I did it again: I bought way too many mooncakes last week, excited to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of my favourite Chinese holidays. Of course, I should know by now that few of my Swedish friends appreciate the rich (and, apparently, acquired) taste of the savoury-sweet delicacy, even when accompanied by a pot of aged Pu’er tea. It’s all wasted on them. I might coax some into honouring the tradition by extolling the poetic symbolism of this moon-gazing feast, but the mooncakes themselves are never a hit. Although Western pallets have advanced to the taste of salted caramel, savoury hardboiled egg yolks embedded in a gooey paste featuring sweet red beans, sesame or lotus seeds inevitably prove a step too far.
Come to think of it, the frown of distaste on my friends’ faces when tasting the Chinese pastry bears an uncanny resemblance to how sustainable investors approach China in general. Oh, the fury I can unleash by simply suggesting that ‘sustainable Chinese investment’ does not necessarily have to be an oxymoron! Just writing this, I can anticipate the backlash.
So, I’d better hurry up and tell you that I, too, was appalled reading the recent report compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The human rights violations documented in their assessment are deeply problematic. And so is the pressure to block the report’s publication from Beijing that Michelle Bachelet, the ex-UN human rights chief, had to endure.
Yes, what is happening in Xinjiang is a disgrace and, unfortunately, far from the only one in the vast Middle Kingdom. There are the draconian measures designed to uphold a zero-Covid policy that is obviously not working, the web of surveillance, skilfully weaved by business and government so that no Chinese citizen can escape, the Great Wall of censorship veiling not just overseas information but also what’s left of free speech, to name but a few.
And yet, and yet. Call me brainwashed, but after spending years and making tons of friends over there, I can’t help but notice the good stuff coming out of China, too. The world’s largest developing country has certainly made significant progress in meeting some of the SDGs at least. “China has achieved SDG1 10 years ahead of schedule,” boasted Huang Runqiu, the Chinese minister of ecology and environment, recently, referring to the fact that his country has lifted all of 98.99 million rural residents out of poverty. That is quite a milestone, I believe.
And although Chinese climate pledges are often deemed underwhelming and/or dismissed as little more than propaganda, evidence suggests that the government has been fairly successful in meeting climate commitments of the past. The pragmatic approach of under-promising and relentless grinding seems to work. Whether driven by a desire to reduce air pollution, enhance energy security or dominate the industries of the future, China has been the world’s leading investor in renewable energy since 2013.
The results are there. Last week, the National Energy Administration announced (in Chinese, sorry) that in the first half of 2022, newly installed renewable energy capacity in China amounted to 65.02 million kilowatts (kW), or 77% of the total. This means that renewable energy now accounts for almost a third of China’s total energy capacity. Which matters greatly, of course, as the country is still by far the world’s largest consumer of coal and the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide.
So, there you have it, the Bertie Botts of a mooncake that China’s sustainability story is. Alternating between sweet success, nauseating abuses and crunchy details, it is definitely an acquired taste.
Maybe there is a way around it though. Having spent her formative years in China, my daughter, too, is loyally observing the mooncake tradition. She is much more ambitious and diligent than I ever was, though, insisting on making all her pastry herself from scratch. Which has its culinary rewards. This year, for instance, she managed to produce amazing Hong Kong-style snow-skin mooncakes filled with toasted rice custard and pecan praline. No nasty double-yolk fillings there, only deliciousness.
If you put in the time and the energy, China might still surprise you.
