The mindset embodied in the Green Development Plan of BRI and thechallenges for a global entropic transition in the case of China's dependency
on international trade and economic growth: A review from South's criticaltheories of development and ecological economics.
Presented by: Leonardo Guzmán Sanabria

Based on a research that began in 2019 that analyzed the idea of development into thenarrative used by the Chinese government since the last decade as part of its foreign
diplomatic strategy, it was found that this discourse has taken place since the overture of theBelt and Road (BRI) proposal, within the concepts such as "win-win" or "commondevelopment" are used for all countries in a framework of "shared common destiny", as analternative of the conventional development model based on the inequitable distribution of
benefits from the exploitation of some regions all over the world, principally based on theirnatural resources, as well as on military, political, economic and ideological interventionism.
More important, the previous mentioned investigation raises a concern of greater depth andimportance and that is whether the new leadership exercised by China, as a new globalmajor player and its narrative of development, represents liable path that contributes
towards real solutions to the unsustainability of an economic model that has produced an
unprecedented socio-environmental crisis in human history. For this question, the criticaldevelopment theories developed collectively by scholars from the global south, combinedwith the theoretical principles of thermodynamics and the entropy of systems of ecologicaleconomics, provide a framework of interpretation which raises the first hypothesis for thisdissertation: Considering the environmental urgency of the planet as a result of modern
rationality, there seems to be no equally modern solution within it that is physicallypossible and that would allow humanity to move towards a sustainable socio-economic
model as long as it continues to base its progress on the basis of unlimited economic
growth.
Based on the above, this presentation will focus on discussing the narrative-action
connection of the Chinese government, centered on its capacity for structuraltransformation of the world order from its "green development" agenda, mentioned byPresident XI Jinping since 2016 under the BRI's political agenda, to deepen cooperation andenvironmental protection by setting the goal of meeting the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) by 2030. Achievements based on economic planning and state policies that mainly
promote the decarbonization of the economy, decoupling and circularity in order to reduce
polluting emissions (Cheng & Ge, 2020). This Chinese initiative has its origin, among others,in the words of President XI in 2014, in which he referred to the chinese conventional modelof excessive consumption of resources as a "dead end" which, being insufficient, would
affect the present comfort of its population and the world, for which the new path that thecountry could take would be under scientific innovation and innovation (Rosales, 2020).
For this analysis it is therefore necessary to address four determining scenarios tounderstand the panorama in which the Chinese development model, despite its discursive
good intentions, could not only continue to be equally or worse harmful in environmental
terms. In addition, it could be also reliable to consider that

its economic growth would continue to deepen the post-colonial sequels of dependence, as
well as the phenomenon of the "middle-income trap" of developing countries (ie) Latin
America and Africa, considering their articulation of their development processes to theneeds and energy and resource demands of China through the BRI, situation that might not
represent major productive transformations of these countries along the global value chains.
1. The unseen ending: the entropic challenges of energy transition.
The Chinese project, same as the rest of the other economies, continues to base its progresson the accumulation of capital in order to achieve the economic income to finance thestructural transformations necessary, in the need of achieving transition scenarios of lessdependence on unsustainable and polluting materials or energy. However, a transition to anenergy model based on renewable sources will only be viable with a drastic reduction in theuse of energy and materials, so it can be argued that a sustainable transition must adjust toplanetary limits as well as to the basic laws of entropy and thermodynamics, which will
eventually make this transition either forced degrowth(continuing to grow until reaching apoint of no return and excessive exploitation) or sustainably degrowth (introducing
economic planning policies that allow for change).
In this regard, China has committed to reduce its carbon emissions cap by 2030, aiming tobecome totally carbon neutral by 2060. To achieve this commitment, the country must movetowards a low-carbon economy by promoting the "decoupling" of economic and social
development from its production of carbon emissions (Yuwei et al, 2022). However, from aphysical perspective, the total decoupling of productive cycles is theoretically impossible
because the losses of matter and energy in a degraded form are inevitable. On the other
hand, total recycling is not possible either, it has to be considered the fact that recycling
requires the production of energy, which is also dependent on the percentage ofrecyclability of each material.
Therefore, to consider that the effects of economic growth on the environment can bereversible, such as soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, excess of toxics in water systems or thedepletion of oil, are beyond the principles of entropy (Riechmann, 2015). Therefore, it has
been argued that in order to balance the eco-social metabolism, ways must be found tooperate within the material space of the planetary limits and its times and processes ofself-regeneration (Krausman et al.,2016)
2. Deeper and deeper: Dependence of the Chinese economy on international trade ingoods.
One of the "core interests" of the PRC government, in addition to national security, nationalsovereignty and territorial integrity, is the continuous and stable development of China'seconomy and society (Telias, 2021). This development has been obtained mainly frominternational trade, currently ranking second only to the U.S. and China.
Although China has decreased its dependence on world trade, from 64.5% in 2006 as apercentage of its GDP to 34.5% by 2020, it will continue to be relevant until the country
manages to decrease its dependence on foreign suppliers, allowing it to focus more on
domestic markets. This is a change in their strategy produced by the different economic
crises that has affected the external demand for goods in the world and that has affected its
economy.

However, the Chinese economy continues to face the challenge of seeking a positive impact
on the environment, while still their exports continue to be resource-intensive in theproduction process, a situation which has not diminished in recent years. In addition, CO2
emissions from these carbon-intensive industries are not exclusive to the industrial
production process within its borders, but extend throughout the entire global value chain.
For example, the country's massive imports of timber, grain and energy continue to put
pressure on the country's environmental impact in other latitudes through extraction andtransportation. Likewise, the production of cement, ceramics, steel exports andaluminum-based products, sectors in which China is a world leader, are energy- andpollution-intensive products.
In fact, it is with steel that China, as the world's main supplier of this material, producing
nearly half of the world's steel, is seeking through the BRI project an opportunity to open
new markets for importing primary mining resources, but even more for exporting its
surpluses and its overcapacity in the production of steel, aluminum, cement and glass,materials that are the key basis for building the infrastructure that supports the approach ofBRI to other countries (He & Guo, 2021). This suggests that China's need to continue
sustaining a considerable part of its development model is still dependent on thecommercial exchange of goods, which in this case are still energy-carbon intensive, and thedynamism that different multilateral trade agreements allow it to achieve.
3. New LATAM Sino-dependence: Rare metals and food in exchange for PV panels
The global consumption of resources has grown exponentially since the industrial
revolution, from the extraction of fresh water, cultivation areas for food production, ironextraction, among others, are just some examples of a trend that is well alive and present
today. In this sense, the place that LATAM has occupied in its integration to the world
economy has not changed considerably, being so that now the export of energy resources
and raw materials has become functional in the urgency of China's energy transition, which
does not necessarily represent a socio-ecological transition of all countries equally.
Strictly speaking, China's priority is to guarantee its "green development" agenda in order toensure the sustainability of its model without this expressly meaning a collective ecologicaltransition, unless we try to consider the financing of infrastructure by direct chinest loans
which prioritize investments of sustainable projects based on clean energy and low carbon
emissions.
This makes it difficult to experience a version of development where the idea of thecommon good prevails, since the international division of labor seems to continue to bereproduced, currently by a neo-dependence of Latin American countries whose economies
are now directly affected by the economic behavior of China, where the sensitivity to anychange has direct effects on the economy of the global country.
As an example of the above, some Latin American countries do not escape this influence, as
China demands large quantities of soybeans, copper, pork and lithium from countries suchas Chile, Argentina and Brazil. However, despite the market opportunities with this country,production practices for these raw materials and living resources are maintained undermanagement systems that continue to be unsustainable and seek to guarantee competitive
prices for Chinese demand at a high environmental cost.
Recent figures evidence the level of demand for resources by this country, being so that,according to MIT's Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), China consolidated by 2019as the world's largest importer of crude oil (US$ 204 billion), iron (US$ 83.1 billion), naturalgas (US$ 47.8 billion), soybeans (US$ 32.1 billion) and copper (US$ 31.3 billion) (Romero &Sarapura, 2021).
While this is happening, the possibilities of energy transition of Latin American countries are
subject to the Chinese market. In the Chilean case, it cannot be denied the contribution that
the Asian country has made in the adoption of clean energy, who managed to achieve thegoal of 20% of renewable energy production with the support of the Chinese government;
however, the road to this achievement was conditioned from the beginning because China
maintains a dominant position in the production of panels and photovoltaic technology,
thanks to its production capacity (Nuñez, 2022).
4. Order now, receive tomorrow: The challenges for the transition / decoupling / ordecarbonization of China's international trade along BRI
Finally, highlighting the importance of the BRI proposal for China in terms of its need todeepen trade links with different regions of the world, for which the import of resources andraw materials together with the export of manufactured and technological goods willcontinue to be one of its priorities, leads us to reflect on how viable it is to achieve anenergy transition in the case of international trade, mainly maritime transport, which isresponsible for about 80% of world trade.
This last point of reflection is based on the premise of how possible it is for China to achievea decarbonization of its economy if it does not consider as part of this the decarbonizationof transportation along the entire BRI logistics chain, which involves land, sea and airtransportation. The problem with any alternative proposed for this, according to a study
conducted by the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute in 2021 (Mallouppas & Yfantis,2021), analyzed the different alternatives applicable to maritime transport, including the useof new fuels, modifications in engines or the combination of different types of technologies
driven by different energy sources. In conclusion of this article, there is still no solution to anenergy source that is safe to handle, has sufficient energy density or is economicallycompetitive in terms of cost. For all these reasons, international trade, and its desire tomaintain increasing levels of shipment quantities and greater efficiency in transport
accuracy of time using renewable energies, is still a major path block, considering thechallenges of thermodynamics laws and entropy.
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