CHENGDU, China — A decade ago, Tongwei Group was a maker of fish food and livestock feed. Today, the company, based in this famously overcast corner of southwest China, is the world’s largest producer of solar cells, the components of panels that turn sunlight into electricity.
Tongwei encapsulates how China has come to dominate global clean technology markets. China produces 80 percent of the world’s solar panels — compared with the United States’ 2 percent — and makes about two-thirds of the world’s electric vehicles, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries.That may be good for the Earth, which desperately needs to move away from fossil fuels to slow global warming.
Combined, this raises the specter of another trade war, one that activists say could pit protectionism against planet.China’s metamorphosis into clean tech giant was ordered from the very top. Leader Xi Jinping made supporting “essentially green” industries a priorityspot in an otherwise gloomy economic outlook
That has forced them to search for profits overseas, where there are more buyers willing to pay higher prices.This, critics say, could push American and European competitors out of the global market.