The Iran war is turbocharging China's bid to become the world's first electrostate | DW News

0:00 Far far away from the straight of Hormuz,

0:02 something really interesting is happening.

0:05 Countries are changing their energy strategy almost overnight.

0:09 Decisions that might have once taken years are being made in weeks.

0:13 So, we're seeing some really interesting dynamics playing out in Asia,

0:17 in Europe, in North Africa, in number of places around the world.

0:20 Um, in Asia, some are calling it the Ukraine moment for Asia.

0:25 the um the analogy being that in Europe after Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

0:31 we realize the extent to which um

0:33 European countries were reliant on uh Russian gas.

0:38 Um and in a similar way,

0:40 Asian countries have suddenly been realizing the extent to which

0:43 they've been reliant on LG on liqufied natural gas imports.

0:47 That's Sam Gil, associate fellow at Chattam House and senior

0:50 visiting research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

0:54 and he's an expert on the geopolitics of energy with a focus on China

0:59 and says that country after country is not only pivoting to renewable energy,

1:04 they are making a run for it and

1:06 a number of countries have been making plans to switch very quickly.

1:10 The Indonesian president called it a wakeup call for um electrification.

1:16 Um announced that motorcycles need to switch over to become electric.

1:21 um announced a major new solar pledge in Vietnam.

1:24 The uh largest conglomerate in the country, Ving Group,

1:28 um announced that it is cancelling the country's largest LNG fired

1:34 um power plant project and replacing it with a renewables project.

1:38 Um in the Philippines, in South Korea, they've announced uh big solar pledges.

1:43 In Egypt, there's a major new um uh solar uh project planned.

1:48 And all of this really just in the past couple of months

1:50 in response to an obvious need to um uh to make our economies resilient.

1:56 So there's a clearly a kind of strong energy security argument which is

2:01 about the volatility and um variability

2:05 and uh entanglements associated with imported fossil fuels.

2:09 Um, and for the first time really, it's it's the same argument as uh as the one

2:14 that had um has typically been associated with the climate change argument.

2:18 Uh, which is to say it's a renewable energy uh argument or at least

2:22 uh it's driving a case for non-fossil uh fuel sources of energy,

2:27 including of course nuclear as well.

2:29 Uh in Japan, there's a major conversation also about um the need potentially

2:33 to restart uh nuclear energy plants as a as a source of uh resilient energy.

2:39 Um the prime minister there has called

2:42 for uh Japan to become 100% energy self-sufficient.

2:46 Um and for them uh nuclear is a big part of that too.

2:49 The notable thing is that this no longer seems to be a partisan matter.

2:54 Remember how political parties would battle

2:56 over the merits of switching to renewables,

2:58 the costs, the subsidies, and how fast?

3:01 Now, with this global energy shock,

3:03 those ideological battle lines have kind of been set aside

3:07 as countries around the world realize they don't have good energy security.

3:12 So, you know, we're we're arguably living through, I guess,

3:15 the third sort of energy shock in some four

3:18 years after CO and then uh Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

3:21 but this one has hit much harder and faster.

3:23 And actually, it's reintroduced sort of an argument

3:26 around the need for uh renewables, non-fossil fuel sources as a way to uh

3:31 to reduce dependency on on imported fossil fuels.

3:35 So it's sort of cut the other way and arguably

3:38 created a kind of new coalition of of actors

3:40 where people who might previously been skeptical about renewables are

3:44 now realizing that there's a very strong energy security argument

3:47 for them which of course there's always been in some

3:50 countries particularly China uh which

3:52 has really seen electrification and renewables

3:54 as a major part of uh their um uh mission

4:00 to uh to mitigate um uh fossil fuel fuel reliance.

4:06 Now, China is very interesting.

4:09 Beijing absolutely needs the straight of Hormuz to reopen.

4:13 And yet, as Sam pointed out there,

4:15 it has also planned for this moment for two decades.

4:19 China's sometimes been described as a green energy superpower.

4:22 Sometimes there's a description which um I might prefer,

4:26 which is an electro state.

4:27 You know, it's a country that is becoming increasingly

4:31 um bound up with the electrification of the economy.

4:34 um as opposed to the import of molecular fuels.

4:37 You might call it green energy statecraft.

4:40 Beijing bet on renewables even as it burned through coal and oil.

4:44 Chinese policy makers decided renewable energy would be

4:47 good for the economy and good for national security.

4:51 China, you know, relies on fossil fuels

4:52 for its uh for its energy and its growth.

4:55 And yet, it's also probably the most resilient of the major economies.

4:59 It's highly diversified and highly electrified at this point.

5:02 They've really invested over the past uh two decades in building out

5:07 a you know highly electric and diversified energy system and a large

5:12 part of that has always been about mitigating the uh uh

5:17 volatility and the geopolitical entanglements

5:19 associated with uh imported fossil fuels.

5:22 Their concern particularly has been the choke point

5:24 uh around the straight of Malaca as opposed

5:26 to the straight of Hormuz and the fact

5:27 that it's patrolled by the US Navy's seventh fleet.

5:30 But it's led to very concerted um investment in clean energy in particular.

5:36 Um and that's really underpinned sort of 20 years now

5:39 of buildout of a really impressive um uh solar uh wind um

5:45 and other renewables non-fossil energy sources system leading now to um

5:51 sort of total dominance really of the clean energy supply chain.

5:55 Some 90% of solar panels are manufactured in China.

5:59 similar commanding share of uh of wind power uh turbines,

6:04 batteries, electric vehicles, um critical mineral uh processing.

6:09 Many of the components and and elements

6:11 of the supply chain that are um important

6:13 for the renewable energy transition are based really

6:16 in long-term quite patient innovation and industrial policy in China

6:20 which has really been about unleashing those technological

6:23 forces becoming the leading supplier of the um

6:27 uh new technologies needed for a carbon constrained

6:29 world and have been really tied up with energy

6:31 security arguments rather than uh just being about

6:35 environmental concern which has sort of been where

6:37 I guess the association in in Europe Europe

6:39 in the west uh has been there's always been a very tight understanding that um

6:43 or tight relationship between energy security and climate action

6:47 in China and I think that argument is

6:49 now starting to resonate uh in other other economies.

6:52 Remember those countries mentioned earlier Indonesia,

6:55 Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan.

6:58 Okay, so they've recognized that it's not great

7:01 to be overly reliant on oil and gas, but switching to renewables will require

7:06 buying a lot of renewable energy infrastructure.

7:09 You know, the actual solar panels,

7:12 the massive blades for wind farms from one major source, China.

7:17 Yeah, I think the bind is particularly difficult for um so-called middle powers,

7:23 countries in Europe, countries in Southeast Asia who are um looking,

7:28 you know, quite seriously to decarbonize their economies

7:31 and they're facing at least three challenges at once.

7:33 One is how to decarbonize rapidly.

7:36 U something something their publics want to see,

7:38 something that they need to see um in order to mitigate

7:40 the sort of vulnerabilities and dangers associated with climate change.

7:44 But they also want to keep costs down in a an environment where um inflation

7:49 has also spiked particularly as a result

7:52 of the war and they're concerned about security.

7:55 They're concerned about dependencies.

7:56 So how can you balance um that so-called sort of trillemma?

8:00 It's a really uh difficult ask and in Europe for example uh

8:05 people worry about are we uh moving from one dependency to another.

8:09 Are we are we moving away from you know a dependency

8:12 on Middle Eastern oil much as uh you know we also had one

8:15 on uh at least in parts of Europe on Russian gas towards

8:19 a dependency on uh Chinese supplied components for a renewable energy system.

8:26 Um and at the same time of course the US is a wild card.

8:29 It also um you know to a greater or lesser extent is uh sort

8:34 of forcing the hand of uh of countries that are sort of caught in the middle.

8:39 um on in supply chains.

8:40 So it's a really difficult bind for countries and it and it

8:44 means that geopolitics is completely bound up with those clean energy choices.

8:49 Countries face few good options but Sam makes the point

8:53 that at least with renewables once you build out the infrastructure which

8:57 again will depend on buying from China but once you do

9:01 in the medium and long term you will be in better shape.

9:04 But I will say that there is a difference between fossil fuel energy imports

9:09 and renewable energy systems in so far as you can't actually blockade the sun.

9:15 You can't blockade the wind.

9:16 There is a there's a difference in once you build out these systems,

9:20 they do provide greater resilience um uh from the kind

9:25 of entanglements uh and volatility associated with imported fossil fuels.

9:30 What's special about this moment is that we may be at an inflection point.

9:35 Adopting renewables has been a constant policy fight,

9:38 but this time because of this war,

9:41 the pivot away from oil and gas might be real.

9:45 And if that's the case, there's no going back.

9:48 I think any energy shock actually helps

9:51 to create the argument for the alternatives.

9:54 And previous energy shocks have done the same.

9:56 What's different about this one is not only

9:58 that it's happened so fast and in such

10:00 a sort of hard and unpredictable fashion um

10:05 but also actually that the alternatives are really there.

10:07 They're mature.

10:08 Uh renewable energy systems are coming in at uh

10:11 at a cost that means they can be installed and at scale

10:14 and the the technology exists and and there's of course

10:17 willing suppliers and mature industries that can do so.

10:21 So it kind of feels different as a result and I think as a result yes

10:24 there might be some immediate snapback as uh

10:27 fossil fuel prices fall again as they will.

10:30 Um but then I think the cost of renewables will continue

10:34 to fall as they have consistently over the past um decade

10:39 or so and we'll see the increasing adoption of electric vehicles again

10:44 because the argument is sort of being one on its own terms.

10:46 the um you know the technologies are coming in at a price point that works

10:50 for consumers um that work for governments

10:53 and they also have the added um security benefits

10:57 of of increasing the resilience of our economies

11:00 in in a context of greater tensions and uh

11:04 and a need to extricate ourselves from some

11:06 of the dependencies associated with um imported oil.

11:10 So what do you think?

11:11 Are we seeing a real moment when the world finally fully goes for renewables?

11:16 And how do you feel about China as the world's electrostate superpower?

11:21 Let us know in the comments.

11:23 That's all for now.

11:24 DW News is giving you the latest and also sharing

11:26 deep dives on here and across the rest of social media.

11:30 I'm Melissa Chan.

11:31 Until next time.