OPINION:
The more President Joe Biden sends America down the path of green energy, the more power he puts in the hands of communist China to dominate the world stage.
The greener America goes, the redder America grows.
In recent months, China has seen its control of 17 rare-earth elements skyrocket, due in part to strategic mergers of leading companies, and now, communists hold in their fists the keys of the world’s supplies of products that build everything from smartphones to fighter jets. By the numbers, by the Benchmark Mineral Intelligence numbers, China controls 80% of the world’s rare earth elements; produces 40% of the world’s polysilicon, the main material for solar cells; and manufacturers 73% of the world’s lithium-ion battery cells. Meanwhile, the United Nations Environment Program, UNEP, reported in its 2019 “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment” that China has outspent every nation on earth when it comes to green research and development.
As GreenBiz wrote, “China [spent] nearly $760 billion between 2010 and 2019” on renewable energy, a figure that’s “double the $356 billion investment made by the U.S.” and that even surpassed the $698 billion invested by all of Europe in that same time frame.
“As a result,” GreenBiz wrote, “China not only leads the world in terms of total wind and solar energy installed … it also has positioned itself to be the primary supplier of the clean economy.”
So when Biden shutters the Keystone Pipeline and halts oil and gas drilling on public lands and moves America away from the Donald Trump-era of energy independence toward instead a future of what he called on the campaign trail “environmental justice” — that is to say, the Green New Deal — what he’s really doing is enslaving America to hostile actors.
“The technology to build new green economies is mostly produced in China,” as Foreign Policy reported in 2020.
Want to buy an electric vehicle? China thanks you.
That isn’t stopping certain Democrats under the leadership of Biden from pushing for more tax credits for electric vehicle development. As gas prices around the nation are surging, coincidentally — not so coincidentally — green energy nuts in Congress are pushing to include massive financial carrots in the budget reconciliation package for EV creation. Even Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin sees the pro-China writing on the wall.
“[W]e’re about ready to put our whole eggs in one basket, thinking EVs are the way to go, and we’re going to be absolutely so taken advantage of, to the point to where we’re going to be held hostage by the foreign supply chain that China has a grip on,” Manchin said, E&E News reported. “I just can’t believe we’re even thinking about going down that path … [b]ecause I think it’s stupid.”
It is stupid.
It is decidedly stupid to take economic steps that benefit a communist country like China at the peril of the free market and economic strength of a free country like America — unless, of course, that is the design. Unless, of course, this White House actually wants to benefit China, even at the expense of American Exceptionalism.
And how else to interpret Biden’s long list of concessions to a foreign country so openly hostile to America’s interests — so counter to everything for which America stands, from human rights to free markets — except by seeing the actions as purposeful, as intentional, as fully purposeful and intentional, gasp, America Last policies?
“Biden, 11 U.S. states to boost support for offshore wind energy,” Reuters reported.
“Biden teams with East Coast governors to boost offshore wind,” ABC News reported.
More good news for China.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance found in a study that China built more than half of the world’s wind power structures in 2020 — and the country’s quest to dominate the market is only growing.
“China wants to become a Saudi Arabia of renewables,” Forbes wrote. “Declining US turbine manufacturing combined with a reliance on Chinese manufacturers for much of the world’s rare earth metals required to make solar panels pose a long-term challenge for American interests.”
Part of the reason China’s dominating is because communists aren’t so concerned about clean energy when it comes to their own country.
“In the first six months of [2020], China was the site of almost 90% of all coal plants under construction, and home to half the world’s operating coal-fired electricity capacity,” The Guardian reported, citing research from the Global Energy Monitor.
It takes pollutant-emitting plants to produce clean energy products, it seems.
And while Biden looks overseas for America’s energy, citing the need for net zero and near-net zero emission standards on U.S. soil, China happily speeds its production, pollutants be danged, knowing in the end the chains around the United States are well worth whatever criticisms come from global bureaucrats about emissions.
China’s promised, don’t you know, to rein in its pollutants achieve a net zero in the next few decades.
“Xi Jinping surprised UN delegates [in 2020] that the world’s fastest-growing economy would ensure that its emissions peaked within the next five years and declined to net zero by 2060,” The Guardian wrote.
Well, there you have it.
China promised. And who’s to say communists lie for political sake, right? Not Joe Biden.
“Biden’s biggest clean-energy partner: China,” Politico reported in early 2021.
That’s true. Because it sure isn’t the American people.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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