It's fascinating to watch as China steals a march on the United States in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) stakes while uber climate change denier - well he is after all a serial liar, so that fits aptly - President Donald Trump, luxuriates in his goal of propelling the country he leads into the world's most "Brown" economy.

Fossil fuels? You got it. Lax governance? Bring it on. Wealth inequality? Let's have some more.

No Mr Trump, in case you hadn't noticed, the economics of going green and paying heed to ESG considerations make utter financial sense, as has been proven by quantifiable forensic measures. China has got that joke for quite some time now and will be reaping the comparative advantage of that cognizance as the years roll by.

It's very easy to regard the ESG movement as consisting primarily of study groups, task forces and think tanks and that nothing actually gets done other than the wheeling out of a succession of well-meaning platitudes.

But that's yesterday's news. Things are happening in the real economies of countries that pay heed to ESG and those that do are beginning to reap rewards.

And no more is that the case than with China, where the financial authorities, guided by the influential Green Finance Committee, are enacting ESG-related policies that will, in the long run, translate into significant comparative advantage for the country, with or without a Trump-induced trade war.

Consider some of the fascinating details that were revealed by former People's Bank of China chief economist and chair of the GFC, Ma Jun at the annual conference of the Principles for Responsible Investment a few months back.

For example, Ma told of the stark contrast between green financing and loans made to the "Brown" fossil fuel-dependent industrial sector. The NPL ratio in China's banking system originated from the green sector were running at just 0.4% at the end of last year, whereas loans printed from the "Brown" sector were running at a 1.8% ratio.

Meanwhile a pilot scheme run in Huzouh via which local government subsidizes green loans made by banks, using a sliding scale of ratios according to how environmentally friendly a project is - from "dark green" to "green" to "light green" with dark being the greenest, has reduced banks' cost of capital, boosted their return on equity and helped lure private capital into the green sector. Everybody wins.

Then there is the tantalizing prospect of securitizing green loans, in the process initiating disintermediation away from the banks and towards institutional investors, spreading risk, freeing up banks' balance sheets for further lending and creating a universe of transparent pricing points for investors.

It all makes the most eminent sense. In the meantime, while America has a President who egregiously shrugs off the burdening of US taxpayers with a record US$21.5 trillion national debt to fund his tax cuts because he "won't be around" when that burden becomes critical, or who suggests on his Twitter feed that global warming is a myth because he experienced a record cold day on the golf course and that, if it turns out to be true, it's too late to act anyhow, China is acting and stealing a march on its rival in the global economic pre-eminence race.

The latter begins increasingly to look uber smart, while the former under the tutelage of Donald Trump, increasingly dumb. ESG will be the game changer, and China is playing a very long game.

The article is a commentary from Jonathan Rogers, who is a contributing editor at The Asset.