What Will China’s Green-Tech Ambitions Cost the World?

In Beijing, some influential voices believe this is the perfect moment for China to intensify its green-energy statecraft. Until now, the global expansion of green technology has been led mainly by Chinese enterprises searching for markets that can absorb their excess manufacturing capacity — not by a premeditated government strategy to build soft power. Most of China’s exports, moreover, have been sales of equipment or construction services, not the deeper transfer of technological know-how or manufacturing experience. Still, some analysts believe that there are benefits in keeping China’s influence in the realm of business, not politics. As Javier Borràs of the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs has written: “China is managing to create a new kind of green soft power that doesn’t need Beijing’s stultifying propaganda.”