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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/17/america-china-energy-oil-renewables>
"“Farewell,” the flag-waving Chinese children chanted to Donald Trump as he
strolled along the red carpet back to Air Force One at the end of his summit
with Xi Jinping in Beijing.
The US leader claimed he was leaving with a cluster of “fantastic” trade deals
to sell US oil, jets and soya beans to China. That has not been confirmed by
his smiling host, but one thing was crystal clear from the two days of
meetings: the global balance of power is shifting, from the declining
petrostate in the west to the rising electrostate in the east.
Trump flew home to chaos – war with Iran, surging gas prices, spectacular
unpopularity, friction with former allies and a 20th-century policy of “energy
dominance” that seeks to turn back the clock, use tariffs and military threats
to open markets, and enrich his supporters in the fossil fuel industry. The
long dominant superpower increasingly appears a malignant force as it pushes
the world towards ever greater turbulence.
Xi, meanwhile, presides over a country that has invested more than any other in
renewable energy, which has helped to buffer its economy from the gas price
shocks caused by the conflict in the Middle East, while opening up huge new
export markets for solar panels, wind turbines, smart grids and electric
vehicles. While the Chinese president’s Communist party still faces criticism
for its suppression of dissent, its soft power deficit no longer seems so great
when its main global rival is killing protesters at home and bombing
schoolchildren overseas.
Why is this happening now? Tempting as it is to blame these global shifts on a
single malignant narcissist in the White House, a more useful – and maybe even
hopeful – analysis needs to take into account the tectonic changes that are
shaking not just the foundations of politics, but the very nature of human
power, as the world shifts from molecules to electrons.
History has proven that when the dominant form of energy changes, there is
often a shift in the global pecking order. We are now in the midst of one such
transition as the epoch of petrol, predominantly produced in the United States,
Russia and Gulf states, starts to give way to an era of renewables,
overwhelmingly manufactured in China. But the outcome remains contested, and
the process could be ugly. The new energy order is winning the economic and
technological battle – wind turbines and solar panels were already producing
record-cheap electricity even before the Iran war pushed up the costs of gas
and oil-fired power plants. But the old petro-interests still have political,
military and financial might on their side, and they are using that to try to
turn back the energy clock.
As a result, democracies across the planet are now threatened by what might be
called fossil fuel fascism – an extremist political movement that breaks laws,
spreads lies and threatens violence in an increasingly desperate attempt to
maintain markets for oil, gas and coal that would otherwise be replaced by
cheaper renewables."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
