The Patriot Post® · Chinese Green and Smog

Communist China is making bank off of the West’s climate goals and green energy initiatives. It is the number one producer of solar panels, batteries (specifically lithium-ion), and electric vehicles (EVs). China is able to do so cheaply and efficiently because the land there is chock-full of rare earth metals; because of how it runs its manufacturing sector; and because it is flush with loans from the People’s Bank of China to help with the purchase of plants in other countries as well.

This is a problem for the West on many fronts.

First, many of the promised “green” jobs that our climate-fanatical politicians try to sell their constituents are not even going to become a reality. Most of those jobs will be in China, some of which are already being performed by enslaved Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province.

Another thought to consider is that if China is producing most of the EVs, there is a serious risk of data-mining by the Chinese Communist Party. There is also the dangerous possibility that a Chinese-made EV could be controlled and manipulated by the CCP for nefarious purposes.

Moreover, China is only willing to participate in the green game initiatives as long as it profits by bilking the West. This is made perfectly clear through its approach to green energy at home. According to NBC News: “In 2023 the world increased its annual emissions by 398 million metric tons, but it was in three places: China, India and the skies. China’s fossil fuel emissions went up 458 million metric tons from last year, India’s went up 233 million metric tons and aviation emissions increased 145 million metric tons.”

Spectator writer Cindy Yu claims that China is cleaning up its act at home, and “remarkably quickly” at that. Yu reports: “Hundreds of billions of dollars have also been spent on cleaning up China’s rivers and on the ‘Green Wall of China’ in the Gobi desert, a re-forestation project which is intended to reclaim an area the size of Ireland each year. Forests cover almost a quarter of the country, up from 17 percent in 1990. China is on track to have its carbon emissions peak by 2030 and aims to be carbon neutral by 2060: a tough target, but not impossible.” At the same time, Yu admits, “China wants to grab the obvious export opportunities of renewables and assuage the disgruntled middle class by cutting pollution, while continuing to burn record amounts of coal for its own energy needs.”

To combat the dominance of China in this green tech race that the West is quickly losing, there are several options. One idea that was pledged to at the UN’s climate summit in Dubai is investing in nuclear energy. Nuclear is a zero-carbon energy source and is much more efficient. Nuclear energy has long been understood as a viable alternative to coal, though its critics will point to the disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima as potential devastating consequences to nuclear gone wrong.

Twenty-two countries, including the UK and the U.S., signed on to this pledge. Investing in nuclear will help the economy and have the added benefit of breaking China’s green energy tech stranglehold. If nuclear is better than solar or lithium-ion, then China is sunk financially.

Another, more practical step the U.S. should take is to continue Trump’s idea of “decoupling” from China economically. This may be too little, too late though. China has already set its sights on Taiwan. The money that China receives from its green-products industry goes straight into military spending, and it is preparing to take the small island democracy by force.

Taiwan isn’t the only land that China has its greedy eyes on. It is eyeing the disputed area of its border with India. China also has been infringing on other island territories. It is madness for the West to continue enriching a global rival at the expense of global security.

China is a country with ambitious global goals, namely to unseat the U.S. as the world’s hegemon. Achieving those goals through producing cheap green energy products to sell to the climate boondoggle obsessors of the U.S. and other European nations is particularly devious.