China's Resource Risks

Kvanefjeld Rare Earth Project August 30, 2020 Despite its small population (56,000) and remote location, Greenland has been attracting a lot of attention lately. Over the past twenty years, climate change has caused irreversible damage to its glaciers, resulting in unprecedented ice sheet melt and contributing to the global sea level rise. U.S. President Donald Trump (facetiously?) expressed interest in buying it, but ultimately settled for opening a consulate in the capital

#光盘行动# Chinese Communist Youth League "Operation Clean Plate" gets 620 million views on Weibo. A panda at the Chengdu reserve fully committed to "Operation Clean Plate." Photo ©Wishnick/Robertson China is facing biblical-level challenges right now--record floods, the pandemic, the crop-destroying armyworm--not to mention the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. Why is Xi Jinping choosing this moment to mobilize the public in a campaign against food wastage? In response to what he vi

August 17, 2020 When plastic bottles with Chinese lettering appeared on the shores of the inhabited Galapagos Islands in mid-July of 2020, residents surmised that fishing boats from China must be in the area, as they often are annually. @RisuenoCarlos It turned out that an enormous armada of up to 300 fishing vessels had sailed right up to the perimeter of the Ecuadorian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which encloses the Galapagos Marine Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site go

Photo by Wishnick and Robertson August 10, 2020 The reservoir of China's Three Gorges Dam filled up to within 11 meters (36 feet) of its capacity of 175 meters (574 feet) as record floods afflicted Hubei Province in June and July 2020. The dam reached a peak reservoir level of 164.18 meters (538.64 feet) on July 19, 2020, exceeding its 2012 record of 163.11 (535.13 feet). Chinese officials claim that the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest, has been serving as an effective