As Giving Green is still recommending donations to TSM in spite of what seems to be the majority opinion here, I’d like to highlight a recent letter to the White House cosigned by TSM (among dozens of other groups). The letter argues that the United States should be less “antagonistic” towards China in order to focus on cooperating on climate change.
In reality, the United States and China have already agreed to cooperate on climate change. So TSM et al are not proposing any obvious change in US-China climate policy. Apparently they want us to be more generally friendly toward China in other domains, so that the already-agreed-to climate cooperation can run more smoothly.
The first problem with this is that it’s not clear that US-China cooperation on climate change can achieve much anyway. The idea that America should cooperate with China on climate change is a trite line that gets repeated constantly as a superficial aspiration but to me seems rather deficient in policy substance. Exactly how this cooperation on climate change is supposed to work is generally a mystery if you try to think beyond vague outlines. This letter states that the US and China can cooperate because they have ‘complementary strengths’, but this isn’t even really true. The letter says “For example, the U.S. is the world leader in clean technology research and controls immense financial resources; China is the world leader in industrial capacity across a number of clean energy industries and is a major source of infrastructure financing across the Global South” but this is almost the same two strengths stated in slightly different ways. Clearly, both are financiers. China does have serious clean tech research and the US does have serious clean tech industry; maybe there is a comparative advantage in American research and Chinese manufacturing, but in practice you cannot separate green research and green manufacturing very easily (most of the recent green tech progress is innovations and scale arising from manufacturing), and there aren’t severe trade barriers stopping American green technology ideas and Chinese manufacturing products from crossing the Pacific anyway.
No doubt there is room for some reforms of trade, travel and immigration to improve green technology transfer between the US and China. But in broad strokes, both the US and China can provide both financing and clean technology, this is classic economic competition. It is at least as likely that competition between the United States and China will lead both sides to put more effort into financing clean infrastructure and exporting clean technology. After all, China’s motivation for infrastructure projects has been partly geopolitical, and there have been many calls in the US for financing similar infrastructure projects around the world in order to compete with China.
I am not alone in suggesting this. Numerous foreign policy experts have cut through the trite assumption echoed by that letter and shown how climate progress fits equally or better into a framework of competition with China.
The second problem with TSM et al’s idea that America should generally be more friendly with China is that it (obviously) has implications beyond climate policy. It is yet another example of TSM attempting to influence broader political issues besides environmental policy, an activity which can be either good or bad but definitely adds to the complexity and undermines the robustness of Giving Green’s recommendation.
While TSM does not say so explicitly, the apparent subtext is that the United States should exercise little or no serious policy response to China’s infliction of mass suffering through concentration camps in Xinjiang and its treaty-violating destruction of political rights in Hong Kong. Their only statement on human rights is that the United States should work together with China to support international best practices on human rights… this is a bizarre thing to say considering that China is one of the biggest current violators of international best practices on human rights. It can only suggest that either the letter signatories are ignorant of severe systematic human rights violations in China or they believe that we should turn a blind eye on them in order to focus on cooperating on other issues (almost certainly the latter).
The letter also has the subtext that the United States should exert less effort in deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and should be more reluctant to defend Taiwan in the event that China does invade that island nation, that the United States should tolerate China’s allegedly unfair trade practices (I admit that I agree that the US should be more tolerant here, but some climate donors may disagree), and that the United States should tolerate China’s efforts to change international institutions and international law. (I delve into the complexity and probable harmfulness of China’s international political aspirations in this essay.)
In my estimation this letter is probably net harmful, and I would like to see anyone affiliated with EA exercise extreme caution before recommending donations to an organization which seems to implicitly discourage reasonable efforts to curb ongoing massive human rights violations.
Edit: here’s another notable story. TSM cancelled an event in which they were planning to study protest tactics from Hong Kong, because sympathizers with the Chinese Communist Party were offended by the implication of legitimizing Hong Kong protestors. The mere fact that TSM is not holding events to study Hong Kong protest tactics is of course not a problem in itself, but backtracking and capitulating like this suggests that TSM suffers from moral rot and/or excessive influence by unsavory authoritarians.
Giving Green no longer recommends TSM, although the reasons prompting the withdrawal of the recommendation appear to be unrelated to the incidents described above:
we have concerns about Sunrise’s need for additional funding and its lack of clear strategy beyond 2021. Sunrise’s budget grew explosively from just $50,000 in 2017 to $15 million in 2020 and 2021. This kind of rapid growth can strain any organization, and it appears that Sunrise is no different, as 2021 was a year of internal friction in the Movement. Also aside from some advocacy work on climate legislation this fall, we did not see Sunrise engaging in the kinds of mass organizing and mobilizing activities that we anticipated from them. Further, we have yet to see Sunrise’s strategy going forward, so it is unclear how Sunrise plans to adapt, grow, and absorb additional funding in the future.
In sum, Sunrise has helped propel climate to the forefront of American politics, but its future is unclear. Based on Sunrise’s prior record of success and our model of cost-effectiveness, we are optimistic that they have the potential to drive political changes that lead to more ambitious US federal legislation on climate. However, we are concerned by their rapid growth, internal discord, and lack of clear strategy for the future. While we are hopeful that Sunrise will address these challenges through its current strategy discussion and move forward stronger, we will not know the outcome of this process until at least Q1 of 2022. Because we are unsure of the Sunrise Movement’s future plans, we have decided not to recommend the Sunrise Movement Education Fund as a top charity for the 2021 Giving Season. When we can better assess its recent impact and its future strategy, we look forward to reviewing the Sunrise Movement Education Fund again.
There was substantial evidence of TSM’s rapid growth available at the time I originally wrote this piece, some of which I included in it. It therefore seems somewhat strange that the thing which prompted the de-recommendation is that TSM appeared to grow rapidly. Nonetheless, the de-recommendation itself seems good.
As Giving Green is still recommending donations to TSM in spite of what seems to be the majority opinion here, I’d like to highlight a recent letter to the White House cosigned by TSM (among dozens of other groups). The letter argues that the United States should be less “antagonistic” towards China in order to focus on cooperating on climate change.
In reality, the United States and China have already agreed to cooperate on climate change. So TSM et al are not proposing any obvious change in US-China climate policy. Apparently they want us to be more generally friendly toward China in other domains, so that the already-agreed-to climate cooperation can run more smoothly.
The first problem with this is that it’s not clear that US-China cooperation on climate change can achieve much anyway. The idea that America should cooperate with China on climate change is a trite line that gets repeated constantly as a superficial aspiration but to me seems rather deficient in policy substance. Exactly how this cooperation on climate change is supposed to work is generally a mystery if you try to think beyond vague outlines. This letter states that the US and China can cooperate because they have ‘complementary strengths’, but this isn’t even really true. The letter says “For example, the U.S. is the world leader in clean technology research and controls immense financial resources; China is the world leader in industrial capacity across a number of clean energy industries and is a major source of infrastructure financing across the Global South” but this is almost the same two strengths stated in slightly different ways. Clearly, both are financiers. China does have serious clean tech research and the US does have serious clean tech industry; maybe there is a comparative advantage in American research and Chinese manufacturing, but in practice you cannot separate green research and green manufacturing very easily (most of the recent green tech progress is innovations and scale arising from manufacturing), and there aren’t severe trade barriers stopping American green technology ideas and Chinese manufacturing products from crossing the Pacific anyway.
No doubt there is room for some reforms of trade, travel and immigration to improve green technology transfer between the US and China. But in broad strokes, both the US and China can provide both financing and clean technology, this is classic economic competition. It is at least as likely that competition between the United States and China will lead both sides to put more effort into financing clean infrastructure and exporting clean technology. After all, China’s motivation for infrastructure projects has been partly geopolitical, and there have been many calls in the US for financing similar infrastructure projects around the world in order to compete with China.
I am not alone in suggesting this. Numerous foreign policy experts have cut through the trite assumption echoed by that letter and shown how climate progress fits equally or better into a framework of competition with China.
Competition With China Can Save the Planet | Foreign Affairs
Why the United States should compete with China on global clean energy finance (brookings.edu)
Want to Compete with China? Deliver on Climate Security for the Indo-Pacific—Just Security
Productive Competition: A Framework for U.S.-China Engagement on Climate Change | Center for Strategic and International Studies (csis.org)
The second problem with TSM et al’s idea that America should generally be more friendly with China is that it (obviously) has implications beyond climate policy. It is yet another example of TSM attempting to influence broader political issues besides environmental policy, an activity which can be either good or bad but definitely adds to the complexity and undermines the robustness of Giving Green’s recommendation.
While TSM does not say so explicitly, the apparent subtext is that the United States should exercise little or no serious policy response to China’s infliction of mass suffering through concentration camps in Xinjiang and its treaty-violating destruction of political rights in Hong Kong. Their only statement on human rights is that the United States should work together with China to support international best practices on human rights… this is a bizarre thing to say considering that China is one of the biggest current violators of international best practices on human rights. It can only suggest that either the letter signatories are ignorant of severe systematic human rights violations in China or they believe that we should turn a blind eye on them in order to focus on cooperating on other issues (almost certainly the latter).
The letter also has the subtext that the United States should exert less effort in deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and should be more reluctant to defend Taiwan in the event that China does invade that island nation, that the United States should tolerate China’s allegedly unfair trade practices (I admit that I agree that the US should be more tolerant here, but some climate donors may disagree), and that the United States should tolerate China’s efforts to change international institutions and international law. (I delve into the complexity and probable harmfulness of China’s international political aspirations in this essay.)
In my estimation this letter is probably net harmful, and I would like to see anyone affiliated with EA exercise extreme caution before recommending donations to an organization which seems to implicitly discourage reasonable efforts to curb ongoing massive human rights violations.
Edit: here’s another notable story. TSM cancelled an event in which they were planning to study protest tactics from Hong Kong, because sympathizers with the Chinese Communist Party were offended by the implication of legitimizing Hong Kong protestors. The mere fact that TSM is not holding events to study Hong Kong protest tactics is of course not a problem in itself, but backtracking and capitulating like this suggests that TSM suffers from moral rot and/or excessive influence by unsavory authoritarians.
Edit2: see Matt Yglesias’ recent article suggesting that TSM is probably doing more harm than good. For completeness, here is a reply, which seems completely unconvincing, except the link to this article is something noteworthy to think about.
Giving Green no longer recommends TSM, although the reasons prompting the withdrawal of the recommendation appear to be unrelated to the incidents described above:
There was substantial evidence of TSM’s rapid growth available at the time I originally wrote this piece, some of which I included in it. It therefore seems somewhat strange that the thing which prompted the de-recommendation is that TSM appeared to grow rapidly. Nonetheless, the de-recommendation itself seems good.