The United States announced more ambitious goals than the Chinese Communist Party’s carbon neutrality at the just-concluded climate summit. However, documents obtained by the Epoch Times reveal the current state of clean energy in China, including photovoltaics, suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party is luring the United States into the trap of a new energy arms race.
At the opening of the Global Climate Summit on April 22, President Joe Biden announced that the United States will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Biden has made combating climate change a priority of his presidency and reversed former President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. President Trump does not subscribe to the politically correct, but scientifically controversial, theory of “climate change.
On April 19, Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged that the United States “lags behind China” in producing solar panels and electric cars, but declared that the United States must lead the green energy revolution in the race against the Chinese Communist Party.
China has monopolized the photovoltaic industry chain
Blinken and Biden’s extravagant hopes for green energy may be out of reach, as the U.S. has been leading the way in technological innovation, but that won’t help break the status quo of the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly on the green energy chain.
According to the National Energy Administration of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on March 30 this year at the State Council’s Renewable Energy News Conference, China is the world’s largest renewable energy market and equipment manufacturer; the photovoltaic industry dominates the world, with seven of the top ten companies in the world ranking in photovoltaic modules. Its industry supplies more than 70% of the global market with modules, and in 2020 China will install about 120 million kilowatts of new wind power and photovoltaic equipment, accounting for more than half of the world’s new installed capacity.
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken also admitted that China holds nearly one-third of the world’s renewable energy patents, and that the U.S. has fallen behind China in solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles.
“Photovoltaic” is short for photovoltaic, which refers to the direct conversion of solar radiation energy into electricity by using the photovoltaic effect of semiconductor materials. Solar energy is one of the most important components of green energy.
Photovoltaic technology originated in the United States at Bell Labs. The photovoltaic industry is a cost-driven industry, and cost advantages drive the industry’s growth.
The Chinese Communist Party has relied on years of financial subsidies and domestic demand created by policy directives to grow China’s photovoltaic industry from the initial processing of raw materials to a “photovoltaic army” covering the entire photovoltaic industry chain. These include LONGi (Xi’an), Tongwei (Tongwei), which dominates the silicon industry, Flat Glass, which is the king of PV glass, and Hangzhou First, which is the leading film manufacturer, and even Huawei, which has been the world leader in PV inverters.
China’s photovoltaic technology is rapidly iterating, driven by the Chinese Communist Party, while the cost of photovoltaic power has fallen by 75% in the last decade.
It is worth noting that green energy, which is currently seen as politically correct, is “results over process,” meaning that the use of renewable energy is overly promoted as a result of its environmental benefits, while ignoring or avoiding the heavy pollution and energy consumption involved in the manufacturing of these green energy sources.
Take the photovoltaic industry as an example, whether it is the ecological damage in the process of manufacturing silicon, panels and cells, the resulting waste, toxic gases, or the recycling of photovoltaic products, all of which can cause huge pollution and risk to the natural environment.
The huge pollution cost hidden in the green industry such as photovoltaic is one of the important reasons why China can develop into the world’s first “green energy” manufacturing country.
China’s self-published “Yuanchuan Institute” wrote in March that China, with the world’s largest market and factories, is able to completely crush its competitors in the photovoltaic and new energy industries in terms of cost and scale; this energy competition is “a more important arms race than semiconductors. “.
Huawei’s “200 million trees” and the blood behind clean energy
In the race for clean energy, the international community is increasingly aware that green energy is not necessarily clean.
For example, Huawei, the telecommunications giant sanctioned by the U.S. chip ban for allegedly collecting intelligence and violating human rights for the Chinese Communist Party, laid out its photovoltaic industry eight years ago and grew to become the leader in the field of photovoltaic inverters with the support of the Chinese Communist Party.
According to Huawei’s official website, in 2015, the National Energy Administration of the Communist Party of China launched a special program to support the “PV runner”, Huawei’s PV inverter was a big success, accounting for more than 50%. 2016’s runner program, Huawei intelligent inverter reached more than 65%.
Huawei’s official website claims that Huawei’s “intelligent photovoltaic” has been applied in more than 60 countries, “cumulative reduction of 148 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to planting more than 200 million trees”, “to create a new model of green, economic use of electricity “.
In March of this year, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the European Union jointly imposed sanctions on Chinese Communist Party officials over the human rights persecution taking place in Xinjiang. Subsequently, the Communist Youth League and Party media launched a political campaign against foreign companies such as H&M, which boycotted cotton in Xinjiang. However, the CCP’s move backfired, prompting an expansion of the cotton situation in Xinjiang and increasing international attention to the human rights persecution taking place in mainland China and the slave labor products produced in Xinjiang.
Since 2019, the ABC, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the U.S. government and Congress, the BBC, and many other international media and government agencies have released investigative reports confirming and condemning human rights persecution and genocide, including “forced labor,” in the Xinjiang region. The Chinese Communist Party denies this.
On April 11, the Wall Street Journal published an article stating that the solar industry’s supply chain is heavily dependent on Xinjiang, where human rights persecution and the resulting tensions have put the industry on edge.
On April 13, Bloomberg published an investigative story (link to story) exposing the alleged involvement of Xinjiang-based photovoltaic companies such as Xinjiang Daquan in slave labor persecution, and questioning the moral uncertainty facing consumers who buy Chinese-made solar panels. -In embracing green energy, they are supporting the CCP’s “forced labor” in disguise.
The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times denied the accusation in an article, calling it an “industrial genocide” against PV in Xinjiang. The Global Times quoted data from the PV industry that China’s polysilicon (PV raw material) production capacity accounts for more than 85% of the world, with Xinjiang silicon accounting for 57% of the country. Xinjiang Daquan’s production capacity accounts for about 15% of the global market share.
The Huanzhou report said China has dominated the PV industry chain, citing data from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), which said that China’s PV manufacturing industry will account for 67% of the global production of silicon, 97% of silicon wafers, 79% of cells and 71% of modules in 2020.
The Chinese Communist Party experts were quoted as saying that “the PV industry is a matter of future new energy discourse”; the West wants to suppress the PV industry in Xinjiang and drive the Chinese Communist Party out of the global value chain, “we have to ask if the Chinese PV industry and the worldwide PV market agree”.
Current affairs commentator Li Linyi analyzed this, saying, “The party media ring time report on Xinjiang PV, leaking the secret that Xinjiang PV is about the CCP’s new energy hegemony layout.” “At the same time, it also proves from the side that China’s PV industry is not a mere corporate economic activity, and the accusations of the Western media are not unfounded.”
EXCLUSIVE: CCP’s massive application of photovoltaics uses subsidies to seize the market
In fact, internal Communist Party documents obtained by the Epoch Times have revealed that PV has been used in large numbers by the CCP in political campaigns such as poverty alleviation, and that competition in the field of new energy sources such as PV has gone beyond the industry.
For example, the policy document “Centralized PV Poverty Alleviation Power Station Income Distribution Management Measures” issued by the government of the Communist Party of China’s Inner Mongolia Moli Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner (Moqi for short) shows that the Moqi government has developed a PV poverty alleviation income distribution scheme based on the contents of the National Energy Administration (Guo Neng Fa Xin Neng (2018) 29) and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government (Nei Fu Ban Fa (2018) 123) documents.
The method for Moqi Alla town Alha shallow village 48.6 MW centralized photovoltaic poverty alleviation power station income distribution, stipulates that eligible poor households “each household through photovoltaic poverty alleviation project stable income of more than 3,000 yuan per year”; after 2020 “photovoltaic poverty alleviation power station sustained poverty alleviation 20 years “.
The propaganda department of the CPC Xingtai Municipal Committee of Hebei Province disclosed in the “report on precise poverty alleviation work” made on June 7, 2018, that the propaganda department of the municipal party committee is responsible for poverty alleviation work in Cui Zhai Village, Guanzhai Township, Julu County, and the propaganda department has formulated a precise poverty alleviation work program to promote “ensuring that all 39 poor households and 95 people in the village enjoy the 2 poverty alleviation policies of photovoltaic industry and dairy farming industry. The average household income increased by more than 3,300 yuan”.
Screenshot of Hengshui Foreign Affairs Office’s 2016 Handbook for Precise Poverty Alleviation (Da Ji Yuan)
The 2016 Handbook of the Foreign Affairs Office of Hengshui City, Hebei Province of the Communist Party of China (CPC) for the Precise Poverty Eradication Working Group in Villages to Help Households shows that the summary of poverty alleviation work for poor household Hao Mougen in that year mentions to “draw on foreign experience to develop photovoltaic power stations”.
According to the official website of the State Council of the Communist Party of China’s Poverty Alleviation Office in January 2015, the Communist Party of China is promoting the implementation of ten major projects for precise poverty alleviation, including the “photovoltaic poverty alleviation project”.
(Screenshot of the document “13th Five-Year Plan for Solar Energy Development” by the National Energy Administration of the Communist Party of China)
According to the “13th Five-Year Plan for Solar Energy Development” (PDF link) issued by the National Energy Administration of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in December 2016, the “photovoltaic poverty alleviation project” launched by the CPC is to establish distributed photovoltaic power plants in poor areas, with the goal of covering 2.8 The goal is to cover 2.8 million poor households without working capacity, with an average annual cash income of 3,000 yuan per household; the project will also “enjoy priority in the national renewable energy tariff surcharge subsidy”. The plan shows that the Chinese Communist Party authorities have also implemented a “photovoltaic runner program” to support enterprises.
These documents reveal that PV poverty alleviation and development policies are just one of the CCP’s plans to use subsidies to promote and monopolize the PV industry.
According to an analysis by the Yuanchuan Institute, the CCP’s policy of simply subsidizing the PV industry was hit hard by anti-dumping sanctions in Europe and the United States in 2012. According to the article, the government launched a massive new PV subsidy policy in 2013 to stimulate domestic demand, which quickly brought the industry up from the bottom.
According to public reports, the CCP’s subsidy policy for the PV industry is divided into three phases.
On July 16, 2009, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the “Notice on the Implementation of the Golden Sun Demonstration Project” (Caijian [2009] No. 397), which subsidized the PV industry through financial subsidies. The policy subsidizes projects included in the Golden Sun Demonstration Project by 50% to 70% of the total investment.
Before the implementation of this policy, the total installed capacity of PV projects in China in 2008 was only 140 MW. The “Golden Sun” subsidy has been implemented for 3 years, and the total installed capacity of the PV projects included in the Golden Sun demonstration project is as high as 6300 MW.
Benchmark feed-in tariff (2013-2019). in May 2013 the CPC stopped the Golden Sun demonstration project financial subsidies, and in August launched a “benchmark feed-in tariff” subsidy policy. According to this policy, PV power plant projects can receive “renewable energy development fund subsidies” (also known as “kilowatt-hour subsidies”) in addition to the feed-in tariff revenue.
Feed-in tariff (2019-present): On April 28, 2019, the CPC launched the “Notice of the National Development and Reform Commission on Improving the Feed-in Tariff Mechanism for Photovoltaic Power Generation”, which changed the benchmark feed-in tariff to a guideline price from July 1, 2019. The policy requires that the PV project feed-in tariff be determined through market competition and not higher than the guide price before it can receive subsidies.
The CCP has used subsidies, as well as policy-based market demand such as the “poverty alleviation project” and the “runner-up program” to stimulate the PV industry and thereby gain a monopoly market position.
According to the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), China has ranked first in the world in terms of new PV installations every year since 2013 and first in terms of cumulative PV installations for six consecutive years since 2015.
According to IRENA, China’s cumulative installed PV capacity reached 204 GW by the end of 2019, surpassing the total installed PV capacity of the United States and the EU-28.
With the scale effect and improved management and technical efficiency, the Chinese PV industry has also been decreasing its costs and further strengthening its competitive monopoly advantage.
The CCP has adjusted feed-in tariffs several times during this period and has begun to gradually reduce subsidies, with the ultimate goal of removing subsidies and achieving grid parity.
The National Energy Administration of the Communist Party of China declared at a press conference in March this year that it would promote new energy as the main source of electricity supply, and that the proportion of clean energy in the incremental energy consumption would reach 80% in the 14th Five-Year Plan period.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued a draft of the “Notice on Matters Relating to the New Energy Feed-in Tariff in 2021” for public comment on April 6, preparing to set a “guide price” for new wind power and photovoltaic projects around the country, significantly reducing subsidies and allowing photovoltaic and wind power to officially enter the era of price parity from this year, according to Caixin.
However, the draft also encourages local governments to introduce targeted support policies to take over the central subsidies to support the development of wind power, photovoltaic and other new energy industries.
Commentator Li Linyi believes that the CCP’s policies on subsidies and poverty alleviation for the PV industry are its usual routine. “The CCP first relies on subsidies to prop up a large industry, then squeezes out almost all competitors in the world, making the whole world dependent on the CCP-controlled supply chain; finally monopolizes the market and then raises prices to make big money, or seeks other political interests with it.”
Li Linyi said, “This is essentially a form of asymmetric competition – competing with the private sector with state subsidies and administrative intervention.”
China’s “environmental protection” banner lures Biden into a new energy race
In response to the Biden administration’s clean energy policy ideas and Xi Jinping’s 14th Five-Year Plan for environmental protection and new energy, Li Linyi said, “This trend is actually the CCP waving the banner of environmentalism and luring Biden into the quagmire and trap of the new energy arms race. “
According to Li Linyi, environmentalism has become the “political correctness” of the West after decades of penetration by communist ideology, and the Chinese Communist Party, faced with a growing international coalition against the Communist Party and joint sanctions on human rights issues, is trying to use the environmental flag to carry out a unified war against its friends in the U.S. government and U.S. allies, while taking the opportunity to seize the new energy market.
Indeed, Biden just proposed a more aggressive goal than Xi Jinping’s 2060 carbon neutrality at the climate summit, and has also launched a $2 trillion infrastructure plan in the past few months under the banner of environmental protection and new energy sources. But senior U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) criticized Biden’s green energy plan as a big gift to the Chinese Communist Party, which already dominates these industries.
Rubio’s concerns are well-founded. For example, an April 26 Voice of America report quoted U.S. experts as saying that the U.S. should work with China because it already dominates manufacturing.
However, Rubio pointed out that Biden’s plan would massively increase the purchase of solar panels from China, using U.S. taxpayers’ money to buy Chinese Communist slave labor products, which makes clean energy no longer clean.
Former Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger also said at an April 15 online hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that the Chinese Communist Party is weaponizing trade and using supply chains to coerce the international community. Bo Ming said the CCP is making the world increasingly dependent on it to advance its authoritarian political aims.
Li Linyi said, “Unless the U.S. government can address its dependence on the CCP’s supply chain, Biden’s sky-high infrastructure plan will fall into the CCP’s environmental trap.”
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