China is having an interesting problem:
Amid the coldest winter recorded since 1966, provinces across the People’s Republic of China (PRC) struggled with the worst electrical blackouts seen in nearly a decade (OilPrice, January 8). More than a dozen cities across Zhejiang, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Guangdong provinces imposed limits on off-peak electricity usage in early December, affecting city infrastructure and factory production. Analysts expect power shortages to persist through at least mid-February (SCMP, December 23, 2020). Officials have repeatedly assured the public that residential heating would not be affected and that China’s electrical supply remained “stable” and “sufficient,” even as energy spot prices continued to rise into the new year.
China banned Australian coal imports to punish Australia. Australia had questioned China's whitewashing of its role in turning the Xi Jinping Flu into a pandemic. But China's ban seems to have inflicted some collateral damage in China.
When China couldn't predict the results of this import ban, do you really think China has some innate long-range planning capacity?
The Chinese Communist Party relies on economic progress to justify their monopoly on political power. Is this electrical power failure a potential risk to the CCP? Won't it both undermine economic security and undermine belief in Party competence?
