WASHINGTON —Today, The Heritage Foundation launched a new project titled “Chinese Handcuffs: China’s Immobilizing Trap on U.S. Energy, Security, and Prosperity.” The four-part project—which will be released over this year—explores the Chinese Communist Party’s calculated strategy to control “green energy” sources and the consequences of the American Left’s determination to collaborate with the CCP in their crusade against climate change. This partnership significantly undermines the energy dominance the United States has established over the last decade due to the surging production of natural gas, oil, and coal.

Part One of the project—released today—features the report “Chinese Handcuffs: How China Exploits America's Climate Agenda.” The report primarily provides an in-depth investigation into how China took deliberate advantage of the progressive environmental agenda and is co-authored by Erin Walsh, Senior Research Fellow for International Affairs in the Asian Studies Center, and Andrew J. Harding, Research Assistant in the Asian Studies Center.  

Victoria Coates, Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for national security and foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation stated:

“The American people deserve to know how Communist China is sabotaging our energy security, which is one of our great strategic advantages. The CCP’s explicit intentions of undermining America’s economy and national security, as well as their catastrophic environmental track record should concern all Americans—especially climate alarmists who claim they are supporting a good cause by trying to partner with China.

 

“I am pleased to announce this new Heritage initiative that dives deeper into this underreported issue from historical, national security, and policy lenses.”

Below are some main takeaways from Part One of the project:   

• Chinese handcuffs serve as an analogy for the U.S. environmental agenda that has dramatically intensified under the Biden administration. To achieve many climate goals, the U.S. must heavily increase its dependency on China. This dependency would immobilize the U.S. in an increasingly inescapable trap of China’s making.    

• The CCP’s climate policy is part of an overall, decades-long agenda to hijack the environmental agenda that hastens the rise of China and the decline of the United States.  

• From Al Gore and John Kerry to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the American Left’s decades-long obsession with partnering with China on environmental agreements has granted the CCP leverage and allowed it to rise at the expense of American workers.  

• While China has made substantial progress in its quest to dominate new green technologies, it also confronts several headwinds—including a stagnating economy, tariffs, and human rights accusations.   

• The United States must address China’s long-term plan to hijack elements of America’s environmental agenda by: Prioritizing U.S. energy independence and dominance; Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change; Adopting a framework that views China’s cooperation in environmental agreements as a means to achieve competitive advantages over the U.S.; Investigating revenue streams of prominent environmental advocacy groups within the U.S., and Increasing the level of investigations of Chinese companies investing in the U.S.  

Erin Walsh, Senior Research Fellow for International Affairs in the Asian Studies Center, and Andrew J. Harding, Research Assistant in the Asian Studies Center added:   

“Proponents of the radical climate change agenda are largely not considering China’s harmful role in it. The more the United States pushes for green energies, the more it becomes reliant on China—our top adversary. 

 

“There are significant national security, economic, and geopolitical concerns over China’s role in America’s green energy agenda. We are hopeful that this report provides new insights on how to adopt a conservative energy agenda towards China and shed light on its desire to undermine U.S. interests.”  

As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.     

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