Power Moves
There’s a Race to Power the Future. China Is Pulling Away.
Beijing is selling clean energy to the world, Washington is pushing oil and gas. Both are driven by national security.
China
Solar in Shanxi Province
Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
U.S.
Oil in California
J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
By David Gelles in New York; Somini Sengupta in Brasília and in Tirunelveli, India; Keith Bradsher in Beijing; and Brad Plumer in Washington.
June 30, 2025
In China, more wind turbines and solar panels were installed last year than in the rest of the world combined. And China’s clean energy boom is going global. Chinese companies are building electric vehicle and battery factories in Brazil, Thailand, Morocco, Hungary and beyond.
At the same time, in the United States, President Trump is pressing Japan and South Korea to invest “ t rillions of dollars” in a project to ship natural gas to Asia. And General Motors just killed plans to make electric motors at a factory near Buffalo, N.Y., and instead will put $888 million into building V-8 gasoline engines there.
The race is on to define the future of energy. Even as the dangers of global warming hang ominously over the planet, two of the most powerful countries in the world, the United States and China, are pursuing energy strategies defined mainly by economic and national security concerns, as opposed to the climate crisis. Entire industries are at stake, along with the economic and geopolitical alliances that shape the modern world.
The Trump administration wants to keep the world hooked on fossil fuels like oil and gas, which have powered cars and factories, warmed homes and fueled empires for more than a century. The United States is the world’s largest producer of oil and the largest exporter of natural gas, offering the potential for what Mr. Trump has called an era of American “ energy dominance” that eliminates dependence on foreign countries, particularly rival powers like China.
POWER MOVES
Inside China's drive to dominate clean energy. First in a series.
China is racing in an altogether different direction. It’s banking on a world that runs on cheap electricity from the sun and wind, and that relies on China for affordable, high-tech solar panels and turbines. China, unlike the United States, doesn’t have much easily accessible oil or gas of its own, so it is eager to eliminate dependence on imported fossil fuels and instead power more of its economy with renewables.
The dangers for China of relying on politically unstable regions for energy were underscored recently when Israel attacked Iran, which sells practically all its oil exports to China.
While China still burns more coal than the rest of the world and emits more climate pollution than the United States and Europe combined, its pivot to cleaner alternatives is happening at breakneck speed. Not only does China already dominate global manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, E.V.s and many other clean energy industries, but with each passing month it is widening its technological lead...
The rest of a very long depressing story how America is losing to China and lost the race to clean, sustainable energy:
nytimes.com
China’s biggest automaker, its biggest battery maker and its biggest electronics company have each introduced systems that can recharge electric cars in just five minutes, all but erasing one of the most annoying hassles of E.V.s, the long charging times. China has nearly 700,000 clean energy patents, more than half of the world's total. Beijing’s rise as a clean power behemoth is altering economies and shifting alliances in emerging countries as far afield as Pakistan and Brazil.
The country is also taking steps that could make it hard for other countries, particularly the United States, to catch up. In April, Beijing restricted the export of powerful “rare earth” magnets, a business China dominates, unless they’re already inside fully assembled products like electric vehicles or wind turbines. While China recently started issuing some export licenses for the magnets, the moves signal that the world may face a choice: Buy China’s green energy technology, or do without. |
