In recent years, China hopes to achieve economic transformation and reduce energy-intensive industries, thus solving the problem of excessive dependence on fossil fuels to a certain extent. This has also enabled China to gradually become the world leader in the field of clean energy.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China has one-third of the world’s wind power, one-quarter of the installed capacity of solar energy, and six of the world’s top 10 manufacturers of solar panels and 10 of the largest wind turbine manufacturers, respectively, and four in China. China's electric vehicle sales are more than the sum of other countries. However, due to China's huge demand for energy, the effect of these advances in the field of renewable energy is still small—non-fossil fuel energy still accounts for only 12% of total energy. %. But in the end, if China continues to 'green up' in energy or will expand its geopolitical influence, it will benefit in three ways.
First, if the country can produce more energy, it will reduce its reliance on imports of fossil fuels that are vulnerable to global instability. Second, China’s “soft power” will also be improved. This is clearly manifested in China’s climate agreement in Paris. In the final part, and perhaps most importantly, the development of clean energy technologies—especially batteries and electric vehicles—will enable China to stay at the forefront of energy transformation before the United States and Europe, and provide new impetus for economic growth.
To date, many Western observers are skeptical about China's development of renewable energy technologies. On the one hand, in 2012, the European Commission initiated anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on China's photovoltaic product exports. On the other hand, Chinese people also have renewable policies. It needs to be improved, such as the construction of large-scale projects in remote locations, but no supporting power lines. Some Western experts believe that China's lack of a sound regulatory system has contributed to a smooth transition to clean energy.
However, such criticism may have underestimated the tremendous enthusiasm of the Chinese people for pouring in clean energy, and their ambitions for the dispersion of energy supply and decarbonization. These two factors will place China in an advantageous position to develop future energy technologies. China is also constantly improving its regulatory system. Sophie Lu, of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said that nearly one-third of the 53GW of photovoltaics added in China last year belonged to distributed solar energy. This will also increase the utilization of solar panels. China also More emphasis is placed on strengthening cooperation with other countries in the field of clean energy, which will also benefit the world.
By contrast, some U.S. experts are concerned that the Trump administration's lack of attention to renewable energy will make the U.S. industry at a disadvantage relative to China. The studies by Deva Shalha and Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution show that The peak period of US clean energy technology patents and venture capital investment has recently passed. Now, more and more patents come from foreign companies, especially Chinese companies.
