Tim Sahay interviews Mathias Larsen in Phenomenal World:
TIM SAHAY: China’s total dominance in green technologies has provoked anxiety in many countries among policymakers, analysts, and captains of industry—overcapacity and dumping are the watchwords of the moment. One prescription in response has been that China should set up green factories abroad, rather than send out ships laden with green goods. So is that happening?
ML: What our research demonstrates is, in summary, a massive increase of Chinese outward investments in the manufacturing of clean technologies. This both supports the host countries’ development and supports a global green transition.
There are five key takeaways. The first is the scale of investments: more than $200 billion, toward $250 billion, with a rapid increase since 2022. It’s nearing $100 billion a year, which is around the same amount that China gave in infrastructure loans when that peaked in 2018. In comparison, the Marshall Plan by the US after the Second World War was around $200 billion in total. The Marshall Plan locked Europe into US technologies and standards, so when we see sums of this size, we can ask whether it will potentially have a similar effect in the future.
To put this in perspective, China’s domestic investments in green manufacturing were $340 billion in 2024. Compared to $70 billion in outwards green FDI, that’s a fifth.
More here.
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