I'm assuming that China, with its industrial power and leadership position to produce a bunch of green energy components (like solar panels), is well-positioned to benefit from this.
I’m confused a bit, the premise they produce essentially all solar panels got an “indeed” with article-based assertions that exports doubled in one month, and it’s 14 GW more than the total amount installed in Spain ever, both very impressive. :)
Is there anything there about Chinese share?
I had the understanding they produce the vast vast majority as well, but that seems belied by exports doubling near instantaneously with demand? That made me wonder if there’s a lower cost floor producer(s) with, say, 10-20% of production that quickly got booked
> I'm assuming that China, with its industrial power and leadership position to produce a bunch of green energy components (like solar panels), is well-positioned to benefit from this.
My comment points out that, yes, China is wildly benefiting from this. They have 80%+ of the global solar PV market. They also have a deflationary macro environment encouraging persistent exports, along with 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity.
TLDR China has enough manufacturing capacity slack to support scaling exports at this scale immediately.
> The IEA has stated that China’s solar photovoltaic exports account for 80% of the global market. While there is a wide variety of products that make up the solar supply chain, panels, cells and wafers make up the majority of exports by trade value, and can be expressed in GW terms. Ember tracks these products to give a clearer picture of the global solar supply chain.
> China has invested over USD 50 billion in new PV supply capacity – ten times more than Europe − and created more than 300 000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011. Today, China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels (such as polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells and modules) exceeds 80%. This is more than double China’s share of global PV demand. In addition, the country is home to the world’s 10 top suppliers of solar PV manufacturing equipment. China has been instrumental in bringing down costs worldwide for solar PV, with multiple benefits for clean energy transitions. At the same time, the level of geographical concentration in global supply chains also creates potential challenges that governments need to address.
So is it bad that governments don't allow the processes and manufacturing to take place in their own countries, allowing independence and market dynamics and economies of scale to result in yet another order of magnitude cost reduction in solar? Or is it good that China doesn't do ecological protections, worker protections, or the things that western countries do, so we get to profit from the exploitation and pollution of their people and land?
It'd sure be awesome if regulations and regulators in Western countries weren't stupid. This whole game is just insane.
Let's just pawn it of on China, arbitrage the regulatory and human rights differential, and pretend the value is the same as if it's locally manufactured. Then we pocket the difference! Number go up!
Economists have this thing called "comparative advantage".
E.g. the US specialises in software; China in PV and batteries; EU in industrial equipment; the Middle East, oil; Australia IIRC is minerals; each trades what they're optimised for in exchange for what the others are optimised for, and are better off for it.
This works only so long as nobody is dominating a strategic sector, something that everyone needs but they are such a major player they get to set the prices. Monopolistic behaviour, but from a nation that cannot be sued for it rather than a corporation which can be ordered broken up.
Unfortunately, OPEC was already a thing even before Hormuz, the MAGA tariffs are confused and seem to be trying to make the US into an autarky but also keeping trade open so it can be taxed, and China seems to want to be dependent on nobody else while also keeping everyone else dependent on them, which currently leaves the EU and similar currently holding this particular hot potato and goodness only knows in which direction and on what schedule we'll yeet it elsewhere.
> What about Africa and the rest of Asia? Surely they merit mention more than Australia?
This isn't a term paper, I'm just giving illustrations from a handful of places to demonstrate how comparative advantage works.
And sure, other Asian nations are significant (India: Petroleum; Japan: Cars; South Korea: Integrated circuits; Taiwan's defence policy is making TSMC too important to be allowed to be invaded).
But Africa? No. The continent's exports are mostly dominated by South Africa, which is about one third of Australia's; even in aggregate, the entire continent's exports are only at about the level of Canada's.
> Also, Australia's number one export are Hollywood actors.
Trump cancelled a ton of green energy initiatives, why are we blaming the same regulators you imply are a good thing by pointing out that China "doesn't do ecological protections"?
The Chinese Politbureau is toasting themselves so hard, they're going to be drunk for the next decade.
It's a perfect storm for China, they're leading in EVs, battery production, renewables. While the US is busy undermining itself from all directions: as a military superpower, cultural, political, economical.
Europe is waking up slowly, but it is shackled by high internal energy prices, not enough labor, and low desire for innovation.
To me it seems it is a dictatorship with cult leadership again. Xi reminds me more of a modern version of Mao Zedong (without the focus on starving millions to death though). The main reason I see China having a dictator again is so that he can push ahead with his plans of invading Taiwan.
> Europe is waking up slowly
Where do you see that? I don't see it anywhere. They are sleeping.
Really? Europe looks primed to follow the US, just a few steps behind. They're electing their far right leaders and primed to start mass deportation, and are even ahead of us on cultural decline with respect to mass surveillance being used to actively police speech. What moves have they been making that you think indicate an upward trend? How are they going to recover from stagnation and demographic collapse?
Europe seems to be backtracking on some of their far-right flirtations after seeing the idiocracy in the US. Orban was voted out in Hungary after decades in power. Meloni in Italy is often described as far right but her party also strongly supports the EU, NATO and Ukraine.
France is quite likely to put the far-right in power next year, don't get your hopes up. I wish it wouldn't happen but a lot of people seem like they will not vote in a runoff between a far-right candidate and a left-wing (too left for the regular right) or right-wing (too right-wing for the left) candidate. It's absurd but not much one can do about it...
Mass deportation of who? The far right governments of most EU countries just play on basic fear tactics, none of them will ever do anything remotely close to your mass deportation fantasies. The most hardcore things they'll do is apply the laws which already exists regarding foreign people committing crimes and people illegally entering, and even that isn't given
Just look at the post brexit UK or Meloni's Italy...
Trump, at the end of the day, deported about as many people as Obama. He just made a huge song and dance about it. (And blew the military budget of Saudi Arabia while doing it to boot.)
> They're electing their far right leaders and primed to start mass deportation
No amounts of deportations meaningfully affect the demographics. They can at most slow down the new immigration. For all his bluster, Trump deported barely more people than the long-term average in 2025.
But more importantly, the "far right" in Europe is far less crazy than in the US, and they support re-establishing local industry.
> police speech
Europe has never had absolutely free speech like the US. It's by design.
I see, thanks for confirming that you're just an ignorant troll. Your post history confirmed that once more. It does make me curious. Where do you drink your Kool-Aid that gives you these "opinions"?
Well, they act clever. The more important question is why other countries are not as clever. I am getting tired of the "democracies are the better model", which I would agree with, but then China just pushes through with bulldozer sinomarxism turned mega-capitalism. And that's working. So what the heck are those democracies doing other than failing really hard right now?
I don't think a democracy is necessarily a recipe for utmost economic success, it's more about having the ability to replace the leadership if they are failing the people. Without that, it's only a matter of time until you're stuck with a leader who's terrible, even if you currently have a good one.
I think many democracies have been struggling though, to find a good leader, lots of democracies been replacing their leaders over and over in recent times. That's definitely something to worry about, why aren't good leaders applying to be on the ballot or being voted in?
Democracy works when the population is educated and rational. Its easier to get votes via populism that give short term benefit to certain groups but long term hurts education and makes people irrational.
Many Democracies have learnt that politics cannot be trusted in certain fields due to this reason many governments ensure interest rates are not controlled by politicians such as the Federal Reserve. Perhaps we should treat education as something that cannot be trusted by politicians and controlled by an impartial independent organization.
They have a benevolent dictatorship. 99% of dictatorships are utter and total disasters so the world is right to be wary. Pretty much all post monarchy political studies are about how to prevent the concentration of power because it usually goes horribly wrong. But yes, if you actually find a benevolent dictator it is the best form of government. You can’t really beat one decision maker that is immune to consequences.
Chinese solar exports double in a month to hit record high amid energy crisis - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/chinese-solar-export... - April 23rd, 2026