Reference News Network, October 13 report - According to the website of the UK's Financial Times on October 10, people from Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa to Kiribati and Tonga in the Pacific are feeling the impact of China's rise as the world's first major "power nation."

Data from the French bank Natixis and the UK think tank "Unburnt Coal" research organization shows that China's solar panel exports reached 236 gigawatts in 2024, more than three times that of 2019, and this year is expected to set another new record. The data also shows that in the past year ending in June, Africa imported over 15 gigawatts of solar panels from China, an increase of 60% compared to the previous year.

However, these statistics only highlight one branch of the comprehensive clean technology industry dominated by China.

Similar trends of thriving clean technology exports can also be seen in electric vehicles and trucks, batteries, wind turbines and gas turbines, small nuclear reactors, and other key transmission equipment for modern power grids such as transformers.

Tim Buckley, head of the Sydney-based research institution Climate Energy Finance, said that China's long-term ambitions in the clean technology field are "profound," which contrasts sharply with its competitor, the United States. President Trump embraced the fossil fuel industry and undermined his predecessor's support for renewable energy.

He said, "I think China is using this in a very geopolitically shrewd way, taking advantage of America's foolishness and regression toward oil countries." He added, "China has won. The US has left the arena."

From a certain perspective, China's path to electrification and its resulting dominance in the clean technology industry is impressive.

In a report released in September, the "Unburnt Coal" research organization listed a series of statistics showing the country's prosperity in clean energy and electricity.

Among them, China invested $62.5 billion in clean energy last year, accounting for nearly one-third of the global investment total. Last year, clean energy contributed $1.9 trillion to China's economy, about one-tenth of China's GDP, equivalent to the entire economic output of Australia.

The pace of electrification, which refers to replacing reliance on fossil fuels with electricity, is equally remarkable. China's electrification rate reached 32% in 2023 and is growing at a rate of about 1 percentage point per year, while the electrification rates in Europe and the United States have stagnated over the past decade.

All in all, these achievements have led analysts to call China the world's first important "power nation." As a global manufacturing superpower, China's economy is increasingly driven by clean technology, with a growing share coming from electricity (not fossil fuels).

For many developing countries, China's abundant clean technology not only creates opportunities to摆脱 dependence on fossil fuels, but also provides opportunities to build new manufacturing industries around cheaper electricity supply.

More and more signs indicate that Beijing believes it can use its leading position in the clean technology sector to position itself as a reliable long-term partner, offering developing countries another choice outside of the United States.

Illaria Mazzocco, an industry policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out that this will have long-term geopolitical implications as Chinese clean technology companies increasingly penetrate markets that American companies are exiting.

She said, "In fact, I think Washington hasn't really realized how popular these new energy and power technologies exported by China are." (Translated by Wang Qun)

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7560564203262591529/

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