When the Chinese Lights Go Out By James Reed
Remember how commo China was going to punish little old Australia to make an example for the rest of the world? Yeah, but what happens when the coal is not there?
“Beijing's blockade of Australian coal is backfiring, with a dozen cities forcing residents and office buildings to ration their electricity use.
The politically-inflicted situation is so bad street lights have been turned off in the city of Yiwu in China's eastern Zheijiang province as factories are down to part-time hours.
In the coastal city of Wenzhou, local Chinese Communist Party authorities have demanded businesses refrain from heating their office unless temperatures are close to freezing.
Southern China's Hunan Province is awash with reports on social media platform Weibo of workers in Changsha having to climb dozens of flights of stairs after elevators were shut down.
I've never had so much trouble going to the office,' a Changsha-based office worker, who didn't wish to be named told the London-based Financial Times.
He was trapped in an elevator for 40 minutes last week because of a power shortage.
Despite the widespread media reports, Zhao Chenxin, the secretary general of China's National Development and Reform Commission, denied household electricity consumption had been affected in the adjoining Hunan, Zheigiang or Jiangxi provinces.
In general, please believe that our ability to ensure stable energy supply is not a problem,' he told a media conference covered by Chinese state-run new wire service Xinhua on Monday.
Former resources minister Matt Canavan weighed in, arguing Australia was better off trying to find other export markets instead of trying to repair relations with China's Communist Party regime.
'There are a lot of people out there who need to be fed, a lot of people who want to switch lights on,' he told Sky News on Tuesday.”
Talk about being hoisted by one’s own petard!
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