John Kerry has an op-ed in today’s Financial Times on our clean energy future with China. An excerpt:

Back then, a handshake between Nixon and Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was enough to change the world. Today, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and history’s biggest emitter, China and America, must change the world again — and nothing less than a transformation of the energy economy will suffice.
The question is, can we forge a partnership bold enough to prevent a climate catastrophe? With December’s make-or-break climate talks in Copenhagen looming, the US-China negotiations are an important test. Because other countries will take their cues from us, a successful global climate deal will depend on America and China signalling our seriousness now.
The good news is that, two decades after Nasa scientist Jim Hansen first warned Congress of the threat, the House has passed landmark climate legislation. I am working with Senator Barbara Boxer on a Senate version. America is transforming itself from laggard to leader.
It is well known that China refuses to accept binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Less well known is that China is rapidly embracing clean energy solutions — in some cases outpacing the US. On my visit to China in May, I met with leaders who, until recently, had not been willing to entertain this discussion. Now they are unequivocal that China grasps the urgency and is ready to be a “positive, constructive” player in international climate change negotiations.

Apparently less well known is that the New York Times’s reporting on China’s alternative energy sector in early July included this nugget, which seems to have escaped Senator Kerry’s keen eye while on his trip:

Some top Chinese regulators even worry that Beijing’s mandates are pushing companies too far too fast. The companies may be deliberately underbidding for the right to build new projects and then planning to go back to the government later and demand compensation once the projects lose money.
“The problem is we have so many stupid enterprises,” said Li Junfeng, who is the deputy director general for energy research at China’s top economic planning agency and the secretary general of the government-run Renewable Energy Industries Association.

In a country as corrupt as China, it’s impossible to know who’s making what and how on the construction of these alternative energy assets. With that in mind, I’m not sure China is the “constructive” player John Kerry thinks it will be.