Exit Hummer

Goodbye, and good riddance:

How low has the Hummer brand sunk? China, a country whose water and air pollution beggars description, a country that is the world's largest consumer of coal and the planet's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, a country where conspicuous consumption by newly affluent millions is considered a long-denied imperial birthright, cannot stomach the idea of bringing into its industrial fold "the poster child for American gas guzzling extravagance."

The quixotic dreams of the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. have been dashed. The company could not get regulatory approval from the Chinese government. On Wednesday, General Motors announced that Tengzhong "was unable to complete the acquisition." GM didn't spell out the reasons, but on Thursday China's government made clear its own opinion.

Bloomberg:

Tengzhong hasn't provided China's Ministry of Commerce with a reasonable purchase plan and the government seeks to encourage renewable, green and environmentally friendly energy consumption, Yao Jian, spokesman for the ministry, said at a briefing today in Beijing, without elaborating.

When a country burns as much coal as China does, it's a real slap in the face for a business deal to be quashed because it's insufficiently green. It's also an invitation to accusations of hypocrisy. China's state-owned oil conglomerates certainly haven't been discouraged from snapping up oil companies and drilling rights all over the world, even though there is nothing "renewable, green and environmentally friendly" about oil exploitation.

But oil and coal are critical to Chinese economic growth. Hummers are not. So by rejecting Hummer, a brand whose whole point is to evoke grandiose excess, China gets to make a symbolically significant gesture at very little cost.