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This is where I get frustrated. There was a moment. It was a real moment where everyone in the country agreed. Right and Left; black and white; we all agreed. There was something that needed to be done about these bad cops. It was clear that there were bad cops. No one was arguing about that.Then the craziest people say the craziest things, like, “abolish all police” because of the actions of a few. All I can say then is that the people who lead these sorts of protests do not think black lives actually matter.I say that not because of the hatred I am always accused of any time I take a stance that is not the absolute most hysterical one proposed. I say that because I actually read black authors. Thomas Sowell, Jason Riley, Larry Elders, and the honorable Justice Clarence Thomas.They will point to the specific places and times where there are the fewest police are the same settings of the most blacks killed. This isn’t because the number police are hunting down black men; it is due to crime. The places where police involvement is the strongest, i.e. where “tough on crime” policies are implemented the most is where we see the greatest reduction in the number of violent deaths of young black men.Let’s compare statistics. The two graphs below are from the CDC and depict the leading causes of death for males in the United States. I’ve highlighted this portion pertaining to homicides, where homicide accounted for 5.2% of the deaths of white boys aged 1–19.[1]For blacks, it was a very different picture. Homicide was by far the number one killers of black boys and men aged 1–44.[2]Only about 100 out of ever 100,000 black people will die from an interaction with a cop. It is the sixth most likely cause of death for young black men and boys, according to a University of Michigan study. The same study, which was trying to demonstrate the problem of police for blacks, however, showed the number three killer of blacks of the age group were those slain due to criminal homicide. Number three pretty fairly explains number six from a statistical standpoint. The odds that they will die due to crime near their homes is far, far higher. Only in those places where policing was made greater did the rate of black deaths go down.But now we’re having a conversation about police brutality, which somehow morphed into a discussion about abolishing all police everywhere. In some areas, the police, flawed as they may be, are the only thing keeping back a much worse killer of young black men. I’m just going to say, it’s probably not going to work.I want to try to do justice to the other side, and at least give credit to where this idea comes from. To many of us, the idea comes off as simply vengeance against the police. In part, it absolutely is, and anyone pretending otherwise is lying to themselves. But the other part is a sincere belief that through investments into social services, people won’t need the police.The idea behind abolishing the police is that the funds for the police don’t actually do anything to solve the systemic problems in crime ridden areas and people who commit crimes. Instead, those funds should go towards schools, welfare, housing, job programs, education, and such. It echoes the frustrations communicated by the Dallas Chief of Police David Brown when, in 2016, five of his officers were ambushed and assassinated while protecting civilian protesters during a Black Lives Matter protest.“We’re asking cops to do too much in this country,” Brown said at a briefing Monday. “We are. Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it. … Here in Dallas we got a loose dog problem; let’s have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, let’s give it to the cops. … That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems.”[3]It’s true. Whenever something is wrong, cops are simultaneously blamed and called to fix the problem. This extends to being the people who have to break up families where the father is a criminal, to being the “big brother” to local kids, or saving the day when anyone has a problem with anything from animal control to needing help with directions.It also follows a particular differing world view between ideological conservatives and liberals. In an answer I wrote last month, I talked about how conservatives generally view humanity’s nature as flawed where liberals view people as generally good. Practically speaking, that’s saying that the basic conservative belief is that all people are like Lord of the Flies — devoid of a strong fabric of social institutions and traditions, people would devolve in brutal monsters and society would be unlivable. The opposite is the belief that the world is what corrupts us and that the institutions themselves are what make otherwise good people do badly. Slowly get rid of these corrupting influences and the world becomes a manifestation of the beauty within all people.People who hold the view that people are fundamentally flawed, believe that those who commit crimes are not better or worse than the rest of us, but they did fail where we did not. Crimes must be punished, to create a negative incentive against doing more crimes, both for the criminal and for everyone watching. People who hold the latter belief, that mankind’s nature is fundamentally good, believe that people who commit crimes aren’t themselves wrong, but made wrong by a society who failed them. Inequality, broken communities, poor education, a lack of opportunity, those were why people committed crimes… not their own personal actions. Where the flawed vision seeks punishment, the more optimistic vision views crime as a symptom that is fixed through a better network of aide and reformation of the whole person “back” to the good.For one, crime is a personal choice and for the other crime is a symptom of injustice.With that framework, one vision views the police and prison system as necessary to protect the rest of us from ourselves by creating disincentives to committing crimes. But the other views the prisons as rehabilitation centers and the police as a painful, inefficient, and abusive way to get people there.You can see how people who are predominately viewing the world through the vision that people are good would want to “defund police”. The theory isn’t to punish the police (although it is that, too). It is to reinvest that public funding towards ways to prevent crimes from happening. Remember, in that vision of human nature, people don’t commit crimes because of personal character flaws, but because society is responsible for making them that way. To revisit a previous image, the money should instead go to things like education, job creation, and welfare.It’s a nice idea, but will it work?Not reasonably.Let’s look at a few of the proposed solutions to crime instead of the police.HungerThe one with the most immediate effect would probably be food. The suggestion is that people are committing crimes because they are poor, or even starving. This is a false narrative. America has a very bad problem when it comes to relating the actual effects of hunger. This is because, for many years, government statistics have inflated the term “hunger” with many other things. A good example of that comes from the 2015 report from the Agriculture Department saying that “48 million Americans were living in hunger”. That is how the report’s findings were communicated, however the actual language was “food scarcity”. The USDA defined food insecurity as “uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.” Furthermore, it doesn’t define that as a chronic condition, but at any time in the last 12 months. It’s a lot more broad and less abysmal then imagining one in six Americans starving. James Bovard of the Foundation for Economic Education criticized the finding:The definition of “food insecure” includes anyone who frets about not being able to purchase food at any point. If someone states that they feared running out of food for a single day (but didn’t run out), that is an indicator of being “food insecure” for the entire year — regardless of whether they ever missed a single meal. If someone wants organic kale but can afford only conventional kale, that is another “food insecure” indicator.[4]This same statistic, however, from the almost unchanged 2016 data, is what Nancy , Pelosi based her statements on that “1 in 5 children in America goes to sleep hungry at night because they are so poor.”[5]No. 1 in 5 children starving in the United States is a ridiculous exaggeration.In the past, a similar error in reporting happened the poverty statistics from the US census are conflated with our understanding of hunger. It is to say that anyone who falls below the poverty line was also starving, as if the two are the same. The two aren’t the same. In fact, for many poor, it is cheaper to get too many calories than it is to get the right amount leading more cases of obesity and heart problems among the poor than the chronic affects of starvation. For Americans as people beneath the poverty line in the US still can afford a stable home, a car, TV, cable internet and a cell phone.In fact, Robert Rector, one of the key architects of successful welfare reform in the 1990s, communicates a far different picture of what it means to be part of the American poor. [6]Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning.Nearly three-quarters have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and a quarter have two or more.Half have a personal computer; one in seven has two or more computers.More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as an Xbox or PlayStation.Forty percent have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.Ninety-two percent of poor households have a microwave.Forty-two percent of all poor households actually own their own homes.The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.Ninety-six percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food.The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and in most cases is well above recommended norms.Most poor children are, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.[7]That the majority of these people who are poor by the measure of the US census cannot afford food is… misleading.In truth, we have no idea how many people are actually hungry, or more to the point, starving from a chronic lack of food. What we can say, however, is that it is not one of the largest problems in the United States, today. While decreasing food insecurity among the rest of America should be goal, weighed against all other problems America faces, there is no clear evidence that reducing that statistic will reduce the much larger problem of black-on-black homicide. David Dorn, the 77 year old black retired police captain wasn’t killed because someone was hungry. He was killed while defending his store from a looter stealing a TV.Let’s look at the next most immediate problem that advocates of defending the police are pushing.HousingI’ve written on this elsewhere.In the case of housing, we actually have a good case of the systemic effects of racism, even if they no longer exist, carrying forth into today. New Deal programs such as the Federal Housing Administration, created in the National Housing Act of 1934, eventually worked to create a system of renters among the poor where rents became much more common than mortgages. Mortgages are a means of actual wealth creation through the purchase of real estate that usually appreciates over time and which can be passed on or sold to fund retirement. Rent doesn’t do that. Rent is a liability that buys only one period’s living and nothing else. This matters because the policies of the National Housing Agency and later the Federal Housing Agency which grew out of it created one of the most systematically devastating programs in the history of blacks in America since Jim Crow.Beginning in the 1960s, the US government began heavily subsidizing new home development, however, they didn’t do this equally. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development was created by the Johnson administration as part of the War on Poverty. It was intended to help the urban poor to resettle into home ownership. Remember owning homes was a path to wealth creation for the middle class and seen as the greatest predictor for wealth later on. However, what the program actually did was channel whites out of the cities into rural areas surrounding the cities. With the rise of cars and highways, these tracts of land grew into the modern suburbs. Blacks, on the other hand, were given “opportunities” to live in densely packed high rise buildings near the inner cities. These became known as the Projects.The Projects concentrated a population of poor people into an extremely small geography. Anyone studying demographics at the time could have pointed out that this would be a recipe for crime, declining education, and would over saturate the local job market with too many mouths to feed and not enough job creation. This is not to mention the fact that as crime rises, education falls, and wealth diminishes, investment into new business drops creating a downward feedback loop. Add to it the fact that people have literally been piled sky high and you create a powder keg of everything necessary to see inner cities become war zones. Again, any demographic statistician could have predicted this regardless of whether they were talking about the American blacks or not because the same effects happen anywhere in the world where this kind of experiment under these conditions is tried.Was this clear systemic racism? I think so. I think there was an intentional element of racism in at least some of the planners of this scheme under the Johnson Administration that pushed whites to the unsettled suburbs, leading to the largest rise in wealth in human history, and the nightmare scenario that became the Projects for black people.But even then, maybe there is an argument that it wasn’t quite as racist as even I am suspicious of. One could argue that at a time when America was still a manufacturing powerhouse, or to be more precise, when factories benefited from being massive places where thousands of people with no real need of higher education could work and have a meaningful and happy life while providing for a healthy and happy family. Many factories in the same area benefited from one another, sharing talent and a culture of expertise not unlike modern Silicon Valley. It made sense to stack people up as many as could fit near them, from an urban planning perspective, perhaps. More factories were good for America and at the time, it was also good for blacks and other urban poor working them. They were working their way out of poverty.But then Free Trade happened. As the rest of world recovered from WWII, it became profitable for the continued wealth of the nation to start looking to external means of production, such as creating incentives to move manufacturing to Mexico or China. This wasn’t racially motivated at all, championed by both the Democrats and Republicans and in fact, encouraged by a progressive ideology of globalism. So it was great for certain already wealthy parts of America and greater yet for the rest of the world, but an absolute economic disaster if you have already created entire cities dependent on the idea that there will be tens of thousands of low skill, high paying jobs a few blocks away… as in, the Projects. So in a very real and tangible way, while much of the country became very rich from international free trade, blacks were devastated and mostly because they believed in an idea that would raise them out of poverty lasting perpetually.If we really, honestly look at what has been happening to the black communities since the 1960s, during a period where racism has played less, and less, and less of a factor every single year, but where the problems of black poverty seem even more overwhelming for blacks to overcome and consider the problems not just as a problem of racist whites, but as a consequence of many bad policy decisions that came together to create a perfect storm of terribleness for blacks in America, you start to realize that there is an incredibly high likelihood that the policies intended to help are more to blame than the sinister machinations of evil whites.So housing is another area where blacks should be concerned. Rent can be expensive, but generational poverty is more expensive. All the plans to “help” the poor blacks where, at best, convoluted and required the American economy to remain unchanged indefinitely while paradoxically growing forever. This is if we ignore the very real suspicions that they very policies were racist themselves by design in how they divided the poor whites from the poor blacks. Either way, the collapse of American manufacturing led to many of the problems we saw beginning in the 1980s and 1990s with exploding crime rates among the inner cities.That leads us to jobs.JobsThe government can’t create jobs out of thin air. They can, but only for government jobs. These jobs, however, are risky at best because they are tax-payer supported, and all tax payer supported jobs are at risk of being viewed as parasitical by taking money away from other programs or even, just artificially, taking too much in taxes for sake of saying jobs were produced. Case in point — the police, right here, in this question. If one argues that we should defund the police, you’re arguing that the jobs of many police officers aren’t really needed. All government jobs are weighed against the value they put into the community. If they can, however, be automated, or the same result gained through other means, then those jobs don’t last long.So the government doesn’t create jobs. The only thing the government can do is help nurture the environment for opportunity. Opportunity creates work and work creates jobs. By this, the US government does more for American jobs by implementing some program like building up new means of transportation like the US interstate system (which lowered the cost of transportation within the US and thereby raising opportunity for manufacturers) than it does with most jobs programs, providing tax payer subsidies to hire for businesses that couldn’t or shouldn’t otherwise afford the extra labor.The other way that government can influence jobs is by creating policies that create the environments where job creators leave. A good example of that came from the last few weeks.A Minneapolis manufacturing company has decided to leave the city, with the company’s owner saying he can’t trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn during the recent riots. The move will cost the city about 50 jobs.“They don’t care about my business,” said Kris Wyrobek, president and owner of 7-Sigma Inc., which has operated since 1987 at 2843 26th Av. in south Minneapolis. “They didn’t protect our people. We were all on our own.”That’s one company of about 50 jobs that will no longer be in the city. There will be more who will take what work opportunities exist, and they will leave, too. These companies will make major investments in places where they feel they will find long term success. That will not be in places where entrepreneurs and investors fear things like high crime. Beyond the obvious risk to the business of robbery or vandalism, high crime areas also erode property values, and drive out talent who might make a business prosper and grow. Over the course of years, it also reduces the investment pool for further new businesses.So focusing on job creation instead of ensuring that crimes are dealt with fails in that it:Reduces business investmentReduces the number of jobsReduces wealth creationReduces property valuesWhat is the link in all these? Those are where we get our taxes. If, for some reason, crime isn’t reduced after defunding the police, the pool of money used to fund all these other programs is itself going to be shrink. If “increased investment in community initiatives” doesn’t have a major impact, then one by one, these initiatives will fall. At that point, without policing or community initiatives, the only possible word for such a system is anarchy.EducationThe last major call is to defund the police to fund more in education. I’ve worked as a public school teacher and my wife is a currently a teacher. I’m sympathetic to this one. It’s clear that better education can put someone on the track to a better life. This is true — of individuals. As a community planning policy, education can’t happen if the lower levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs aren’t met. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology that states that a person can’t achieve the important processes of development, if their lower needs aren’t met. Below educational needs are things like safety and security. Simply, if a person doesn’t first feel safe, he isn’t going to get much from education.Second, while some politicians have defended the call to defund police by saying “we’ve defunded education for decades and look where that got us,” not only is that a misdirection, but it’s also demonstrably false.The US has not defunded education. In reality, it spends more per student than any other country.Furthermore, while education spending continued to increase, there is no clear indication that education itself it has. That is to say that in America, more funding doesn’t clearly show better education. The fact that so many call for more funding doesn’t mean the problems revolve around not enough money, but how it’s spent.The education system is fraught with other problems, so many that it doesn’t help to go into it here. But simply pouring more money into a leaky bucket doesn’t actually improve failing schools. Evidence shows us that schools aren’t failing from a lack of funding as much as other systemic failures that will exist just the same with 10 times the funding they currently have. If we want to fix education, robbing from the police departments to fund more of it will not solve the problem anywhere in the United States. Education itself must be reformed.The last problem is also obvious.If we take away from policing to support education… even if it would work… it would take about 20 years to show fruits of that labor. That’s about the time it would take a child raised in a rough neighborhood to grow up and graduate, becoming a productive member of the community. During that 20 years, he will have to endure a policeless environment where crime will not be stopped and where the criminals may, in fact, be the source of order, as we saw with gang warfare in the 1980s and 90s. The temptation, or even, to sell drugs or take part in other illicit activities to support a family in need will be great. Or maybe that’s just the best job they can find and don’t care enough about the consequences. If he survives that life unscathed, he will also be choosing between two very different realities — should he take up one of the jobs in his neighborhood, or should he seek work elsewhere? Most, will move on, leaving the old neighborhood behind them. This disgenic cycle is another reason why other things need to happen first for education to truly have an impact, and part of that is an immediate reduction in crime, something which can only happen through strong policing.BureaucracyThe final reason I think these programs will fail is that someone has to be in charge of them, and not just them, but many other programs. The reason that we’re attempting this complex network of new social programs is to have an indirect response — reducing crime. It’s not altogether obvious why any one investiture will reduce crimes, and as I’ve shown, the chances that any will in fact improve much is low. But we need all of them to maybe work.That’s dangerous.It’s like what happens when traditions go away. There are things we do just because we’ve always done them, with no real idea of why. Stop doing them. Suddenly, new problems no one expected start popping up to ruin our beautiful schemes of efficiency and planning. That’s because, often traditional methods are formed to solve a problem, and the tradition lives on protecting us from that problem long after we forgot about the problem in the first place. If you want an example, read through the Bible’s book of Leviticus. It reads like a list of the senseless draconian laws of a bronze age era nomadic culture, but read it closer and realize how many of the laws protected them from diseases no one would understand the cause of for another 4,000 years.This idea of investing into numerous social programs is like that, too. Say it works. Great, crime is reduced. But how do you convince a future bean counter that you need to keep investing in all of these programs, when it is unclear how exactly any one of them contributes to the real problem of crime? You won’t. Instead, they will look at education and rank it according to education, housing according to housing, food according to food, and so on. “We don’t have this problem,” they’ll say, and a program will get cut. At some point, there will be a crisis and a call for austerity, and people will start slowly defunding one or two more of these “antiquated” programs.Then what?Some pencil pusher makes a huge bonus by saving the state and municipality ten million dollars by cutting “excess funding” from programs that no longer serve their “original function.” Then, a few years later, crime starts creeping back in. Look, call it cynical, but also call it realistic. This idea, this hope, is too complex with far too few proofs that it will work. Instead, what will probably happen is that we may spend a great deal to achieve marginal gains, but those gains will soon be lost through the natural and unrelenting push of bureaucratic incompetence, as all good social programs eventually succumb to.Better WaysIt’s obvious that defunding the police is an idealistic approach to urban planning policy, like so many others. It’s also not without the palpable vein of vengeance. It is, however, being pushed in large part by non-urban idealistic white liberals who will not suffer the long term effects of their policies, also like so many others. This has been the criticism of many black conservatives, and is the central focus of the book “Please Stop Helping US: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed” by Jason L. Riley. I recommend everyone, conservative or liberal, legitimately concerned with the plight of blacks in America and not simply engaging in the outrage issue du jour, should start by reading his book. It is a clear look from economic and historical perspectives of the other side of the argument.I don’t like to complain when I have no better solution to the problem. Here, I think that defunding the police is a suicidal plan for the long term success of black neighborhoods. Abolishing it is even more obvious, but something so extreme as to lend credibility to the less absurd defunding.Instead, some other things should have been tried first.In an answer I wrote last week, I talked about a method that is far more practical and has better chances of bringing real reforms, based on how the military solves problems. Hold the chain of command responsible. When something goes wrong, it is up the supervisor to issue discipline, but when something goes seriously wrong, it is up to the supervisor to be held accountable for his oversight. In this case, with Derek Chauvin, the police officer with his knee over George Floyd’s throat, it seemed to all of us that there was criminal negligence leading to the death of someone placed under the arrest, and care, of the Minneapolis police department. That should be a call to investigate not only Derek Chauvin, but who ever leads, trains, and ultimately ensures he stays on the force. There should be an investigation of his supervisor, as well… and his, all the way up the chain up to Police Chief Medaria Arradondo. Even if the death of George Floyd were to be all there was, the chief should be investigated. Seeing the chaos and numerous abuses of the entire force with the riots that followed, I don’t know why more people aren’t calling for his removal.Mind you, he’s just the lowest ranking member I can name. I’m saying every supervisor directly between Derek Chauvin and him needs to be removed from leadership positions one way or another.No, not only am I saying that the immediate supervisors need to be investigated, probably fired, and perhaps even charged, and that the higher ranking supervisors need to be charged, but the elected officials need to also be investigated and impeached for the sheer incompetence leading up to right now, such as Mayor Jacob Frey.Oh, no, but I’m not done. I also think that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota should be impeached. People should be asking questions about if he failed in this, what should be done.Mind you, “impeached” has lost a lot of its meaning in recent years. Where many politicians openly called for the impeachment of Donald Trump before he even took office, and the following three year spectacle that was, impeachment isn’t supposed to be about firing people. It was intended to happen far more often for investigating failures in the public view and determining if something more could have reasonably been done by the leaders in charge. If the investigation proves that these leaders either did the best they could, or that they simply don’t have the power to act, then changes can be made to the process empowering them and their successors to better do their jobs in the future. If, however, they had the opportunity and botched the responsibility, then the impeachments need to lead to their removal from office.I’ve heard absolutely nothing in any of this about holding the leaders responsible. There’s be numerous calls to charge all four of the officers responsible of murder. I’ve seen that explode into blind hatred towards all police officers, including abolishing and defunding them altogether. But I have yet to hear a serious conversation about investigating either Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, Mayor Jacob Frey, or Governor Tim Walz. None. To me, that would have been the first option.Leaders are the people who write the rules. Leaders select people they expect to follow the rules. Leaders enforce the rules. Most importantly, leaders demonstrate how to do their jobs within the rules.If you want to radically correct the culture of an organization, then you don’t make a big show of holding the lowest of level of people responsible. Worse, you don’t just brand all people who wear a badge as hopelessly corrupt murderers who need to be defunded You change out the entire leadership of everyone responsible for them. That’s the fastest and most effective means of changing a broken culture of incompetence and corruption. More discussion needs to center on holding that department in that city and that state accountable, as well as any others where failure is demonstrated, rather than demanding we punish all cops everywhere or even worse, defund and abolish an institution vital to the protection of the very people most vulnerable.But there is one more solution that has been tried successfully worth bringing up, the example of Camden, New Jersey.In 2013, the city of Camden, NJ was suffering some of the worst effects of the prolonged recession starting in 2008. It had some the highest violent crime and murder rates in the nation. That year, the city dissolved the old Camden Police Department and reconstituted it as the Camden County Metro Police. Led by then governor Chris Cristi and other local officials, they created a public-safety department within the Camden county government dedicated to the city of Camden before disbanding the police department.From there, they were able to reform their practices. This included enacting an entirely new union contract which removed wasteful practices and rules that may have been good for creating jobs for cops, but kept those cops in offices and off the streets where they were needed.Immediately after, officials invited all of the former Camden police officers to reapply for their jobs and rehired most, but being selective in not hiring known bad apples into the new force. [8]The overall quality of the force was improved as since then, violent crimes per 1,000 people have dropped from 79 to 44.[9]The new department is more involved in the community, more efficient, and has less barriers to doing the jobs of police officers.Disbanding a whole police department sounds extreme. It is. It is far more extreme then my suggestion to hold the chain of command responsible, but nowhere near as radical as defunding the police or abolishing them altogether. At no point did the citizens of Camden not have a police department. One day, they had a bad police department; the next day, they had a reformed police department made up of mostly the same good cops, but now more empowered to do their jobs.For this plan to work it took a lot of people realizing a few things. It’s possible to have a structure that works against itself. It’s possible for years of practices, policies, and routines to pile up, or for inefficient positions to be created which can’t legally be removed. It might also be impossible to remove some bad people, who deserve to be fired or whose position just shouldn’t exist, thanks to unions that overreached their mandate. All of these things could be true, and a police department still be filled with good cops who want the best for their communities. What’s more, the process actually saved a lot of money from the old way of policing, so Camden could use that money either to invest in their new police department, or attempt some of these community minded experiments being lauded about today.Defunding the police department, with no other Camden-like reforms, does none of this. In fact, it’s worse. It tells the police that they are now expected to do the same job with less funding. This might mean that the same inefficient organizational structures, same bad policies, and many of the same bad people stay in place because legally there is nothing that can be done about them. Think, if Camden had been told, “We’re punishing you by taking away tens of millions from your budget, but you still have to do the same job”, they probably would have been forced to let go of a lot of their officers and as past models show, they probably would have asked many to voluntarily leave and seek other jobs. What normally happens in those cases is that those who can move and are great, jump ship and get jobs at better departments, leaving only the people who absolutely must stay with the community and those cops who are terrible at their jobs. Think about that. You cut funding and leave only the worst cops.This is a death spiral.You know how we know? Look at Minneapolis. Piggy backing off of Anthony Galli’ excellent answer is this quote from the Minneapolis mayor:“We know that when officers are doing more overtime and they're overworked, they're more fatigued. When they're more fatigued, they're more likely to use force.” He was concerned seeing a report note that 30% of overtime in 2018 was due to staff shortages and another 6% was due to "possible" staff shortages. Mayor Frey continued, “The best way to combat staff shortages is to hire more staff, yes. I think that's one important element to both public safety and police community relations.” [2]As well as this, from the police chief over a year ago.Minneapolis is what a city looks like with a defunded police department. So if more cities want to go that route, they’re playing an experiment in which we already know the results.I’m just a little dumbfounded at some of the people making statements calling for defunding the police, or abolishing them outright, when better options are not only available, but obvious. It comes off not just as needlessly virtue signalling, ignorant of better, and less suicidal methods to improve their communities. It might serve some, like the Mayor of Los Angeles, to say these things for national attention from people who ultimately will not suffer or gain from it. Some people want this to work so bad, but that doesn’t mean there is any reason to believe it will other then blind ideology. Some are simply embracing a vengeful attitude towards the cops, which serves absolutely no one. Given the costs, the real costs, I fear that what we’re going to see in some of these areas a return to the violence and chaos of the 1990s. And, so that no one forgets, that hurt blacks and the poor most of all.Relaxed. Researched. Respectful. - War ElephantFootnotes[1] From the CDC-Leading Causes of Death-Males Non-Hispanic white 2017[2] From the CDC-Leading Causes of Death-Non-Hispanic Black Males 2017[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/grief-and-anger-continue-after-dallas-attacks-and-police-shootings-as-debate-rages-over-policing/[4] No, 48 Million Americans Are Not Going Hungry | James Bovard[5] Pelosi Misrepresents Childhood 'Hunger' Data[6] The War on Poverty After 50 Years[7] 40 Million Americans Are Living in Poverty? FALSE[8] Camden, NJ, did police reform right — not that radicals will pay attention[9] Ex police chief says crime went down when they disbanded the force

Zimbabwe is faced with widespread hunger because the country lacks the hard currency needed to import basic food, and a new currency introduced in June has provided little relief.“Millions die needlessly every year, from countless diseases of energy and economic poverty.But under a Biden-Harris Administration, with John Kerry at the forefront, there is little hope that these African and other pleas will be heard.”Duggan Flanakin below.“For more than two decades, Zimbabwe has been trying to break ground on a giant coal-power complex near the world’s biggest man-made reservoir. Now, China has agreed to get the $4.2 billion project underway.”This is a most pressing question with implications far beyond coal in my opinion. Is the West being blind sided by China’s expansions of coal fired energy at “insane levels” around the world and at home? Does China privately understand from its scientists that natural forces not minute amounts of CO2 from coal are the driving forces of climate change giving China confidence to go it alone on coal power expansions? There is evidence that they do. See NATURE STUDY below.NOTE: the carbon reduction targets of the PARIS ACCORD sideline everyone else from competing with China coal on the false premise and unfounded science that minute amounts of non polluting fossil fuel CO2 emissions (0.117%) are dangerous to the climate ? The world has been wrongly convinced that not only is coal a dirty fuel but it is harming the climate. China may be seeing more clearly that this view is false.BUT: This just in from the Global Warming Policy Forum GWPF China is not alone as many countries are resuming consumption of coal power.Global coal demand to rebound as economy recoversDate: 19/12/20BloombergGlobal coal demand is poised to rebound next year as the economy recovers and the U.S. and Europe may see the first increase in consumption in several years, the International Energy Agency said.Despite the global shift toward economies based on renewable energy, the dirtiest fossil fuel looks set to keep its role as the world’s biggest power source although its share will slip to 35% in 2021 from 36.5% last year.Coal use in power generation globally is expected to increase by as much as 2.8% next year as electricity demand rebounds particularly in Asia, the IEA said in its 2020 coal report.Global Coal Demand to ReboundDemand for the fuel will return in 2021 but won’t reach 2019 levelsOver the next 5 years, global demand is forecast to “flatten out” at around 7.4 billion tons, as declines in Europe and the U.S. will offset any increased use in Asia. The main drivers of demand for the fuel will continue to be China and India, which both rely heavily on the fuel in their energy mix.While there are few signs that use of the fossil fuel will fade away any time soon, the IEA said that unless there are unforeseen developments that would significantly boost demand, it’s likely that consumption peaked in 2013.EU coal demand is expected to increase marginally for the first time since 2012, rising 3.5%. The U.S. rebound will be the first since 2014, increasing consumption by 11.1% next year.Full storyHere are the relevant points about China and coal.The world is awash in fossil fuels and coal reserves in particular that there is no end in sight. (US alone has more than 357 years waiting to be mined.)China coal production at 3242 tonnes dwarfs all countries by a large factor. (US is only 672 t.)More than 2 billion in the developing world live in the dark off grid and need coal power to see the light.Clean coal power technology is used by China buiding state of the art plants arouond the world and at home.Significant climate studies published by Chinese academics in Beijing debunk the shoddy science of the PARIS ACCORD and may help explain why China ignores the carbon targets.China is single handedly destroying any chance of the world meeting the PARIS ACCORD carbon targets now or in the future because of its massive coal fired expansion.“In one sense, China's push for coal is not surprising: China knows how to build coal plants. It is the world's largest coal consumer, drawing more than 70 percent of its electricity from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.”Why Is China Placing A Global Bet On Coal?WRITTEN BY DUGGAN FLANAKIN, GUEST POST ONDEC 24, 2020. POSTED IN LATEST NEWSHow China Is Conquering Africa One Coal Plant At A Time“Joe Biden has pledged that one of his first acts as President will be rejoining the Paris Climate Treaty – which gives China a complete pass on reducing emissions until at least 2030.Even Biden’s designated “climate envoy,” former Secretary of State John Kerry, says the existing treaty “has to be stronger,” but then claims China will somehow become an active partner, instead of the competitor and adversary it clearly is. His rationale: “Climate is imperative, it’s as imperative for China as it is for us.”As to China employing more Green technology and abiding by (much less strengthening) the Paris agreement, the evidence is at best spotty, at worst completely the opposite.President Trump pulled the United States out of Paris, but between January 2017 and May 2019, the US had shuttered 50 coal-fired power plants, with 51 more shutdowns announced, bringing the total shutdowns to 289 (330 once announced shutdowns also take place) since 2010, soon leaving under 200 still operating.Meanwhile, as of 2019, China had 2,363 active coal-fired power plants and was building another 1,171 in the Middle Kingdom – plus hundreds more in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere.A CO2 Coalition white paper by Kathleen Hartnett White and Caleb Rossiter reveals that China now has modern pollutant-scrubbing technology on over 80% of its coal-fired power plants, but no scrubbers at any Chinese-built coal-fired power plants in Africa (or likely anywhere else) – and none anywhere that remove carbon dioxide.Harvard University China specialist Edward Cunningham says China is building, planning, or financing more than 300 coal plants, in places as widespread as Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.India, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, and even Germany are also building hundreds of coal-fired power plants. No matter how many the USA closes down, it won’t make any global difference.Boston University data indicate that China has invested over $50 billion in building new coal plants overseas in recent years, and over a quarter of new coal plants outside the Middle Kingdom have some commitment or offer of funds from Chinese financial institutions.“Why is China placing a global bet on coal?” NPR wonders. That’s a 40 or even 50-year commitment, the life span of coal-fired units.The NPR authors even quote the Stinson Center think tank’s Southeast Asia analyst, who says “it’s not clear when you look at the actual projects China is funding that they are truly Green.” They’re obviously not green, and more is obviously going on than their poor eyesight can perceive.China knows it and the world will need oil, natural gas, and coal for decades to come. It sees “green” as the color of money and is happy to extend credit under terms very favorable to China.Communist Party leaders seek global military and economic power – and global control of electricity generation, raw materials extraction, and manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels, and battery modules they will sell to address the West’s obsession with the “manmade climate crisis” and “renewable, sustainable” energy.Party leaders also know its production of “green” technologies is a good smokescreen for all this coal power – and few Western governments will dare to criticize China sharply over this or Covid.A recent Global Warming Policy Foundation report lambasts environmentalists (like John Kerry) as “useful idiots” who “praise the scale of Chinese ambition on climate change while paying lip service in criticizing China’s massive coal expansion.”It notes that China rarely honors its international agreements and has no intention of reducing fossil fuel consumption.But what are Africa and other developing nations to do? The West will not fund even clean coal projects that would eliminate pollution from dung and wood fires, while providing reliable, affordable electricity for lights, refrigerators, schools, shops, hospitals, factories, and much more.China will – and despite the heavy price, their demand for energy requires that they get electricity by any means necessary.With 1.1 billion people, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s poorest region, despite massive mineral resources and a young, energetic population with an affinity for entrepreneurship.Dutch economist Wim Naudé says Africa must industrialize, which means it must have affordable, reliable electricity if it is to overcome poverty and disease, create jobs and discourage terrorism.Unfortunately, outrageously, US, EU, UN, and World Bank policies have stymied African energy resource development.As White and Rossiter note, US policies since the Obama era oppose Africans using the continent’s abundant coal and gas to fuel power plants, on the ground that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels might exacerbate climate change.African Energy Chamber executive chairman NJ Ayuk recently reported that the United Kingdom has also decided it will stop funding new oil, gas, and coal projects as of November 4, 2021, the fifth anniversary of the Paris treaty.The decision kowtows to Green opposition to UK Export Finance support for a Mozambique terminal to export low-CO2 emissions liquefied natural gas.Ayuk had been touting natural gas as an increasing option for African power plants, boasting that Africa is home to four of the world’s top 20 crude oil producers (Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, and Libya); Algeria and Nigeria are among the top 20 natural gas producers, and Mozambique also has huge gas reserves.“It is troubling,” Ayuk said, “that an aggressive foreign-funded anti-African energy campaign continues to undermine the potential of making Mozambique an oasis for gas monetization and meeting our increasing energy demands.”Despite this setback, he continued: “We must continue to be unwavering in our commitment to stand up for Africa’s energy sector, its workers, reducing energy poverty, and those free-market values that will make our continent attractive to committed energy investors.”In much of Africa, electricity demand far outstrips supply. “In factories, businesses, government buildings, and wealthy neighborhoods in every African country,” White and Rossiter observe, “a cacophonous symphony of soot-spewing backup diesel engines erupts when the grid goes down, which is usually every day.”In fact, says the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, many African countries spend more on dirty backup power than on electricity for the grid itself; in West Africa, backup kilowatts equal 40% of total grid kilowatts.In Sudan, which gets 30% of its energy from dams on the Nile River, diesel-based pumps run constantly to lift river water for irrigation, even at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles.In Nigeria, hotels ban guests from jogging because of health dangers from breathing soot from their diesel backup generators, which kick in repeatedly as neighborhoods go dark.In Southern Africa, construction sites simply run generators all day, filling nearby streets with noxious clouds. Universities rely on diesel to run old, inefficient air conditioning units.White and Rossiter note that American clean coal technology, exemplified by the Turk power plant in Arkansas, virtually eliminates health hazards from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulates.They urge the U.S. to support proposals by African governments to import this technology, noting that electricity is “the central nervous system of a modern economy and modern life expectancy. Africa’s electricity deficit translates directly into its life-expectancy deficit of 15 years per person.”Millions die needlessly every year, from countless diseases of energy and economic poverty.But under a Biden-Harris Administration, with John Kerry at the forefront, there is little hope that these African and other pleas will be heard.With European allies in myopic puritanical lockstep, China will continue to get a total pass on complying with Green demands – and will have free rein to turn sub-Saharan Africa into a giant Chinese colony, despite the environmental damage, monstrous debt, slave and child labor under horrific workplace conditions, and likely modest benefits to Africans.It is eco-imperialism and eco-manslaughter at its worst. Where are the vaunted guardians of climate and environmental justice?”Duggan Flanakin is Director of Policy Research at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)How China Is Conquering Africa One Coal Plant At A TimeCHINA INDUSTRY DEMANDS INCREASED COAL POWERThe industry group for China’s power sector giants, China Electricity Council, has argued that coal-power capacity “will” reach 1,300GW by 2030, up from 1,050GW today. This target is based on its projections for annual electricity demand and the need for capacity to meet peak loads.A cap of 1,300GW in 2030 would imply the addition of well over 300GW of new coal-fired capacity this decade, after accounting for the retirement of older plants.China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute (EPPEI), the authoritative consultancy that has designed most of China’s coal power units and grid infrastructure, warned in June 2019 that 16 provinces in the country should increase new capacity and start working on a new batch of thermal power plants to avoid the possibility of shortages in the next two to three years.The thinktank affiliated with China’s giant grid utility company, State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), stressed the need to maintain coal-power capacity in a July 2019 intervention:“[China] should not close coal power plants at a large scale too soon or too fast and, by around 2030, we should maintain around 1,200GW of coal power to ensure the reliability of the power system, and key power generating regions should retain some backup and reserve capacity.”Analysis: Will China build hundreds of new coal plants in the 2020s?“For awhile it looked like China was moving away from coal toward clean energy, but coal is still a pretty big part of the country’s economy,” says Christine Shearer, the coal program director at the Global Energy Monitor. “We don’t have a lot of time in terms of emission reduction, but clean energy development is happening alongside coal plant construction rather than displacing it.”BUTDANIEL OBERHAUSSCIENCE11.27.2019 07:00 AMChina Is Still Building an Insane Number of New Coal PlantsWhile the rest of the world turns away from the fossil fuel, China is investing big in coal-powered electricity.China Building Hundreds Of Coal-Fired Power Plants Abroad ...www.npr.org › why-is-china-placing-a-global-bet-on-coalApr 29, 2019 — But now it plans to build hundreds of coal plants abroad. ... Forum in Beijing over the weekend, promoting his signature foreign policy of building massive ... But within the past four years, all four stopped burning coal. ... China has made more than $244 billion in energy investments abroad since 2000, much ...Hassyan Clean Coal Project, DubaiThe 2,400MW Hassyan clean coal power station is an ultra-supercritical (USC) power plant being developed in Saih Shuaib, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.Plant TypeCoal-fired power plant Location DubaiCapacity 2,400MWEstimated Investment $3.4bnHassyan Energy Company is developing the 2,400MW ultra-supercritical Hassyan clean coal power plant in Dubai. Credit: Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA).Construction of the Hassyan clean coal project began in November 2016 and is expected to be fully completed by 2023. Credit: Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA).The Hassyan power plant will be equipped with Alstom’s (now GE) ultra-supercritical boiler and steam turbine generators. Credit: Alstom.The 2,400MW Hassyan clean coal power station is an ultra-supercritical (USC) power plant being developed in Saih Shuaib, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Upon completion, the project is set to be the first coal-based power plant in the region.Construction of the $3.4bn power plant commenced in November 2016. It will comprise four units of 600MW each, which are expected to start operations in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively, in March of those years.Hassyan Energy Company, which is a joint-venture (JV) between Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA, 51%) and the consortium of ACWA Power, Harbin Electric, and the Silk Road Fund (49%), is the project developer.The project supports the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, which is aimed at producing environment-friendly energy. The programme aims to produce 25% of energy from solar power, 7% from nuclear power, 7% from clean coal, and the remaining 61% from gas by 2030.The power plant is expected to produce sufficient electricity to power approximately 250,000 households.https://www.power-technology.com/projects/hassyan-clean-coal-project-dubai/Dubai has also set the lofty goal of having the world's lowest carbon footprint in the world by 2050 - something that would be impacted by burning coal.Read more at:Dubai, oil-rich UAE sees a new wonder: A coal power plantLast Updated: Oct 22, 2020, 11:59 AM ISTCarbon dioxide emitted by coal power plants is clean without any pollution.COAL24 March 2020 8:00Analysis: Will China build hundreds of new coal plants in the 2020s?Signs of stimulusMany experts and industry bodies argue for a move away from top-down targets and controls, to investment driven by market forces. However, the spending needed to fuel a new stimulus program can only be mobilized if investment is directed at the behest of the state, rather than the market – as a rule, China does not fund stimulus with on-budget spending, but by directing state-owned enterprises and commercial banks to spend more. In these circumstances, lack of controls on capacity additions runs a high risk of over-investment.For example, efforts to control overcapacity might be vulnerable to the political priority of boosting investment spending to reach economic targets. An indication of this was the loosening of “traffic lights” for new coal-plant approvals, published by the National Energy Administration in February.The traffic light policy was first introduced in January 2017 to prevent provinces with overcapacity from permitting new projects. A year ago, however, 21 of China’s 31 provincial grids included in the policy were given a “green light”. Last month this increased to 25, as the figure below shows.Locations and sizes (megawatts, shown by the size of each circle) of new coal-fired power capacity in the pipeline in China. The maps are colour coded according to the “traffic light” status of the relevant provincial grid, with red meaning new capacity cannot receive permits to move ahead towards construction. Source: Global Energy Monitor and NEA. Figure: Authors.The change is significant, as the four additional greenlighted grid regions have a total of 34GW of coal-fired capacity in the pipeline.According to data from Global Energy Monitor, the traffic light loosening is already apparent in new project activity in 2019, with construction started or restarted on another 18GW of capacity, while 37GW of previously inactive projects have been revived.Furthermore, the past weeks have seen the announcement of major infrastructure programmes and other stimulus to offset the economic impacts from the coronavirus, but so far no mention of initiatives prioritising clean energy or other green investment.The focus on stimulating the economy with major investment – and a recent shift of emphasis towards energy security (below) – appear to cast aside concerns about overcapacity and financial viability.Some have interpreted Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s remarks at an October 2019 event as a signal of support for coal-power expansion. At the conference a “new energy security strategy” was formulated, in which the core role of coal was emphasised more strongly than renewable energy.This was widely interpreted as a retreat to coal in the face of energy security concerns, following the trade war with the US. However, China’s energy security fears mainly relate to oil – and, to a lesser degree, gas.Analysis: Will China build hundreds of new coal plants in the 2020s?China virtually alone in backing Africa’s dirty coal projectsWorkers unload imported coal at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China, in December. A retreat from financial institutions in developed countries has paved the way for Chinese companies to invest in the coal industry in Africa. | VIA REUTERSBLOOMBERGSHAREMay 7, 2020For more than two decades, Zimbabwe has been trying to break ground on a giant coal-power complex near the world’s biggest man-made reservoir. Now, China has agreed to get the $4.2 billion project underway.The development, near the southern shore of Lake Kariba, is good news for Zimbabwe, where a collapsing economy and erratic policies have deterred foreign investment for the past 20 years.But it flies in the face of a growing global consensus that has seen financial institutions from Japan to the U.S. and Europe shun investments in coal projects. That retreat leaves the way open for Chinese companies — many with state backing — even at the risk of undermining the spirit of China’s international commitments to fight climate change.“We are very pleased that the project is going ahead, especially as major banks in the world are forced to stop financing coal-fired power stations,” Caleb Dengu, chairman of RioZim Energy, the company that owns the project, said in a response to questions. “This is testimony of Chinese commitment to development projects in Africa. The Chinese are interested in joining hands.”China is certainly in need of friends: A global backlash is building over Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan — evidence of a deficit of trust that was compounded by incidents of racism toward Africans in the southern city of Guangzhou last month.RELATED STORIESSumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho to end lending for new coal-fired plantsNearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year, study showsYet pumping money into coal just underlines China’s creeping isolation in backing plants that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.For financial institutions, “the ever-increasing reputational risk of funding a project like this, and the high likelihood that it would end up as a stranded asset, should make them very wary of getting involved,” said Tracey Davies, director of Cape Town-based shareholder activist organization, Just Share.In fact, the Chinese government promised back in 2017 to green its Belt and Road Initiative overseas construction plan, to promote environment-friendly development in line with United Nations goals. President Xi Jinping pledged last year that the program must be green and sustainable.Nonetheless, Chinese companies and banks are involved in financing at least 13 coal projects across the continent with another nine in the pipeline, according to data compiled by Greenpeace. Since 2000, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China alone have supplied $51.8 billion of finance for coal projects globally, according to the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.“Despite promises to shift support to green and low-carbon energy, Chinese banks have continued to bankroll coal power projects,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst for the Centre for Energy Research and Clean Air, an independent research body. “China has enormous state-owned thermal-power manufacturing and engineering firms that rely on overseas deals to stay in business.”President Xi regularly mentions China’s commitment to multilateralism through fighting climate change as a signatory of the Paris Agreement. China, however, is unlikely to divest from coal anytime soon. Despite hefty investment in renewable energy over the past decade, China still mines and burns about half the world’s coal.China has undoubtedly made progress domestically. By 2018, China had exceeded its target for reducing CO2 emissions, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the U.N. climate action summit in New York in September. He touted increases in non-fossil fuel use and in forestation along with sales of some 1.25 million electric cars that year. But now, as it claws its way out of the pandemic-induced slump, Beijing has started to roll back restrictions on industrial pollution and slash subsidies for cleaner energy.There shouldn’t be a “one-size-fits-all approach” for green development in poorer nations, but rather the decision should be based on a host country’s natural resources, according to Yu Zirong, a vice director at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce.“For countries with rich coal resources, it is impossible to completely forbid them using coal,” said Yu, who spoke at a forum on sustainable Belt and Road Initiative in October in Beijing. “The key is how to use them more reasonably.”China’s agreement to invest is a rare win for Zimbabwe, which is currently subject to power cuts of as long as 18 hours a day as it doesn’t produce enough electricity to meet demand and can’t afford to pay for adequate imports.The project was initially owned by London-based miner Rio Tinto Group, the one-time parent of RioZim Ltd, which in turn owns Riozim Energy. It was set aside as Zimbabwe’s relations with the U.K., its former colonizer, deteriorated. After the project was revived in 2016, General Electric Co. and a unit of Blackstone Group LP didn’t pursue initial inquiries, according to Dengu, the company’s chairman.Power Construction Corp. of China, the state-owned company known as PowerChina, has been contracted to build the first phase of the plant known as Sengwa, which includes a 700 megawatt generation unit, as well as a pipeline from Kariba Dam to bring the water needed and power lines at a total cost of $1.2 billion. Funding is likely to come from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, while China Export and Credit Insurance Corp., or Sinosure, may provide the country risk cover needed, according to Dengu. Both are owned by the Chinese government.Repeated calls to ICBC and Sinosure went unanswered. PowerChina said it didn’t have information on the Zimbabwe project at the moment. It had no comment on the possible climate impact of its involvement in overseas coal-related projects.Last month a deal was signed for the rest of the project, which will add a further 2,100 megawatts at a cost of $3 billion. China Gezhouba Group, which is partly state-owned, will develop the project and lead fund raising, Dengu said. The company didn’t respond to calls or an email request for comment.“The Chinese are looking at the business opportunity,” said Dengu. “We bring the market knowledge and management capacity, they bring the finance and the technology.”Rio Energy had few other options. European banks no longer fund coal projects and over the last year the biggest banks in South Africa have committed to reducing their coal funding under pressure from shareholders. Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. are also among those looking to curb or halt project financing for coal-related projects.While the Zimbabwean project is sizable among those being considered by Chinese companies, it is not the biggest. PowerChina has signed a memorandum of agreement with South Africa’s Limpopo provincial government to build a power plant of at least 3,000 megawatts at a cost of $4.5 billion.Not all are welcomed by local communities.Sengwa would draw water from Kariba, a reservoir already so depleted by recurrent droughts attributed to climate change that its hydropower turbines operate at a fraction of their capacity. The South African government is facing a lawsuit because coal-fired power plants there cause some of the world’s worst air pollution.“It’s a fading industry,” said Han Chen, who manages the international energy policy program at the New York-based National Resources Defense Council. “So they are going places where the environmental standards are low so they can use more polluting equipment that is cheaper to operate.”Of 11 coal projects in Africa she tracks that are likely to get foreign support, 10 involve Chinese state-owned entities.As banks in other countries, including Japan and South Korea, snub coal, those projects will increasingly rely on China.“Chinese banks will find themselves increasingly alone in funding new coal plants, both at home and around the world,” said Christine Shearer, director of the coal program at Global Energy Monitor.China virtually alone in backing Africa’s dirty coal projectsIdentification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature record.Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China 中国气象科学研究院New research confirms the view of leading climate scientists and scholars that trace amounts of Co2 emissions are not destabilizing the planet. Co2 is essential plant food and therefore green energy.The authors Geli Wang & Peicai Yang and Xiuji Zhou are scientists at the CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE and Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China 中国气象科学研究院ANTHROPOGENIC (human activity). The driving forces are“the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively.”The title of the study published in the prestigious NATURE Journal is: Identification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature recordhttps://www.nature.com/articles/...Their study confirms THE DRIVING FORCES OF GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE ARE NATURALThe “driving forces” of climate change are natural and not Co2 plant food emissions. A new Chinese study confirms climate change comes from natural cycles. This research is based on the longest actual temperature data of more than 400 years from 1659 to 2013, including the period of anthropogenic warming.AbstractThe identification of causal effects is a fundamental problem in climate change research. Here, a new perspective on climate change causality is presented using the central England temperature (CET) dataset, the longest instrumental temperature record, and a combination of slow feature analysis and wavelet analysis. The driving forces of climate change were investigated and the results showed two independent degrees of freedom —a 3.36-year cycle and a 22.6-year cycle, which seem to be connected to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively. [Emphasis added]. Moreover, these driving forces were modulated in amplitude by signals with millennial timescales.James Matkin 
This research is very relevant and should make climate alarmists pause in their crusade against Co2 emissions from fossil fuels. Far too much focus on Co2 like a one trick pony in a big tent circus where solar radiation is a more compelling show. The thrust of recent research has demonstrated that climate changes continually and is determined by natural forces that humans have no significant control over. Many leading scientists have presented research of other "driving forces" and cautioned against the arrogance of many that "the science is settled." See Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology and blogger at Climate Etc. talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about climate change. Curry argues that climate change is a "wicked problem" with a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the expected damage as well as the political and technical challenges of dealing with the phenomenon. She emphasizes the complexity of the climate and how much of the basic science remains incomplete. The conversation closes with a discussion of how concerned citizens can improve their understanding of climate change and climate change policy.
http://www.econtalk.org/arc...https://www.nature.com/articles/...JAMES MATKIN•2017-08-23 10:03 PMThe great failure of the Paris accord is the failure to accept that the IPCC Al Gore hypothesis of anthropogenic warming is not settled science. Indeed, none of the predictions of doom have occurred. New research confirms the view of leading climate scientists and scholars that trace amounts of Co2 emissions are not destabilizing the planet. Co2 is essential plant food and therefore green energy. The “driving force” of climate change is natural and not Co2 plant food emissions. A new Chinese study confirms climate change comes from natural cycles. This research is based on the longest actual temperature data of more than 400 years from 1659 to 2013, including the period of anthropogenic warming. The authors Geli Wang & Peicai Yang and Xiuji Zhou are scientists at the CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE and Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China 中国气象科学研究院 Their study confirms THE DRIVING FORCES OF GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE ARE NOT ANTHROPOGENIC (human activity). The driving forces are “the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively.” The title of the study published in the prestigious NATURE Journal is: Identification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature record Identification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature record This means that climate change cannot be stopped as Paris attendees believed. Co2 is very beneficial plant food and we need more not less. Why climate change is good for the world | The Spectator It is good news for civilization that the Paris targets are not being met around thttps://www.nature.com/news/prov...29 Apr 2020China to Help Build $3 Billion Coal Plant in ZimbabweCategoryStoriesCountryZimbabweTagsEnergy Access, Finance and Investment, Fossil FuelsSourcehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/riozim-seals-3-billion-zimba…Zimbabwe’s Rio Energy Ltd., a unit of RioZim Ltd., will build a 2,100 megawatt thermal power plant with China Gezhouba Group Corp in northern Zimbabwe at a projected cost of $3 billion, Rio Energy said Monday.“CGGC will develop the project and assist with the fund raising,” Caleb Dengu, chairman of Rio Energy Ltd said last week. The power plant at Sengwa will be constructed in four phases of about 700 megawatts each, bringing total capacity to 2,800 megawatts.“We have coal reserves to support a 10,000 megawatt plant at Sengwa,” Dengu said.A 250 kilometer (155-mile) pipeline will carry water from Lake Kariba to Sengwa. The pipeline, and a 420 kilovolt-ampere power line, will be built by PowerChina, said Dengu. The first phase of the project will cost about $1.2 billion, he added.The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has given a formal expression of interest in the project and is negotiating with Sinosure, also known as the China Export and Credit Insurance Corp, to cover country risk insurance costs, Dengu told Bloomberg.Zimbabwe generates and imports about 1,300 megawatts of electricity, short of its 2,200 megawatt demand. Daily power outages have hampered industrial capacity for almost two decades.A two-year drought blighted the country’s Kariba thermal power plant by draining the reservoir, while aging equipment at its main Hwange thermal plant causes incessant breakdowns and outages that see many consumers receiving only eight hours of power a day.RioZim was spun off from Rio Tinto Plc in 2004. London-based Rio initially retained a stake in diamond mines and Sengwa before selling those to RioZim in 2015.China to Help Build $3 Billion Coal Plant in ZimbabweCHINA HAS BLIND SIDED THE WEST AND THE WEST IS CAUSING DEVASTATING ECONOMIC DAMAGE TO PREVENT A FAKE CLIMATE PROBLEM.I affirm this QUORA answer by Dr. John Walker.John WalkerNovember 28I have written a 500+ page treatise skeptical of CAGWQUORA QUESTION“Is China's carbon neutrality pledge by 2060 nonsense? Are they simply trying to buy decades worth of time to ignore the complaints of the rest of the world during this period, if so, are they in the right since the US also depends on fossil fuels?“Yes, of course.Anyone who believes anything the Communist Chinese pledge is a fool.But I doubt the Chinese have bought into the scam being promoted by climate alarmists using the unproven hypothesis that human emissions of CO2 are leading to catastrophic global warming. So, indeed, they are taking the logical approach to energy, continuing to increase their wealth and prosperity by utilizing cheap fossil fuels to power their enormous growth. They no doubt laugh at Western nations which are wasting $trillions on unproven dangers of future climate change while they build up their massive military, buy up mineral rights and mines around the world, infiltrate Western nations to steal crucial industrial and military secrets, etc.it’s also likely that the Chinese superficially and deceitfully promote CAGW and renewables to help ensure that Western nations continue to waste their wealth on this scam.Unfortunately, if the Democrats gain control of both Houses of Congress and the White House, then the US will join these other ignorant nations, wasting even more limited resources on an unproven future problem while watching numerous known current existential problems (hunger, violence, pollution and over-fishing of our oceans, infectious and other diseases, inadequate housing, sanitation and clean water, decaying infrastructure, etc.) go unsolved.You may want to learn to speak Chinese.”

CPEC Master PlanThis article is based on the information most people don’t know outside Pakistan, and my prime intention is to show you what is happening behind the closed doors. This article is written on my observations of events and if you want to read one different aspect of CPEC, please read this article till end.CPEC Master Plan - Dawn ArticleCPEC Master Plan is a Long Term Plan (LTP) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. According to the Pakistani English-language news daily, Dawn, which has accessed the full report, the plan comprehensively outlines the Chinese goals in its ally's territory for the next decade and a half with the main focus being on agriculture. The plan lays out in detail what Chinese intentions and priorities are in Pakistan for the next decade and a half, details that have not been discussed in public far.Formation of the LTP was begun in November 2013 by Chinese Authorities. For the next two years, until December 2015, the Chinese Authorities worked different Government Institutions to develop a detailed plan to be implemented over the next 15 years, until the year 2030 that will open the doors for Chinese enterprises – private and public – to enter every area of Pakistan's economy. The report was first transmitted to the Government of Pakistan in June 2015 and Pakistan met their counterparts in Beijing on November 12th, 2015 and gave their feedback and finalized the draft on Dec 29th, 2015.To keep the report secret, the Pakistani government created two versions of the LTP (Long Term Plan). The full version is 231 pages long and drawn up by the Chinese Authorities in December 2015. The shortened version, dated February 2017, is 30 pages long and “contains only broad brushstroke descriptions of the various `areas of cooperation` and none of the details.” It is meant to be provided to the provincial governments in a bid to obtain their assent. The only provincial government that received the full version of the plan is the Punjab government.I have provided below the summary of CPEC Master plan if somebody interested in detailed report please check the following link.Exclusive: CPEC master plan revealedIf you have already read or know about plan please skip the following plan summery.What is a Plan Summery?AgricultureAccording to this plan, thousands of acres of Pakistani agricultural land will be leased out to Chinese enterprises to set up ‘demonstration projects’ in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology. Chinese enterprises to operate their own farms, processing facilities for fruits and vegetables and grain. Logistics companies will operate a large storage and transportation system for agrarian produce.Provisioning for seeds and other inputs, like fertilizer, credit, and pesticides. Advanced planting and breeding techniques to peasant households or farmers by means of land acquisition by the government, renting to China-invested enterprises and building planting and breeding bases.Identifies areas for engagement for Meat and milk production and processing plants, including construction of fertilizer plant, inducted to lease farm implements, like tractors, efficient plant protection machinery, efficient energy saving pump equipment, precision fertilization drip irrigation equipment and planting and harvesting machinery.To build a nationwide logistics network and enlarge the warehousing and distribution network between major cities of Pakistan with a focus on grains, vegetables, and fruits. Cities will see a vegetable processing plant, fruit juice and jam plant and grain processing.IndustryFor industry, the plan divides Pakistan into three zones: western and northwestern, central and southern. The western and northwestern zone is marked for mineral extraction, and central zone for textiles, household appliances, and cement. For the southern zone, the plan says “Pakistan develop petrochemical, iron and steel, harbor industry, engineering machinery, trade processing and auto and auto parts (assembly)” due to the proximity of Karachi and its ports. The plan shows great interest in the textile's industry and is particularly focused on yarn and coarse cloth.Fibre-optics and surveillanceA full system of monitoring and surveillance will be built in cities with 24-hour video recordings on roads and busy marketplaces for law and order.A national fibre-optic backbone will be built for the country not only for internet traffic but also the terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will cooperate with Chinese media in the “dissemination of Chinese culture”.Tourism and recreationThe future cooperation between Chinese and Pakistani media will be beneficial to disseminating Chinese culture in Pakistan, further enhancing mutual understanding between the two people and the traditional friendship between the two countries.A long belt of coastal enjoyment industry from Keti Bunder to Jiwani, the last habitation before the Iranian border.The plan also speaks of a long belt of coastal enjoyment industry that includes yacht wharf, cruise, nightlife, hot spring hotels and water sports. Visa-free entry proposed for Chinese to Pakistan, no reciprocal arrangement discussedRegional SecurityThere are various factors affecting Pakistani politics, such as competing parties, religion, tribes, terrorists, and western intervention. The plan identifies politics and security as its major risks.FinanceThe primary financial risk in Pakistan, according to the long-term plan drawn up by China Development Bank, is politics and security. Efforts will be made to furnish free and low-interest loans to Pakistan But, Pakistan’s federal and involved local governments should also bear part of the responsibility for financing.$2 billion China’s maximum annual FDI in Pakistan$1 billion Pak’s ceiling for preferential loans$1.5 billion ceiling for non-preferential loansWhat's new in this report?If you watch any video on YouTube by a searching the keyword “CPEC Master Plan News Discussions”, you observe Pakistani Politicians are quite relaxed discussing this topic. No outrage, no concerns.Because they know the truth that many of these above-mentioned practices are quite old in Pakistan. Same kinds of land acquisition happening for many years with almost the same kind of Tax benefits.[1] Surprise it's a Pakistan Army. They run factories to produce and process Fertilizer, Cement, Meat, Food, Cereal, Seeds almost all the stuff mentioned in the report. They also run and operate Banks, Sugar Mills, Natural Gas, power generation, oil terminal operations, Housing Societies, financial services, healthcare, and education.[2]Pakistan Army runs these business entities under the trusts like Fauji foundation, Shaheen foundation, Bahria Foundation, Army Welfare Trust (AWT) and Defense Housing Authorities (DHAs).[3]Writing about the military in Pakistan can be risky business, almost no one reports against Pak Army inside Pakistan. The daring lady in the photo is Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, she exposed Pakistan army's business practices and their commercial interests in detail in the book Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy[4], she moved to London a few years ago. Even here on Quora, I have seen some articles got collapsed because they mentioned Ayesha Siddiqa and details of Pakistan Army's commercial interests.Dr. Siddiqa estimates the military’s net worth at more than £10 billion — roughly four times the total foreign direct investment generated by Islamabad in 2007, the army owns 12% of the country’s land, its holdings being most fertile soil in the Western Punjab. Two-thirds of that land is in the hands of senior current and former officials, mostly brigadiers, major-generals, and generals.[5][6][7] But critics said also that the Pakistani military keeps a lion's share of the country's budget and is not answerable to the civilian government over its expenditures. [8]Is everyone in Pakistan agreed on this report?As per the report, China initiated creating the draft in 2013, sometimes around Nawaz Sharif elected as a Prime Minister. In May 2015, during the visit of Xi Jinping, CPEC deal was signed[9] and the report was the first draft is transmitted to the Government of Pakistan around the same time in June 2015.There are two different Power Centers exists in Pakistan, Elected Government, and Pakistan Army. If any Govt. Minister or official face any question against Chinese Investments, they simply counter their critics by quoting “If no Chinese Investments, then who else? No one other than China interested in investing in Pakistan”. It might be the same kind of argument presented by Prime Minister to Army General while discussing this draft. With reduced of coalition fund and very less budget, General also didn't have any choice to accept the proposal.To make plan details secret from Provincial governments, the second draft was created and shared with no essential details. As per the details shared in Dawn article, Punjab government received the full version of the plan, and it might be possible that they took advantage of the situation to make some favorable changes in LTA.To make public happy, massive media engagement was started to promote the CPEC plan and used social media to spread the positive aspects. The promotional video's started floating on YouTube, the campaigns to promote project was started on Facebook and tweeter.Everyone was happy in Pakistan except some media culprits who smell the rat.What will change?In this report, the CPEC projects are often called as ‘demonstration projects', that means until now Pakistan Government is not provided full autonomy to China to purchase land and set up the economic zones by their own. 6500 acres of land allocated for Chinese enterprises to operate their own farms in Punjab doesn't count much, but the availability of water, perfect infrastructure, sufficient supply of energy and the capacity of self-service power, means it is the jackpot for China.It is not the case Pakistan don't have seed's processing and fertilizer plants in Pakistan, but it seems like they don't improve the quality of their farming techniques in last 70 years. If you check Indian side of Punjab, the state is growing enough crops which feed the entire India.[10] With the provision of seeds and other inputs, like fertilizer, credit, and pesticides, China is helping Pakistan to grow crops, it is good for Pakistan.China is doing investments like this in South America and Africa from years, it is a known practice. China is protecting itself against future food supply problems caused by climate change by buying or leasing large tracts of land in Africa and South America. Some experts are also pointing the drawback, is that the Chinese are introducing industrial agricultural practices that damage the soil, the water supply, and the rivers.[11]China will build planting and breeding bases, large storage, Meat and milk production, fertilizer plants, transportation system, fruit juice and jam plants, grain processing, precision fertilization, drip irrigation equipment and planting and harvesting machinery. But if you check Fauji foundation's businesses, they are already doing most of these things mentioned here. It smells like now Pakistani Army Industries are going to compete with Chinese counterparts.Is this a new East India Company?In other economic sectors such as household appliances, telecommunications, cement, and mining, Chinese companies would exploit their presence to expand market share and the plan also called for building infrastructure and developing a policy environment to facilitate the entry of Chinese companies.The project shows great interest in the textile industry, with the focus largely on yarn and coarse cloth. The reason, the plan says, is that the textile industry in Xinjiang has already attained higher levels of productivity. Chinese companies would also be offered preferential treatment with regard to “land, tax, logistics and services” as well as “enterprise income tax, tariff reduction and exemption and sales tax rate” incentives. This is the same kind of approach what British East India Company took centuries ago, get raw material from Pakistan, shipped [to China] for pennies & finished products will be purchased back [by Pakistan].There are no friends or enemies only interests.Taking on industries, a plan is to provide basic infrastructure first with Roads, Railways, Ports and Power Plants. The setup Industrial Base and factories for petrochemical, iron and steel, harbor industry, engineering machinery, trade processing and auto and auto parts. It sounds good for Pakistan.It is quite impressive to any Pakistani, but in reality, you are living in the 21st Century. Gulf Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are already started diversifying their businesses. They have started investing in their own countries to boost production.[12] If you take one example of Cement Industry which the most Pakistani thinks doing well in exports, Iran is making cheap and quality cement and even in Pakistan, cement manufacturers are urging the government to place anti-dumping duties on the Iranian cement.[13]Gulf countries are investing in India[14], but check why not enough investment in Pakistan. It is not cheap labor matters, skilled labor, regional security and financial capabilities also going to matter when you need investors. Some development indicators pointing that Bangladesh economy will be bigger than Pakistan in the next few years.[15] They are working very hard work no matter what bad conditions they faced.Few people argue that Once Chinese poor economy provided free land and labor to foreign investors and then suddenly Chinese economy started booming with trade and manufacturing industries. But time is changed since last 40 years, and with the dream of economic prosperity countries like Sri Lanka[16], Myanmar[17], Cambodia[18], Laos[19], Kenya[20][21], some African countries[22][23] are feeling the heat. China is running their industry on surplus capacity[24] and Chinese will not be going to shift their factory bases in such venerable area. China now dropped One Child Policy, and with increasing Industrial Robotics and Automation they have to ensure Job Security for their people as well.[25] Interestingly, on this Dawn article one wise guy named, IFTEKHAR MAHMOOD, mentioned it in his comment.Because of Free Trade agreement with China and cheaper Chinese goods, local industry in Pakistan already got hit very hard and the trade deficit is all time high.[26] Though I accept that China is providing Pakistan a chance to stand up but at the cost of very high interest rates, which will pass on to Pakistani people and businesses. Now only chance is to pay back the interests and do more hard work than developing countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam which share same business profiles and cheap labor like Pakistan do have.Surveillance, Like China?A full system of monitoring and surveillance will be built in cities with 24-hour video recordings on roads and busy marketplaces for law and order is also good initiative, and China has the good experience and doing it for many years to keep an eye on their own citizens.[27] So we wish all the best for Pakistan to have this system with Great Firewall of China.[28] But the question is “Is it part of any big game which is coming soon?”Dissemination of Chinese cultureWhy “dissemination of Chinese culture” needs to distribute over broadcast TV? Does it like to be the same kind of approach taken place in Xinjiang? Pakistan always supports Muslims Rights around the world, but when it comes to China, they will shut their mouth, whenever questions raised. On the issues in Xinjiang like Ban on long beards and veils in Xinjiang[29], suppress Islamic cultural practices[30], Government employees and children under 18 are barred from attending mosques, bans Muslims from fasting Ramadan[31], Uyghur Muslims must pray in mosques that have a government-appointed imam[32] , bans Islamic baby names[33], Pakistan always turn their blind eye on them.According to studies, more than 90% of all Pakistanis consider religion to be very important. Meanwhile, China to be the least religious country in the world.[34] It is interesting to imagine how people from both sides will mesh together with these diametrically opposed views on religion, in the religiously charged environment of Pakistan and we must imagine what kind of dissemination of Chinese culture going to spread through Broadcast TV.There are various factors affecting Pakistani politics, such as competing parties, religion, tribes, terrorists, and western intervention. The plan identifies politics and security as its major risks.Why this report is referring “politics and security” again and again, is this kind of conspiracy going on [Chinese Takeover, blah blah blah]. Politics is always affected by competing parties, so does a report suggesting some kind of authoritarian rule going to impose in Pakistan? So many conspiracy theories!The Great Chinese Money CowThe primary financial risk in Pakistan, according to the long-term plan drawn up by China Development Bank, is politics and security. Efforts will be made to furnish free and low-interest loans to Pakistan But, Pakistan's federal and involved local governments should also bear part of the responsibility for financing.Low interests loans for $2 billion, China's maximum annual FDI, $1 billion ceiling for preferential loans and $1.5 billion ceiling for non-preferential loans which equals $4.5 Billion per year that's good for Pakistan.The World Bank in its latest report projected that fiscal deficit was projected to be 4.8 percent in FY2017 sum up to Rs1.24 trillion [$118 billion][35] along with $28 billion Trade Deficit[36] plus $5 billion Interests of current CPEC loans per year[37] .For the debt-ridden Pakistan is that the plan clears this is no free ride. The report suggested the inflation will next big risk, which the plan says has averaged 11.6% over the past six years. A high inflation rate means a rise of project-related costs and a decline in profits. Plus Pakistan has to pay all the returns to Chinese Currency, there no easy out like printing money.Currently, with 66% of Pakistan's total revenue consume on loan servicing[38], falling exports[39] and Remittances[40], declining Tax Revenue[41], decreasing Foreign direct investment[42][43], forget CPEC loans how Pakistan pay off their existing loans is a big question. Nowadays China is providing vital doses of bailout packages to keep Pakistan Economy alive[44], hope China will bear rest of down payments as well to prove they are the all-weather friend of Pakistan.War Mongering MindsetSince the independence, Pakistan adopted National Security State policy which states nation's security comes before all the things.[45] This mindset has been trying to secure the state but in the process has generated tremendous insecurity among the people and leaders. In 70 years nothing is changed, check this example.Check this recent incident, this guy is Khwaja Asif, who is the Minister of Defence of Pakistan. On December 25, 2016, the story broke out, titled “Israeli Defense Minister: If Pakistan sends ground troops to Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack.” Without thinking and confirming the news, defense minister tweeted with a scathing post directed at Israel “Israeli def min threatens nuclear retaliation presuming Pak role in Syria against Daesh,” adding that “Israel forgets Pakistan is a Nuclear state too.” The story turned out to be fake, even got the Israeli defense minister’s name wrong in the story.[46]This is not the one incident, with the North Korean type approach, he threatens to use Nukes multiple times.[47] Any surprise why FDI is not coming to Pakistan.In other hand China is moving away from War Mongering Mindset, they are becoming more focus on trade and development. China never involved in any war against Vietnam in 1979. The fact is any war could impact China's economy with very severe damage. They are too floating through the economic crisis as their economy is slowing down and debt to GDP ratio is now raised to 277%.[48] In one study said that in the case of any war scenario, if weak opponent country [such as North Korea] managed to blow up three gorges dam[49] , it wiped out their massive population with all the developed cities on the shore of Yangtze river. This will take back China to at least 20 years behind and will take a lot of time to recover the economy.Pakistan always needs super powers who protect them to protect them, and they paid a lot of cost of their “War Mongering Mindset”. From years they relied on the United States was there, now on China. To protect their investments China needs to control Pakistan which was the United States failed to do in past. We have to see in future, how these players will play with each other. This interesting game is between the Masters of Trade vs the Masters of Double Game.Why Half Measures?Pakistan has always played the double game with their counterparts, they cheated Americans by making the partnership with North Korea and exchange Nuclear Weapons with Missiles[50], supporting Terrorist group Haqqani Networks in Afghanistan war[51], providing terrorist safe havens in Pakistan.[52] They always remembered for their half measures, and recent track record also states that.This plan might finally arm the Pakistani government with the clout to reduce the religious influence in the society, but the reality is the National Action Plan they have started to reduce religious radicalization is still not implemented on the ground.[53] Despite Pakistani army's recent operations against terrorists, Pakistan still facing terrorist attacks. Many experts raised the questions on the efficiency of these operations.[54] It is also another example of such kinds of half measures, might be the way to counter future Chinese ambitions.Dawn Leaks 2There are a lot of people in Pakistan raising the question about CPEC, especially reporters like Dr. Farrukh Saleem and Khurram Hussain who wrote the same Dawn article. Mubashir Luqman already revealed these details 6 months ago, but everyone's perception was that he is spreading anti-government agenda.[55][56] In one of the news program, Pro-Government Reporter like Najam Sethi openly quoted that 10% kickbacks are standard in Pakistan and CPEC projects interest rates are actually higher.[57]Reacting to the leak, Pakistan's planning, and development minister Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhry tweeted: “I am appalled by Dawn Leak II. CPEC Long Term Plan story based on working docs 2 distort final draft taken up with NDRC yesterday in Beijing. CDB study referred to as Long Term Plan in Dawn story is factually incorrect. Definite angling in a story to malign CPEC by promoting fears.” [58]What is this Game?With CPEC the situation looks like a flowing river which looks calm and cool on the surface but nobody knows what volatile stuff are going inside. Here the game is played by lots of players; Pakistan Government, Provincial Government, Pakistan Army, Chinese Establishment, Media, State and Non-State Actors.Before signing the deal, during the OBOR summit on 15th May 2017 this report was leaked. Who is responsible for this, why this time was chosen, we have only guesses. But the game is still going on.What is Pakistan Government hiding?Two years ago, we only know that energy and infrastructure projects were going to establish through the CPEC, now information is out on these ‘demonstration projects’. Nobody knows in public what exactly at interest rates are and on what conditions these deals were been made.Now the report is officially out, then also why Pakistani Government doesn't make the final draft public, what is hidden agenda they are hiding? What more hoaxes Pakistani government still hiding from their people?This article shows you the second side of the coin, quite unknown to people outside Pakistan. If you like this answer, please share it on social media.Thanks for reading!!Footnotes[1] A spotlight on the Pakistani military's corruption | Asia | DW | 22.04.2016[2] 50 commercial entities being run by armed forces[3] 50 commercial entities being run by armed forces[4] Book on military’s business empire launched[5] The military millionaires who control Pakistan Inc | The Spectator[6] Pakistani army's '$20bn' business[7] Military Inc: An economy within an economy - Times of India[8] A spotlight on the Pakistani military's corruption | Asia | DW | 22.04.2016[9] Economic corridor in focus as Pakistan, China sign 51 MoUs[10] Punjab is set for record rice production this year, but at a heavy price[11] Food supply fears spark China land grab[12] Economic Diversification In The Gulf[13] Local cement industry losing competitiveness[14] India-Gulf Ties in the Spotlight[15] 45 yrs on, Bangladesh beats Pakistan in many indices[16] Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port And The World's Emptiest Airport Go To The Chinese[17] Is China blackmailing Myanmar, like it did with Sri Lanka?[18] Is China blackmailing Myanmar, like it did with Sri Lanka?[19] Laos And China Come to Terms on Loan Interest Rate For Railway Project[20] Is China railroading Kenya into debt?[21] Subscribe to read[22] Africa's debt spree: Precursor to a new debt crisis? - African Business Magazine[23] How Africa Rising turned into Africa Falling again[24] Making Sense of China’s Surplus and the “Ratchet Effect”[25] US automakers' Chinese factories are now mostly robots[26] Beyond CPEC[27] Big data, meet Big Brother: China invents the digital totalitarian state | The Economist[28] What is the biggest hoax you've ever heard about the CPEC?[29] China Uighurs: Ban on long beards, veils in Xinjiang [30] China's Uighur oppression runs deeper than Islamophobia[31] China bans Muslims from fasting Ramadan in Xinjiang[32] Killings in Xinjiang’s Guma Sparked by Anger at Prayer Restrictions[33] China bans Islamic baby names in Muslim-majority Xinjiang[34] Roads and religion: How CPEC will pit Pakistan against itself[35] Budget deficit surges to Rs1.24 trillion[36] Trade gap widens by 35pc to $20.2bn[37] Pakistan's 'Silk Road' repayments to peak at around $5 billion a year - chief economist[38] Debt servicing eats up 66pc of tax money[39] Falling Exports[40] Declining remittances[41] Low interest rates lead to fall in govt revenues[42] Where’s CPEC in our FDI?[43] Declining FDI[44] China provided $1.2bn in loans to bail out Pakistan: report[45] Pakistan: The Security State[46] Reading Fake News, Pakistani Minister Directs Nuclear Threat at Israel[47] Five times Pakistan defence minister Khwaja Asif bragged about nukes, made outrageous statement against India[48] Stung by debt, China's economic growth to slow to 6.5 percent in 2017: Reuters poll[49] Bombing Everything, Gaining Nothing[50] The Long History of the Pakistan-North Korea Nexus[51] Opinion | Time to Put the Squeeze on Pakistan[52] Pakistan continues to be safe haven for terrorists: Pentagon report says Haqqani Network biggest threat[53] Not really a plan[54] Has Pakistan's Zarb-e-Azb military operation failed? | Asia | DW | 02.09.2016[55] Khara Sach with Mubashir Luqman 19 December 2016 | CPEC Special - Channel 24 News[56] Khara Sach | Reality of CPEC Projects | 11 January 2017 | 24 News HD[57] Aapas Ki Baat - 16 May 2017[58] Ahsan Iqbal slams Dawn's CPEC 'master plan' article, calls it Dawn Leaks II - The Express Tribune