We have the dubious distinction of being misrepresented by Dr James Hansen, surely the most famous climate scientist in the world. It's not often that two social scientists find themselves dealt with in this way by such a deservedly respected public figure. Not to respond would be to declare defeat or even to agree with Dr Hansen's assertions, and we are inclined to do neither.

In mid-2016 the Chinese ocean shipping company COSCO succeeded in acquiring a controlling stake in the Greek port of Piraeus. This was the culmination of more than a decade of preparation and prior part ownership, and it represents an important piece in the complex jigsaw of China's One Belt One Road internationalization strategy linking Europe with Eurasia. Along the way there were major setbacks, and in particular a narrowly avoided ejection of COSCO from Piraeus by the newly elected Syriza government, the far left government elected in Jan 2015 by a Greek people exhausted by the austerity imposed by European creditors. This threatened ejection was narrowly avoided by a more comprehensive set of negotiations, which would have seen China funding the Greek government through purchase of its Treasury bills – thereby enabling the Greeks to get around sanctions being imposed by the European Central Bank.

China's green energy shift is now attracting increasing attention, as its strategic implications become clearer. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Amy Myers Jaffe has argued that China is effecting a “pivot” to green and clean energy that puts the country on a superior footing in international competition – particularly competition with the United States, that remains committed to its fossil fuel industries. Jaffe cites a number of statistics and trends, such as the shift to green power generation and the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) – but she does not offer any definitive demonstration of China's greening. We tackle this central issue in this article, and offer fresh evidence that in a fundamental sense, China is indeed greening its total energy system. What we do is construct a picture of China's total fossil fuel consumption over the past decade where coal, oil and gas consumption are aggregated not just in terms of coal-equivalent or oil-equivalent but in electric power-equivalent (in TWh) – so that a direct comparison can be made between burning of fossil fuels in aggregate and generation of electric power from renewable sources (i.e. from water, wind and sun). What we show is that in each of the past six years, from 2012 to 2017, China's increase in fossil fuel burning in aggregate has been exceeded by the generation of green electric power. In this precise sense, where “blackening” is defined as the increase in fossil fuel consumption in aggregate (across the entire economy), and “greening” is defined as green electric power generation, we can demonstrate that in each of the past six years, China's greening has outpaced its blackening – as shown in Fig. 1.

China's renewable energy revolution is powering ahead, with the year 2013 marking an important inflection point where the scales tipped more towards electric power generated from water, wind and solar than from fossil fuels and nuclear. This means that its energy security is being enhanced, while carbon emissions from the power sector can be expected to soon start to fall, we argue.

While all eyes have been focused on the evolving US-China trade war, China has been pursuing multiple initiatives of which its long-term global investment strategy known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious – and now (finally) being addressed by mainstream media and US Congressional hearings. China's BRI, encompassing the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the sea-based 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, is the world's largest multilateral infrastructure-building project. This initiative is now creating a community of states that have common interests in the building of infrastructure with China's financial assistance and in setting rules and standards for international trade within the BRI area. Through this process, the BRI is creating the world's largest trade and investment area, and one with clear security implications as China's geopolitical profile rises. Enjoying the highest level of political support in China, the multiple projects of the BRI utilize Chinese finance provided primarily by state development banks in an extension overseas of the industrial development model fashioned at home. Critical commentary has fastened on the possibility of countries entering “debt traps” as they sign up for BRI projects. Such claims need to be scrutinized from the perspective of China's own debt-fuelled economic development strategy and the mutual goals tying China to dozens of industrializing countries in a new arc of Chinese economic and financial diplomacy. The wider significance of BRI explored here includes its role in promoting the internationalization of China's currency and reinforcing China's industrial and energy strategies abroad.

Introduction

China has made strategic choices favouring renewables over fossil fuels that are still not widely understood or appreciated. Hao Tan and I have been making these arguments for several years now, and in particular in our article in Nature in September 2014 we argued that China had overwhelming economic and energy security reasons for opting in favour of renewables, in addition to the obvious environmental benefits. In this article I wish to take these arguments further and update the picture to incorporate comprehensive 2015 data as well as fresh targets for 2017 and 2020. The context is China's continuing battle to scale back its use of coal; its imminent release of the country's 13th FYP for Energy, based on the overall 13th FYP for economic development over the five years 2016 to 2020, where new renewable energy targets will be announced or consolidated [See ChinaDialogue]; and China's hosting of the G20 meeting in Hangzhou in September, where it will be promoting an international drive for greening of finance – with China itself playing a key role in this process. China is becoming a major promoter of international infrastructure development, in Africa and across Central Asia through the One Belt-One Road strategy – and this too carries strong implications for other countries' energy choices.

The main elements in Taiwan's green power shift are reviewed, with focus on developments since the election of the DPP government in early 2016 and its commitment to phase out nuclear power in Taiwan by 2025. The drivers of the shift are identified, concentrating on solar PV power and the potential for offshore wind power. Like other countries in East Asia similarly pursuing a green shift, Taiwan is as much concerned with the business and export prospects for green industry as with reducing carbon emissions. The argument is developed that further progress in Taiwan is linked to liberalization of the electric power sector, creating genuine competition for the quasi-monopoly, TaiPower.

While China's energy system is still largely a “black” system depending on fossil fuel inputs, the electric power system is greening at the margins. We demonstrate, using 2014 data on additions to China's electric power system, that the system is greening– with powerful implications for the future of the country's energy profile. We utilize three lines of argument: first, utilizing data for electric energy generated, where we show that China actually generated less energy from thermal sources in 2014 than in 2013, while increasing generation from water, wind and solar; second, examining capacity additions, we show that new capacity in water, wind and solar (WWS) exceeded new capacity for thermal; and third, in terms of investment. We argue that such data rebut claims made that China is getting blacker while its greening efforts remain small and insubstantial, or that China will become dependent on nuclear power rather than hydro, wind and solar as it cleans its energy system.

Over the past decade, China has been greening its electric power system faster and more thoroughly than any other industrial power. In the course of the years 2007 to 2016, China's dependence on thermal power capacity declined from 77% to 64%, and can be expected to tip below 50% within another decade if the trend continues. In terms of electricity generated, the contribution of thermal power has dipped from 82% to 72% over the last decade. But it is also true that China's growth model continues to pump out greenhouse gases. The issue: is the green transformation happening fast enough?

There is widespread concern over the scale of China's consumption of fossil fuels, and particularly over recent increases in coal burning in the electric power sector. Nevertheless it is a fact that China is greening its power sector more than blackening it. We present updated evidence that China's electric power system has been greening – in terms of capacity added from renewable (WWS) sources, growth in electricity generated from WWS sources, and investment in new generation infrastructure. We present the results for the green renewable sector (WWS), the black fossil fuel sector (thermal) and the nuclear sector (growing, but not nearly as fast as WWS). This evidence reveals that China's extreme dependence on coal and other fossil fuels is moderating, as it ramps up alternatives – particularly the generation of domestic power from renewable sources based on water, wind and sun (WWS). In short, China's energy system is diversifying: it is greening within a large and growing carbon-intensive existing system. At the same time, China has steadily increased levels of coal burning in the past two to three years – even while the green trend in domestic power generation has continued. China's level of fossil fuel investments abroad (particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative) remain a source of concern. China continues to send disconcertingly mixed messages on the energy front.

Two headline stories dominate discussion of China's energy trajectory right now. The first is that reports from three agencies all point to the continuing decline in use of coal in the first half of 2015, continuing a trajectory already notable in 2014. These are not declines in the rate of growth, but absolute declines in the amount of coal consumed in power generation as well as in energy-intensive industries like steel and cement production. This points to the possibility that coal consumption may be peaking much earlier than anticipated in official government statements – and so pointing to an early peaking of carbon emissions. If continued, this would be a ‘Great Reversal’ of China's recent dominant role in consumption of dirty fossil fuels and production of greenhouse gases.

Are China's energy investments around the world promoting green and clean power generation in countries other than China, or are they exporting China's dirty coal-fired power generation capacity to third countries? This is an important question, and much hangs on how it is answered. China's Belt and Road is a conduit for polluting investments by Chinese policy banks around the world, argues Professor Kelly Sims Gallagher (The Fletcher School, Tufts University) in a Beyondbrics comment in the Financial Times on August 10, 2018. But when examined, this argument is not persuasive. If we use the same China Global Energy Finance (CGEF) database that Gallagher uses, it is easy to demonstrate the opposite finding, namely that China's investments globally in power generation over the past five years have been more green than black.

This article assesses the expansive internationalization of China's energy role and inquires to what extent it is contributing to the export of greenhouse gases or a renewable energy future in Asia and beyond.

Three years ago, we published an article in Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus on Taiwan's energy debates and an accompanying article in Taipei Times with the title ‘China key to Taiwan energy crisis’. At the time, Taiwan was embroiled in endless debates over its commitment to nuclear power, a commitment that precluded a shift to more secure renewable energy sources. We argued that Taiwan's obsession with nuclear power as the way forward in energy policy obscured other options. In particular, the country could extend its great successes in IT, semiconductors and flat panel displays to the next great technological challenge, namely renewable energy. We pointed to the example of China and its green energy strategy which is gradually replacing its black, fossil fuelled strategy, thereby improving China's energy security as well as building renewable energy industries as export platforms for the future.

The New York Times has recently carried two important stories on China's coal consumption, indicating that the situation is even more serious than previously appeared to be the case. On November 3 the NYT carried a front page report that China has revised its estimates of how much coal it has been burning, and concluding that its carbon emissions have been higher than had been previously reported and assumed (“China burns much more coal than reported, complicating climate talks” (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/world/asia/china-burns-much-more-coal-than-reported-complicating-climate-talks.html?_r=0), Nov 3 2015). This was then widely taken up, with the emphasis invariably on the “new fact” that China's coal burning is higher than previously reported. Then on November 11 the NYT carried a second story concerning a glut of new coal-fired power plant approvals, with the implication that again carbon emissions were likely to be higher in future than previously anticipated (“Glut of coal-fired plants casts doubt on China's energy priorities” (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/asia/china-coal-power-energy-policy.html?_r=0), Nov 11 2015) This second story followed similar reports from both Deutsche Bank and from Greenpeace East Asia. Given the global significance of energy and emissions data from China, we explore some of the causes and implications of these developments.

The world's electric power system continues to be a principal source of carbon emissions, comparable to transport and such industries as steel and cement. Intense debate surrounds the issue of the pace at which it is greening. In this paper we offer a precise definition of greening as a rising proportion of electric power sourced from water, wind and sun (WWS), since these are all fundamentally renewable. Using the latest data from the BP Energy Review as well as national and regional sources, we demonstrate that by 2019 the EU-28 had reached a proportion of electricity generated from WWS of 34%, followed by China at 27%, Japan at 19% and the US at 17%. Moreover, the EU-28 achieved the fastest pace of transition, increasing its WWS-share of electricity generated from 20% in 2010 to 34% in 2019, or a 14% green shift in a decade. Over the same period, China's green shift in power generation was 10%, while that of Japan was 9% (all achieved in the decade following the Fukushima disaster) and the US at an 7% shift. The IEA has just issued a report revealing that globally renewable sources of energy account for 29% of electricity generated in 2020, up 2% on 2019 levels.

In this paper we examine the performance of China in greatest detail, since it is now the world's largest burner of coal, operates the world's largest electric power system, and is responsible for the highest levels of carbon emissions. We make the case that China has overall goals of decarbonization and dematerialization (i.e. using less material per unit of GDP), where the former goal is met by the shift to renewable sources of energy and the latter by the shift towards urban mining and the circular economy. Based on newly published data from the China Energy Council, we update our previous analyses of China's energy choices, looking for the green shoots in an otherwise black energy system. China's electric power system, now the largest in the world, continues to burn a lot of coal – nearly 4 billion tonnes in 2020, a 1% decrease on the 2019 total. But within this black power economy the green shoots are increasingly significant. We show that the proportion of China's electric power generation sourced from water, wind and sun (WWS) by 2020 reached 27%, up from 17% a decade earlier – a 10% green shift in a decade. In terms of generating capacity the figures for China are even more striking. In 2020 China's generating capacity sourced from WWS reached 41%, up from 25% in 2011, or a 16% green shift in capacity in 10 years. At this rate of a 1.6% green shift in generating capacity per year, China's electric power system would be more green than black by 2026, with widespread repercussions, for China and the world. We put these data in their international comparative perspective, and in the perspective that China is electrifying its economy faster than any other major region. But the levels of carbon emissions continue to rise (reaching 13.5 billion tonnes carbon dioxide in 2020), with China's leadership not predicting their peaking before 2030. So there is much to be done in terms of decarbonizing energy and electric power in particular. The wider significance of China's green choices, in the context of its increasing assertiveness internationally, is discussed.

China's continuing shift to green sources of electric power generation is confirmed in the latest data published by the National Energy Administration (NEA) and the China Electricity Council (CEC). New capacity additions in the first half of 2017 have seen the proportion of capacity added sourced from water, wind and sun (WWS) reaching 70%, with thermal capacity added being reduced to 28% and nuclear to just 2%. Overall, the China electric power system has swung from one that was dependent on WWS sources for just 20% in 2007 to 35% in 2017 (1H) – an astonishing 15% swing in just a decade. Meanwhile actual electric energy generated in 1H 2017 remains heavily dependent on thermal sources to the extent of 75%, with WWS accounting for 21% and nuclear for 4%. The system is greening at the margin (in terms of new additions) but it still remains a large fossil-fuelled system.

Alongside its enormous “black” energy system, China is building a renewables energy system that is now the largest in the world. Following our previous articles on this topic in the Journal, we continue to report the latest trends in development of this renewables-based system, again focusing principally on the electric power system, and utilizing three sources of data from Chinese and international sources – capacity data (GW), electrical energy generation data (TWh) and investment data. We highlight that while the Chinese energy system as a whole is shifting in a green direction, at its leading edge (where new capacity is being added, and fresh electrical energy generated) it is turning green very rapidly. This provides a foundation for predicting future directions for the system as a whole, and eventual reductions in absolute carbon emissions. We note that China's increasing reliance on renewables is consistent with a concern to enhance energy security, based on the observation that renewables are products of manufacturing rather than of extractive activities.

There are many ways that an economy can be greened. Building vast new renewable energy manufacturing industries is one pathway – as pioneered by China. Deploying extensive renewable power generation systems is another pathway – as demonstrated by Germany with its Energiewende. Yet another route is pursuing R&D led strategies and strategic initiatives via the military, as shown by the US. Now Korea demonstrates another pathway, one based on liberalization of its power generation system (to promote competition) and development of the IT-enabling of its electric power grid (smart grid) with a characteristic modular approach to smart grid construction, utilizing microgrids.

It has long been a goal of the Chinese leadership to see the national currency, the yuan, play a greater role in international finance. The internationalization of the yuan has been pursued through many initiatives and strategies, most recently in relation to the IMF and the inclusion of the yuan in a “basket” of currencies underpinning Special Drawing Rights. Internationalization has doubtless been delayed by relative non-convertibility and China's state-run financial system, amongst other factors. As matters are liberalized on the financial front, so it becomes more credible for the yuan to play the global role that would be expected of the currency of the world's largest trading nation, the world's largest manufacturing nation, and the world's second largest economy. But the year 2018 has seen a dramatic break with this SDR-focused strategy, and its replacement by a strategy that targets the oil market – the world's largest commodity market, where trading in US dollars has been near-universal for decades.