America watches China pass it by on the road to development

It’s hard not to read this story from yesterday’s New York Times and conclude that the journalist and paper are internally petrified that the place of America in the world is decreasing, its influence waning:

China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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