tough on China, although every candidate says that every election, this is not something new. We want to work with China. China matters enormously. The importance that President Obama places on China is extremely significant. The optimism, the degree to which the president feels we have a natural partner across a full-range of issues has diminished." The United States and China have been able to work together recently on a number of key issues, including climate change, the Iranian nuclear issue and the long-term development of the global economy. However, these issues tend to be overlooked when observers talk about the Sino-US dynamic, which also has a lasting impact on economic ties. A recent survey by the US Chamber of Commerce suggests 77-percent of US companies operating in China feel less welcome than they have in the past. Dennis Wilder is the former director of East Asian Affairs with the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush. He suggests governments in both the US and China should be considering steps beyond the Strategic and Economic Dialogue the two sides conduct once a year. "The Strategic Economic Dialogue, as it exists today, is useful and can continue. You have to make a commitment on a higher level to doing something that isn't sitting in large chairs together. We have a distance between the US and China . One of the things we were criticized in the Bush administration for is that Condoleezza Rice would not go to Southeast Asia very often. We were guilty. But people at the senior level have got to make a commitment to spending real time with each other ." This year's World Peace Forum, the 5th put on by Tsinghua University, will run through this Sunday.

The eighth and final round of Strategic and Economic Dialogue concluded in June, opening channels for communication and cooperation on a litany of issues
Shen 2016 - professor and Vice Dean at the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University

Dingli, "Strategic Dialogue Advances Partnership, with a Limit," Jun 14, www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/strategic-dialogue-advances-partnership-with-a-limit/

China and the US have just conducted their eighth round of Strategic and Economic Dialogue ( S&ED ) and the 7th round of High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE). These dialogue mechanisms have been initiated under the Obama administration, and have become a major avenue for the two countries to have institutional exchanges on security, economic and cultural areas on an annual basis. The S&ED was based on the previous China-US SD (Senior Dialogue, but translated as Strategic Dialogue by Chinese side), as well as SED (Strategic Economic Dialogue), of the Bush administration. From the English linguistic perspective, neither SD nor SED directly carries the meaning of “strategic dialogue”. After all, an SED is still an economic dialogue, though at a strategic level. With Obama commanding the White House, he and the then Chinese President Hu Jintao concurred to combine SD and SED and entitle the combined edition as “strategic”. That is how S&ED has been coined. In this way, Beijing and Washington have continued their top-level institutional dialogues and lifted them to strategic height. Obviously, such talks help address various important issues between China and the US, and have often been effective in limiting negative developments. For instance, the past S&EDs have successfully nurtured, to various degrees, bilateral cooperation on cybersecurity and climate change. So far, these heightened talks have dealt with various issues of cooperation and competition. Categorically, they have yielded all sorts of outcomes, such as positive cooperation and improved collaboration. However, dialogues are not a cure-all. Thus far, no dialogue could resolve fundamental differences on the Taiwan issue and South China Sea issue. On the positive front, the ever-longer list of collaboration from each dialogue indicates the span of their extensive and deepening cooperation covering almost all areas, ranging from energy, environment, economy, trade, investment, finance, non-traditional security, nonproliferation, and various regional hotspots etc., not to mention all kinds of creative people-to-people exchanges. Such massive mutual engagement has benefited both countries and spilled out to the Asia Pacific and the world. This partnership has thus differentiated itself from the old US-Soviet relationship, which was rich in ideological confrontation but lacked economic and people-based cooperation.

Scheduling the next round now signals commitment and allows for changes making for more effective discussions
Reade 2016 - Senior Associate with the Freeman chair in China Studies @ CSIS

Claire, "The U.S.-China S&ED: Time to Tinker, Not to Toss," Jun 27, https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-china-sed-time-tinker-not-toss

The last U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED ) of the Obama administration is now behind us, raising a number of questions as we look ahead to next year: What purpose does this dialogue serve in the U.S.-China relationship? Is it worth continuing, should it be scrapped, or could it be modified to increase its effectiveness? My bottom line: the S&ED is not perfect, but the solution involves targeted adjustments, not abandonment of a process that serves U.S. interests. This commentary explains why, with a focus on the economic side of the ledger. The S&ED was created in 2009, by adding a new “strategic” track covering a range of global, regional, and bilateral political and security issues to the existing high-level “strategic economic dialogue” (SED), which was initiated at the behest of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson when he joined the George W. Bush administration in 2006. The original concept of the SED was affirmatively not to seek “immediate solutions to the issues of the day” but instead to “discuss long-term strategic challenges.” However, almost immediate bipartisan congressional complaints about China’s inaction on trade and currency matters quickly created pressure to shift the SED to become a forum for both achieving immediate progress on issues and fostering broader discussions of the longer-term strategic directions the two countries’ economies needed to take. This dual focus has continued with the Obama-era S&ED. Like its SED predecessor, the S&ED incorporates several helpful features : first, it operates with the direct imprimatur and supervision of both countries’ presidents. This ensures that the presidents are briefed on all the top issues being raised and can make decisions based on the broadest interests of the country, rather than the interests of one ministry or department determining the outcome. This is particularly important in China, where a culture of not wanting to tell one’s leader bad news can limit communication regarding problems.This approach also neutralizes the issue of some Chinese officials operating under the assumption that they never go wrong by opposing a U.S. request to change a policy, while an effort to compromise or find a solution to a U.S. grievance could be dangerous. Instead, this presidential connection, and the prestigious, public nature of the event, makes it important for the meeting to be a success //, which creates leverage for results.// In fact, in the Xi Jinping era, this presidential connection may be critical to the prospects for achieving any significant gains, given Xi’s consolidation of power and the more limited scope for initiative by any officials beneath him. At least in this context, the Chinese heads of delegation presumably have to communicate with Xi and get his approval for agreements, even if Chinese economic and strategic policy development now seems to occur primarily through Communist Party bodies rather than the government ministries the Chinese officials supervise. Second, the presidents specially designate the leads for the dialogues (one each for the strategic track and the economic track). This elevates the Chinese representatives, giving them more power over the various ministries and other Chinese government bodies than they normally would have. In China, it can be extraordinarily difficult to deal effectively with issues that cross ministries or that involve ministries under the supervision of different vice premiers. The special authority given to the Chinese S&ED representatives helps counter the stovepiping often encountered in China. This seems to have borne fruit on a number of occasions: the S&ED has fostered progress on cross-cutting issues, such as innovation policy and i ntellectual p roperty theft, the treatment of state-owned enterprises, excess capacity, the expansion of the World Trade Organization’s Information Technology Agreement , and China’s agreement to core principles of a high-quality bilateral investment treaty. Third, the two countries have been committed to scheduling and holding the S&ED every year. This creates certainty that the U nited St ates and China will engage in serious bilateral economic and strategic dialogue on a regular basis, enhancing the stability of the relationship. //This certainty of engagement is far from a foregone conclusion with China.// As the United States and other major Chinese trading partners know, China can make it very difficult to even schedule a meeting, much less bring high-level people to the table to work hard on solving a problem, if it is an unpleasant problem they do not want to face. The S&ED is by no means cost free, however. The effort expended to hold the S&ED includes communications well ahead of the meeting among interagency expert staff, high-level officials, and their counterparts on a range of issues, based on the understanding that progress in an area could be reflected in the S&ED outcomes statement issued at the conclusion of the formal meetings. The S&ED meetings themselves require a significant time commitment from multiple U.S. cabinet members and other senior officials —up to two days in formal meetings when the S&ED is held in the United States and up to five days, between travel and meetings, when the S&ED is held in China. China puts significant stock in creating an august occasion with many top officials gathered together, as a means of showing respect for the countries’ relationship and for the leaders who at least symbolically preside over it. From the U.S. perspective, a presidentially sponsored, high-level, cross-cutting dialogue merits the presence of many top officials—if the dialogue is meaningful and the meeting generates reasonable progress on enough significant issues. Some years, the S&ED outcomes statements reflect important progress on issues of concern. For example, in 2013, China agreed for the first time to embrace significant disciplines in the investment treaty negotiations underway with the United States. In 2015, China agreed for the first time not to intervene in exchange markets except under very limited conditions. However, other years, the outcomes statements indicate no visible progress has been made. For example, ahead of the 2016 S&ED, Treasury Under Secretary Nathan Sheets indicated that increased regulatory transparency, competition law, and avoidance of unnecessarily broad national security rules were key topics for the S&ED this year. However, the 2016 outcomes statement contained no mention of national security rules or competition law, and it reflected only a “reaffirmation” of regulatory transparency commitments China had made years before, which the 2014 S&ED outcomes statement had already noted were part of Chinese law. Of course, the inconsistent level of impressive visible outcomes does not necessarily mean that no progress has resulted from the dialogue. Climate change was a substantial topic for the S&ED f or several years without remarkable outcomes, yet these conversations likely contributed to the ultimate agreement between Presidents Obama and Xi prior to the Paris climate talks. Educating Chinese leaders about a concern also at least ensures that they understand the U.S. perspective on a particular policy area, rather than operating blindly. However, if no changes ensue over many years of dialogue in a particular area, it may be hard for a U.S. cabinet member to muster enthusiasm for continuing to participate.Interestingly, the secretary of agriculture attended the first S&ED but has sent deputies to the last three years’ sessions. U.S. cabinet members also may feel frustrated by the dialogue structure, given the differences in U.S. and Chinese leadership institutions. The Chinese traditionally pair U.S. cabinet members with Chinese ministers as their counterparts. However, Chinese ministers have substantially less power than cabinet members, since the ministers report to vice premiers, who report to the premier and then to the president. In the U.S. system, of course, the cabinet reports directly to the president. A U.S. cabinet member is fully empowered to make a deal with another country in an area within his or her competence, but on important issues, a Chinese minister may often be in the position of holding the line unless and until a higher leader authorizes a compromise. The S&ED offers the Treasury and State Department secretaries opportunities to interact as equals with presidentially empowered Chinese counterparts who do have significant power, but China does not normally offer this opportunity to the other cabinet members without status as “heads” of the U.S. delegation. Some outsiders also question the scope of the S&ED. Focusing on the economic track here, the outcomes statement seems lengthy, leading to the question, is the S&ED no better than a form of policy “speed dating” across every issue of the moment? Would a tighter focus on a few key issues lead to better results?Others respond by pointing out that the U.S.-China relationship is a huge one,with many facets, so even a disciplined approach to choosing the topics of interest wil l necessarily engender a number of issues—and both China and the United States will tee up separate concerns. Furthermore, at the beginning of the S&ED dialogue—well ahead of the final, formal meeting—neither side knows where progress may be possible, so it is useful to explore a number of topics. Limiting the topics too narrowly may just result in stalemate, as neither side wishes to move. In addition, the scope of discussion is not unlimited, even at the outset. For example, if one compares the S&ED outcomes on trade and investment to those of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), a U.S.-China institution whose sole focus is to work on trade and investment matters, it is clear that the JCCT covers a much broader range of trade and investment issues. Further, not all topics will merit the same degree of attention. Where two sides meet with a goal of solving some significant problems of the day, priorities will emerge for the quiet discussions among the top leaders. What should be done with this awkward giant? President Xi has already bought into its legitimacy, a rare and valuable attribute. The S&ED also provides a creative mechanism to avoid being trapped by classic Chinese bureaucratic defenses, so issues can be aired with top decisionmakers to try to get results.The opportunity to engage on a regular basis on cross-cutting or urgent strategic and economic issues with all the needed high-level participants on the Chinese side cannot be replicated by quiet meetings among a few trusted interlocutors, because those meetings inevitably focus on just a few issues and only those of greatest current concern, and because the leverage of the major public, presidentially blessed event is lacking. It is also much less work to adjust an accepted institution than to scrap it and start over—especially with China. But the new leaders in Washington will want to examine the S&ED critically, as part of a comprehensive review of how to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of U.S. interactions with China. This should include a recognition of the obvious: any changes will need China’s buy-in to work. However, given President Xi’s major reliance on party leading groups to make economic and strategic policies for China, it could be important to try to ensure that U.S. top government officials can meet regularly with the top officials in these leading groups,even if traditionally the meetings between top officials in China and the United States have been “government to government” and not “government to party. ” Other changes might include efforts to ensure that, through the S&ED, our cabinet members can interact more regularly and as equals with China’s vice premiers, whose powers in many ways more closely parallel those of U.S. cabinet members, in order to attack problems more effectively. If the S&ED remains in place, for example, it might help to have the two presidents endorse the idea of facilitating cabinet members’ meeting with the optimal mix of top Chinese officials informally on the perimeters of the S&ED on key topics of interest to them , to maximize the utility of the time commitment by all. These shifts, along with other creative changes, may produce enough S&ED participants to satisfy the Chinese desire for a sufficiently impressive S&ED gathering, while increasing the effectiveness of the effort.

Upgrading the SED to include presidential dialogue sets a clear agenda and builds crisis management mechanisms
Rudd 2015 - Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs & Former Prime Minister, Australia

Kevin, "US-China 21: The Future of US-China Relations Under Xi Jinping," belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Summary%20Report%20US-China%2021.pdf

Beyond the two countries’ embassies, the principal mechanism for managing the breadth and depth of the U.S.-China relationship has been the Strategic and Economic Dialogue ( SED ). This has operated since 2009 and is headed by the U.S. Secretaries of State and Treasury on the U.S. side, and by the Chinese State Councilor for Foreign Affairs and the senior Chinese Vice Premier responsible for the economy on the Chinese side. The SED has evolved from earlier structures under the Bush Administration, including the Senior Dialogue, and later the Strategic Economic Dialogue. Generally, the SED has been effective in working through complex issues in the relationship and by bringing together, on a regular basis, a number of the principal players on both sides.It has also helped to “socialize” the institutional relationship in a manner that increases comfort levels at the working level over time. This is important. The principal deficiency of the SED is that it still lies at arm’s length from the core decision-makers on both sides of the relationship: //namely the two Presidents.// This is understandable. The SED is a working body. But on the Chinese side in particular, neither of the two senior representatives are members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo , whereas on the U.S. side, both are ranking members of President Obama’s cabinet. There is a limit to what this body can do in absence of continued, detailed strategic direction from both Zhongnanhai ( 中南海 ) and the White House. That is why the process of regular, bilateral working summits between the two Presidents, starting at Sunnylands in June 2013, and continuing at Yingtai ( 瀛台 ) in November 2014, is so critical. Historically, within the Chinese system, summits are critical because only the President can make core strategic decisions. Under Xi Jinping, given the significant authority he now wields within the Chinese system, this is doubly the case. For these reasons, the continuation of regular annual working summits between the two leaders is critical to the prospects of success or failure in any strategic reorientation of the relationship in the future. Transcripts of the President’s one-on-one discussions with President Obama are circulated within the senior Chinese leadership. The content and tonality of these records are of central importance in setting the future direction of the relationship, beyond the specific outcomes that any one summit may agree upon for public release. For the future, therefore, these summits must become the agenda-setters for the detailed work program of the SED; also the common clearing house for progress made on previous agenda items delegated to the SED ; as well as the source of political momentum and motivation for the SED and its associated official processes to produce results. From what we know of Xi Jinping’s “sleeves rolled up” work style, his leadership of the Party’s core “leading groups” (lingdao xiaozu 领导小组 ), and his focus on substance over protocol, this sort of political and “high policy” decision-making process is highly likely to suit his temperament. Finally, the success of any high-level decision-making mechanism requires a trusted “point-person” within the private offices of both presidents to drive the official process forward. These persons must be seen to have the absolute personal, political and policy confidence of the two presidents. They must be able to drive the strategic working agenda of the relationship forward. They must also not allow the core machinery of the relationship to be distracted or derailed by the issue of the day, or the inevitable ups and downs of the relationship. They must also be able to “manage” the tactical issue of the day so that it does not become a strategic distraction from the fundamental, forward agenda of the relationship. And to do this, they must be able to work comfortably with each other with a level of interpersonal trust we have not seen in the U.S.-China relationship since Kissinger and Zhou Enlai ( 周恩来 ). This is now necessary because the stakes today are even higher.