California is in Cahoots with China on Climate Policy
By Ian Oxnevad * February 19, 2025 * CounterCurrent: Week of 02/17/25
CounterCurrent: China Edition is a monthly newsletter of the National Association of Scholars uncovering and highlighting the effects of the Chinese Communist Party's influence on American education.
Back in 2012, Donald Trump posted on Twitter that the “concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” This idea of climate change politics being more about economic warfare than saving any ecosystem has been a staple of Trump-era politics. In 2016, Hillary Clinton used this tweet to mark Trump as a climate-change denier. This year, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, stating the “United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.” We have often discussed Chinese influence in American higher education, but rarely its relation to climate change. Through partnerships between China’s Tsinghua University and the University of California, California’s Democrats are manufacturing science and policy to justify costly electric vehicle (EV) mandates that hurt America’s economy and benefit Beijing.
California was called a “land of fruits and nuts” starting in 1932, and was called this for the quality of its agriculture rather than any politics. The state’s fruits and nuts are pretty good, particularly its medjool dates. More recently, the Golden State has become a Mecca for inspiring policy related to climate change and emissions standards. In 2017, then-California governor Jerry Brown and the head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) traveled to Beijing to meet with Chinese manufacturers in order to accelerate a transition to zero-emissions vehicles. California not only looked to China for a supply of EVs, but it also looked to Beijing for how to mandate its way around the market by demanding all new cars in the state be electric by 2035.
High politics is different from the slow grind of policy. The former is flashy, while the latter is not. Governor Brown’s trip led to the creation of the “China-US ZEV Policy Lab” at the University of California Davis (UC Davis) in order to deepen relationships between China’s vehicle industry and the firms that supply their needed batteries. The “ZEV Policy Lab” at UC Davis is more than just a think tank; rather, it is uniquely constituted to push policy by exploiting academic credentialism and regulatory mandate. The center is part of a larger initiative housed throughout the University of California system called the California-China Climate Institute.
This subnational agreement between California and a foreign power is based in UC Berkeley’s School of Law and its own Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, and the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at China’s Tsinghua University. This is precisely the kind of institutional arrangement suited to take policy informed by a foreign power’s university, translate its research across an international boundary, repackage it as legal theory, and then use it to pressure willing lawmakers. California’s government, dominated by Democrats, also may not know that Tsinghua is not a normal university.
Tsinghua, the alma mater of Chinese President Xi Jinping, is a premier university known for funneling graduates into the elite echelons of the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party. Tsinghua is not only involved in nuclear weapons development but also in artificial intelligence, guidance systems, and economic espionage. In 2018, Tsinghua was involved in cyberattacks targeting the U.S. energy industry, telecommunications, and government. On climate change, Tsinghua University also works with Harvard’s Belfer Center to promote carbon net-zero policies. Xie Zhenhua, who worked with Jerry Brown to found the climate initiative, had a close relationship with United States climate envoy John Kerry and also promoted the Paris Climate Accords alongside the concept of a “greener” Belt and Road Initiative.
The Chinese-California climate change relationship, facilitated by Tsinghua University, also included Chinese EV companies such as BYD, the Beijing Auto Group, Yangtze Motors, Great Wall, Geely, and Dongfeng Xiao Kang in order to discuss “plans for developing new models of zero-emission vehicles and support needed to enter the U.S. market.” In other words, California was in discussions to help foreign automakers enter the American market. Worse, California solidified this relationship by later implementing the 2035 pro-EV mandate that would favor these same companies over American manufacturers. China could hardly ask for more willing partners than California’s Democratic Party or for a better vehicle to produce politicized science and law than the University of California.
The ties between China and California politics have only been confirmed under the leadership of Gavin Newsom. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Newsom penned a deal with BYD worth $1.4 billion for protective equipment. Ke Li, the head of BYD’s auto subsidiary, donated $40,000 to Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign. BYD also manufactures shoddy EV buses ordered by Democratic-led cities such as Los Angeles. Topping it off, BYD is heavily financed by the Chinese government and has come under scrutiny for human rights abuses related to its battery supply chains. Tsinghua University is a primary training source for BYD’s workforce.
In sum, Trump is right about China’s interest in using climate change to its economic advantage. China controls about 90 percent of the rare-earth elements needed for EV batteries. BYD alone has factories worldwide to support China’s Belt and Road Initiative. What makes China’s passion about climate change suspect is its hypocrisy. China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. As it is, any emissions California reduces are more than replaced by China’s pollution. American consumers, and Californians in particular, are enriching China while making sacrifices that make little economic sense. At the same time, California climate policy tends to get replicated by other states. The recent tariffs that the new Trump administration volleyed against Beijing are part of a larger chess game in which climate change is just another piece. As for California, it looks to be on China’s side. The fact that California is working with Tsinghua University, a university designated to facilitate technology transfer, nearly confirms it.
Photo by Dancing Man on Adobe Stock
https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/california-is-in-cahoots-with-china-on-climate-policy
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