Testimony before the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission


China's Energy Plans and Practices

Executive Summary On the road to becoming the world’s largest clean energy consumer, China has embraced a range of policies, including both demand-pull and supply-push, to shape energy markets. Resulting integration challenges such as high levels of curtailment are a symptom of both technical and institutional barriers, and will be attenuated in China’s long-term path to carbon neutrality. Energy policy priorities for China include energy security, affordability, industrial structure, air pollution, and climate change, which can be misaligned in the short- and long-term. The 2021 power shortages have revealed some interesting political discourse surrounding these various objectives, which have at least for now bolstered market reforms.

Recommendations for this Commission and for Congress:

  1. Enhance visibility into and understanding of China’s energy sector challenges
  2. Support China’s energy sector transitions through select clean energy cooperation
  3. Study the dependence of the U.S. clean energy transition on developments in China

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