Introduction

When Americans think of Chinese exports, we usually think of things that carry "Made in China" stickers -- toys, shoes, consumer electronics, and the like -- rather than pollution. But China is in fact starting to send us high volumes of smog, acid rain, mercury, and greenhouse gases, too. These foul byproducts of its superheated economic growth do not stay confined within any geographic borders. They are contributing to environmental devastation not just in China, which has many of the world's most polluted cities, but also here in the United States and around the world. For example, researchers at Harvard University recently discovered that a plume of dirty air over New England was comprised of chemicals that could only have originated in China. Particularly worrisome are coal power plant emissions of mercury, a toxin that is especially dangerous for pregnant women and children.

China is fueling its frenetic economic expansion -- a growth rate that has reached 8 percent per year, and is expected to rise even higher -- with prodigious consumption of energy, including its own abundant supplies of coal, and, increasingly, imported oil and natural gas. In addition to the environmental impact, China's voracious appetite for that energy is responsible for the lion's share of the surge in demand that is driving up world crude oil prices. As a result, American consumers are feeling the pinch in the form of escalating prices at the gas pump.

Beijing's emergence as a major consumer of oil and gas also has important ramifications for international relations and U.S. security. Just as the United States is finally moving away from its old discredited policy of propping up despotic, oil-rich regimes to assure "a stable supply of energy," China seems bent on taking our place. It has, for example, forged close ties in recent years with some of the world's least savory regimes: Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Venezuela. Most recently, as Europe and the United States have worked together to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear weapons programs, China has undercut them by dropping broad hints that it will veto any attempt by the United Nations to impose economic sanctions on Tehran.

These developments expose the basic weakness of the Bush-Cheney administration's petro-centric and insular energy policies. For all their talk of "energy independence," it is impossible for the United States to escape the reality of global interdependence when it comes to assuring a healthy environment and abundant, affordable energy. Yet the White House, abetted by the Republican Congress, clings obstinately to a narrow set of unilateralist positions that prevent America from doing anything serious to stop global warming, curtail mercury emissions, or reduce our dangerous dependence on oil. In recent years, Americans have reaped the bitter fruits of the administration's "go-it-alone" approach to national security. We must not make the same mistake now on energy and the environment.