Knock knock. Who's there?

A farewell to common sense and the last vestiges of logic

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development earlier this week released an interesting report. One reason for that was the fact its title did not contain the word “gender” but the bigger reason was that it issued a warning that should be taken at its starkest.

China is restricting critical mineral exports, the report said. This is making said minerals less available and more expensive. And this, let’s say it all together, is threatening the transition to net zero.

“The challenge of achieving net zero CO₂ emissions will require a significant scaling up of production and international trade in critical raw materials,” said OECD’s secretary-general Mathias Cormann and probably felt very important saying it.

“Policy makers must closely scrutinise how the concentration of production and trade coupled with the increasing use of export restrictions are affecting international markets for critical raw materials. We must ensure that materials shortfalls do not prevent us from meeting our climate change commitments,” the serious man also said, with, I am sure, an appropriately grim expression.

Because at heart I’m a pretty simple girl, I’m tempted to light a tar-free cigarette, lean back and say “Go ahead, then, go ensure.” At mind, however, I’m quite vicious so what I’m going to do instead is ask: How exactly are you going to ensure sufficient supply of transition minerals when you keep deliberately and consistently antagonising the countries you depend on for their supply?

I said it last year when a lot of people appeared to be surprised by the fact Russia responded to EU sanctions by anything other than lying back and taking it because the EU said so. I’ll have to say it again, not that any of those policy makers are reading this blog: You don’t go beating up your single drug dealer and telling him what a horrible man he is. And if you insist that you do, you’d better be prepared to quit cold turkey.

I apologise for the drug analogy given that the energy transition is being advertised as the only way to long-term survival but, like I said, I’m simple. That’s the best I could do. But it’s still better than what our brave leaders are doing. Currently, they are acting like chickens stuck in thick mud.

Take that recent visit by Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen to China. That visit happened days after von der Leyen said the EU will be seeking to reduce its reliance on Chinese materials and components, and that it would dress this in legislative restrictions for companies that import their materials and components from China.

That must have been welcomed with cheers and applause in Beijing shortly before von der Leyen herself. After all, there is only one way to greet a woman who called you “repressive”, right? Not greet her at all, I thought, but the Chinese did better.

From Reuters: “Von der Leyen, who described China as "repressive" in a critical speech before her trip, cut a sometimes forlorn figure in Beijing, with a low-key greeting at the airport and not being invited to some state functions with Xi and Macron.”

You would argue that “repressive” is quite an apt way of describing the Chinese government and I would agree with you. However, if you are devising policies that necessitate a heavy trade involvement with that same government there are some things you just don’t do, provided you have been taught basic manners (basic diplomacy skills are too much to hope for).

You’d think von der Leyen would have learned something from Biden’s “pariah” debacle with the Saudis. Apparently, she’s above learning from others’ mistakes.

Yet, impossible as it seems, Macron went and outdid von der Leyen (whose name I just accidentally misspelled as “con der Leyen”) by saying, from China, that the EU should reduce its dependence on the United States. In fact, Macron called for Europe to become “a third pole” in world affairs, together with China and the United States.

Let me paraphrase because it’s too tempting. The president of France, which is part of the European Union, which last year found itself quite short on gas and then, later, on oil, and turned to the U.S. to help fill that gap, which the U.S. did, is now calling for reducing the EU’s dependence on the U.S. and essentially forming a modern-day triumvirate to rule the world. As David Blackmon would say, you can’t make this stuff up.

Of course, the fecal matter hit the fan immediately, exposing the EU’s geopolitical fragmentation with beautiful clarity. Very pro-American Eastern European members cried betrayal and a little less pro-American Western European member states admitted in half whispers that a more independent Europe wouldn’t be the worst idea.

Then Macron went and did it again, trying to reduce the fallout by speaking sense, too little and way too late. It was a bit sad to watch. Because Europe is long past any opportunity for any kind of independence and nowhere is this most obvious than in energy.

Without U.S. oil and gas, the EU wouldn’t make it through a single month and I don’t think I’m exaggerating. Without Chinese solar panels, the transition is dead on arrival. What a nice little corner to paint yourself into. The only way to reduce energy dependence on the U.S. is to invest heavily in many other sources of oil and gas. This is a slow process that would take years, so that dependency is going nowhere.

The same goes for reducing the dependence on China but that one will be a lot trickier. Because if the EU stops importing renewable energy stuff from China, the cost of the transition will cheerfully fly high in the sky and there’ll be no catching it.

So, if this was a knock-knock joke, it could go like this:

CS: Knock knock.

EU: Who’s there?

CS: Common sense.

EU: Heyyyy, long time no see. Come in, come in!

CS: Nah, thanks, just popping in to pick up the last of my stuff and then I’m off to Africa.

EU: But…

CS: See ya! I mean, not. Good luck.

While I was writing this, the EU did a follow-up that was too much in-character. It sent Germany’s foreign minister, a woman who said publicly that the opinions of her voters do not matter to do ‘damage control” in China after Macron.

The punchline, per Reuters: “Even without Macron's remarks the trip would have been delicate for Baerbock, who has been more hawkish on China than Chancellor Olaf Scholz and is drafting a China policy aimed at reducing Germany's economic dependence on Beijing.”

Some damage control this would be.