Rich democracies felt a collective shiver earlier this month at the sight of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un exchanging pleasantries and tips on how to live to 150 at China¡¯s military parade. They should be much more concerned about the ties Beijing is forging elsewhere in the world.
That¡¯s because the country¡¯s clean energy industry is making connections across a swath of the Global South with far more collective significance than the crumbling nuclear-armed autocracies in Moscow and Pyongyang.
Foreign direct investment by China¡¯s green-technology industry since 2022 has hit between $227 billion and $250 billion. That¡¯s roughly the size, adjusted for inflation, of the post-World War II Marshall Plan that cemented the alliance between the U.S. and Europe.
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