Showing Australia the way. My eagle-eyed colleague Glenn Dyer spotted this on the Xinhua website : “China introduces nationwide resource tax, adjusts rate.”
“The State Council, or China’s cabinet, announced on Monday it will tax all resource products starting Nov. 1, extending the resource tax on domestic sales of crude oil and natural gas from some regions to the entire country.
“The list of taxable resources widened from crude oil and natural gas to coal, rare earth, salt and metal from Nov. 1, according to the country’s revised resource tax regulations.
“The expansion of the resource tax is part of China’s efforts to encourage energy conservancy and limit environmental damage.”
Note the last sentence. This is being promoted by China as part of a program to encourage try and control energy consumption and pollution.
Hmmm and Dick Warburton and his trained naysayers in Australian manufacturing, plus Nobel prize laureate, Joe Hockey (along with Tony Abbott, founder of the Hockeynomics school of denying the obvious) claim that China is doing nothing to limit carbon emissions. It is, but like Australia, has a long way to go, but I suppose when you have a centrally-run economy extending a resource tax and using it to try and influence energy consumption is easier than having to do it in Australia.
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