CHINA - China is ending COVID-zero.

According to Green Biz, the reasoning behind the decision is economic. China spent decades making itself a critical link in global supply chains, and disruptions cascading from COVID-zero periodically made trade partners question the stability of relying on China into the future. Likewise, China spent decades asserting global dominance in clean energy technologies. And that investment is paying off: The country is responsible for manufacturing half of the world's wind turbines, two-thirds of all solar panels and almost 90 percent of lithium ion batteries, according to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.

Green Biz announced that now, with the clean energy transition picking up speed, the U.S. and other Western countries are aiming to make up for lost time. Last year, the U.S. passed a slew of federal policies, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Bill and the CHIPS and Science act, designed to take back a little of the clean energy pie from China. Could China's move to end COVID-zero be motivated by its need to maintain dominance in clean energy supply chains as well? If so, will the end of COVID-zero lead to more cheap clean energy technologies available for buyers?

"The U.S. and Europe lost the ball on the solar PV side," said Meyer. "It will be difficult to make up lost time to create competitive, domestic producers of PV."

According to Green Biz as U.S. and Chinese relations continue to strain, there is renewed interest from congress to shore up domestic supply chains. The GOP's energy agenda has a renewed focus on national security -- which means getting less dependent on China. In the meantime, China, in "two can play that game" diplomacy, is showing how little it cares by banning the export of technology and machinery to produce solar panel components. While the ban does not extend to Chinese-made solar panels, it will likely hurt the Western push to boost domestic solar manufacturing.

Source: Green Biz