The following is a headline from the UK based Financial Times newspaper on Oct 6.
Notice the phrase “China and India.” But why? As the article itself would admit:
“As of October 3, India’s 135 thermal power plants had just four days’ worth of coal stocks, down from 13 days on August 1, the power ministry said on Tuesday.“
In other words, the “crisis” hasn’t even happened yet, at least by the time of the writing of the article. So how did the Financial Times work out that there is a crisis in “China and India”?
Okay, four days is not a very long time and maybe you cannot fault the Financial Times for looking a bit ahead. We will come to this. But first let us note the similar spate of articles about India’s looming power crisis in global media. Here is the BBC:
“Brink” of an unprecedented power crisis. So it hasn’t happened yet. And here is Al Jazeera on Oct 6.
Again, pay close attention to the exact words. India “faces” a growing crisis. So it hasn’t happened yet. But we already have the Financial Times, BBC and Al Jazeera warning us about what is going to happen. See the level of concern for India. See how much they love us and worry about us. Isn’t it touching?
Now, is there a problem with coal supplies in India at the moment? Absolutely. The Central government is having non-stop meetings with state governments, coal suppliers and all stakeholders to keep the supply chain from breaking down. Many mines have been flooded due to monsoon rain. In the international market, the price of coal (as with energy in general) has shot up massively. Power demand is surging with the economy showing a strong recovery. The festival season is here as well. A perfect storm. And so, Coal India is ramping up production, BCCL is racing against the clock. Basically, it is all hands on deck.
But the blackouts haven’t happened yet. We are on thin ice, but we are getting by. You cannot deny that.
Then why is the international media so interested? Why are they circling like birds of prey, eager to pick India apart?
Am I being too prickly here? Isn’t the media just doing its job, picking up early on a big story that literally affects hundreds of millions of people?
Yes, I would have said that. But only if I noticed a similar eagerness in the media to pick up on the much bigger and actually ongoing (instead of “looming“) power crisis in China.
In China, things are bad. When a power crisis happens, the usual thing is to shut down factories first. They always give top priority to household electricity. But in China, the trouble spread from factories to people’s homes at least two weeks ago. In many provinces across China, the government is switching off household power during the day, advising folks to make do with sunlight. Power supply at night is not guaranteed either, and people are learning to live with flashlights and generators.
The factory shutdowns in China have already impacted global supply chains. There are reports that the government in China is giving some preference to suppliers of the biggest name brands such as Apple and Tesla, just to maintain some appearance that things are fine. But you can’t fool everyone. Goldman-Sachs has already cut its GDP forecast for China. In other words, all the things that happen in the late stages of a crisis have already happened. Unlike India, where the crisis is still “looming.”
So how did the global media, if it was ever doing its job, miss the crisis in China? Why are they only talking about it only now that the blackouts are in plain sight, the factories have come to a halt and the GDP growth cuts have already been measured? Why didn’t they panic a week in advance like they did for India?
Show me all those articles in BBC and Al Jazeera and such warning about China months ago, counting down from a week before the crisis. I tried to find such articles dated from June, July or August. Considering how big the Chinese economy is and how vital their manufacturing is for the world, you would have expected the global media giants to be hot on their trail for the biggest story of the year.
I didn’t find anything. The closest I came was this story in Bloomberg on Sep 16, when the crisis was already running deep in China.
Did you notice the exact wording of the headline? And don’t miss the line below it: China poised for winter power deficit despite preparation. Be scared. Be very scared.
The most incisive observation I came across in recent years was this line I read somewhere: the pandemic didn’t change the world, it only revealed who is really in charge.
Maybe you are thinking: but India is a democracy. We are not China, where the only news that leaks out is how global factors are to blame for the problems in China. And how people should get ready for a crisis, despite preparation by dear leader Xi Jinping. In contrast, everything about India is in the open, despite what Freedom House says.
In that case, how about the United Kingdom, the home of the BBC?
Ah, the military. On the streets of a free country, distributing fuel to citizens. The first sign of a thriving first world nation, right?
No, this is not some British version of NREGA to give dignity to their soldiers with nothing to do after the surrender in Afghanistan. This is a full blown crisis. In many British cities, up to 90 percent of petrol pumps have run dry.
They say the crisis is not one of fuel itself, but of truck drivers. Apparently, these truck drivers used to be mostly migrants from poorer European Union countries. And now they have all gone home. Also apparently, there was no way to predict this crisis even four days before it happened…
Right, BBC?
So the global media couldn’t see the crisis coming in China. And when it came, they found themselves reminding people everywhere that dear leader Xi Jinping has been preparing for this. And that it isn’t his fault anyway, but the fault of everyone else. They couldn’t even foresee the day when the military would be needed to keep British people supplied with fuel.
But they have been on high alert about India. They have been looking out for us for weeks now.
One final thing. In this global energy crisis, where are our saviors? Where are our visionaries and our revolutionaries? There is another Friday coming up this week. I suppose a school strike might be in order. No Fridays for future to save us now?
I know, I know. How dare I ask…