In China, more wind turbines and solar panels were installed last year than in the rest of the world combined. And China’s clean energy boom is going global. Chinese companies are building electric vehicle and battery factories in Brazil, Thailand, Morocco, Hungary and beyond.

在中国，去年安装的风力涡轮机和太阳能电池板比世界其他地区的总和还要多。中国的清洁能源热潮正在走向全球。中国企业正在巴西、泰国、摩洛哥、匈牙利等地建设电动汽车和电池工厂。

At the same time, in the United States, President Trump is pressing Japan and South Korea to invest “trillions of dollars” in a project to ship natural gas to Asia. And General Motors just killed plans to make electric motors at a factory near Buffalo, N.Y., and instead will put $888 million into building V-8 gasoline engines there.

与此同时，在美国，特朗普总统在向日本和韩国施压，要求它们投资“数万亿美元”建设一个向亚洲运输天然气的项目。通用汽车刚刚取消了在纽约州布法罗附近的一家工厂生产电动车的计划，转而投资8.88亿美元，在那里生产V-8汽油发动机。

The race is on to define the future of energy. Even as the dangers of global warming hang ominously over the planet, two of the most powerful countries in the world, the United States and China, are pursuing energy strategies defined mainly by economic and national security concerns, as opposed to the climate crisis. Entire industries are at stake, along with the economic and geopolitical alliances that shape the modern world.

定义能源未来的竞赛已经开始。尽管全球变暖的危险不祥地笼罩着地球，但世界上最强大的两个国家——美国和中国——正在推行的能源战略主要由经济和国家安全考虑决定，而不是气候危机。这关系到整个产业，乃至塑造现代世界的经济和地缘政治联盟。

The Trump administration wants to keep the world hooked on fossil fuels like oil and gas, which have powered cars and factories, warmed homes and fueled empires for more than a century. The United States is the world’s largest producer of oil and the largest exporter of natural gas, offering the potential for what Mr. Trump has called an era of American “energy dominance” that eliminates dependence on foreign countries, particularly rival powers like China.

特朗普政府希望让世界继续依赖石油和天然气等化石燃料，一个多世纪以来，这些燃料驱动着汽车和工厂，为家庭供暖，为帝国的运转提供动力。美国是世界上最大的石油生产国和天然气出口国，这为特朗普所说的美国“能源主导”时代的到来提供了可能，这将消除对外国的依赖，尤其是对中国等竞争对手的依赖。

China is racing in an altogether different direction. It’s banking on a world that runs on cheap electricity from the sun and wind, and that relies on China for affordable, high-tech solar panels and turbines. China, unlike the United States, doesn’t have much easily accessible oil or gas of its own, so it is eager to eliminate dependence on imported fossil fuels and instead power more of its economy with renewables.

中国正朝着完全不同的方向前进。它寄望于一个依靠廉价太阳能和风能发电的世界，而这个世界依赖于中国提供价格合理的高科技太阳能电池板和涡轮机。与美国不同的是，中国自身没有多少容易获得的石油或天然气，因此它渴望消除对进口化石燃料的依赖，转而更多地利用可再生能源为其经济提供动力。

The dangers for China of relying on politically unstable regions for energy were underscored recently when Israel attacked Iran, which sells practically all its oil exports to China.

最近遭到以色列攻击的伊朗几乎所有的石油出口都卖给了中国。这凸显出中国依赖政治不稳定地区获取能源的危险。

While China still burns more coal than the rest of the world and emits more climate pollution than the United States and Europe combined, its pivot to cleaner alternatives is happening at breakneck speed. Not only does China already dominate global manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, E.V.s and many other clean energy industries, but with each passing month it is widening its technological lead.

尽管中国燃烧的煤炭仍比世界上其他国家多，排放的气候污染物也比美国和欧洲加起来还要多，但中国正在以极快的速度转向更清洁的能源。中国不仅已在太阳能电池板、风力涡轮机、电池、电动汽车和许多其他清洁能源产业的全球制造中占据主导地位，而且随着时间的推移，中国还在不断扩大其技术领先优势。

资料来源：联合国商品贸易统计数据库（注：数据来自2023年）

China’s biggest automaker, its biggest battery maker and its biggest electronics company have each introduced systems that can recharge electric cars in just five minutes, all but erasing one of the most annoying hassles of E.V.s, the long charging times. China has nearly 700,000 clean energy patents, more than half of the world's total. Beijing’s rise as a clean power behemoth is altering economies and shifting alliances in emerging countries as far afield as Pakistan and Brazil.

中国最大的汽车制造商、最大的电池制造商和最大的电子公司分别推出了可以在五分钟内给电动汽车充满电的系统，这几乎消除了电动汽车最恼人的问题之一——充电时间过长。中国拥有近70万项清洁能源专利，占世界总数的一半以上。中国作为清洁能源巨头崛起正在改变经济格局，并改变它与巴基斯坦和巴西等新兴国家的盟友关系。

The country is also taking steps that could make it hard for other countries, particularly the United States, to catch up. In April, Beijing restricted the export of powerful “rare earth” magnets, a business China dominates, unless they’re already inside fully assembled products like electric vehicles or wind turbines. While China recently started issuing some export licenses for the magnets, the moves signal that the world may face a choice: Buy China’s green energy technology, or do without.

中国还在采取措施，可能使其他国家——特别是美国——难以赶上它。今年4月，北京限制了中国主导的强力“稀土”磁铁的出口，除非它们已经安装在电动汽车或风力涡轮机等完全组装的产品中。虽然中国最近开始发放一些磁铁出口许可证，但此举表明，世界可能面临一个选择：要么购买中国的绿色能源技术，要么就别用这些磁铁。

China has also begun to dominate nuclear power, a highly technical field once indisputably led by the United States. China not only has 31 reactors under construction, nearly as many as the rest of the world combined, but has announced advances in next-generation nuclear technologies and also in fusion, the long-promised source of all-but-limitless clean energy that has bedeviled science for years.

中国还开始主导核能，这是一个曾经无可争议地由美国主导的高技术领域。中国有31座在建反应堆，几乎是世界上其他国家的总和，而且还宣布在下一代核技术和核聚变方面取得进展。核聚变多年来一直被认为有望成为一种几乎取之不尽的清洁能源，但科学上始终未能实现。

“China is huge,” said Praveer Sinha, chief executive of Tata Power, an Indian conglomerate that makes solar panels in a high-tech factory near the southern tip of the country but relies almost entirely on Chinese-made silicon to make those panels. “Huge means huge. No one in the world can compete with that.”

“中国很强大，”印度塔塔电力的首席执行官普拉维尔·辛哈说。塔塔电力是一家印度企业集团，在该国南端附近的一家高科技工厂生产太阳能电池板，但几乎完全依赖中国制造的硅来生产。“是货真价实的强大。世界上没有人能与之竞争。”

While China is dominating clean energy industries, from patented technologies to essential raw materials, the Trump administration is using the formidable clout of the world’s biggest economy to keep American oil and gas flowing.

在中国主导从专利技术到基本原材料的清洁能源行业的同时，特朗普政府正在利用世界最大经济体的强大影响力，来维持美国的石油和天然气供应。

In a full reversal from the Biden administration’s effort to pivot the American economy away from fossil fuels, the Trump White House is opening up public lands and federal waters for new drilling, fast-tracking permits for pipelines and pressuring other countries to buy American fuels as a way of avoiding tariffs.

与拜登政府让美国经济远离化石燃料的努力完全相反，特朗普的白宫正在开放公共土地和联邦水域，以进行新的钻探、为输油管道提供快速审批，并向其他国家施压，要求它们购买美国燃料，以避免关税。

Washington is essentially pursuing a strong-arm energy strategy, both at home and abroad with allies and friends. It’s premised on the idea that the modern world is already designed around these fuels, and the United States has them in abundance, so exporting them benefits the American economy even if solar energy is cleaner and often cheaper.

无论是在国内还是在国外，华盛顿都在对盟友和朋友实施强势能源战略。它的前提是，现代世界已经围绕这些燃料而设计，而美国拥有丰富的储备，因此出口它们有利于美国经济，即使太阳能更清洁，往往更便宜。

资料来源：联合国商品贸易统计数据库（注：数据来自2023年）

The competition between the United States and China to sell the world their wares has serious consequences for the health of the planet.

美国和中国竞相向世界推销自己的商品，这对地球的健康造成了严重后果。

Burning fossil fuels for more than 200 years has helped create the modern world while delivering great prosperity to developed countries such as the United States, which ranks historically as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. But it has also led to what scientists now say is a growing crisis. The carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by the burning of oil, gas and coal acts as a heat-trapping blanket, leading to rapid global warming.

200多年来，化石燃料帮助创造了现代世界，同时也为美国等发达国家带来了巨大的繁荣，而美国历来是最大的温室气体排放国。但化石燃料也导致了科学家们所说的日益严重的危机。燃烧石油、天然气和煤炭排放到大气中的二氧化碳就像一个吸热毯，导致全球迅速变暖。

Cheap Chinese-made solar, batteries and E.V.s have made the pivot to cleaner technologies possible for many large economies including Brazil, South Africa and even India, a regional rival to Beijing. That affordability is crucial for bringing down global emissions.

中国制造的廉价太阳能、电池和电动汽车使许多大型经济体转向更清洁的技术成为可能，其中包括巴西、南非，甚至是中国的地区竞争对手印度。这种可负担性对于降低全球排放至关重要。

The scientific consensus is that warming, if unchecked, will continue to cause increasingly severe droughts and storms, potentially alter ocean currents and global weather patterns, disrupt food production, deepen a biodiversity crisis and inundate some of the world’s biggest cities as sea levels rise, among other risks.

科学界的共识是，如果不加以控制，变暖将继续导致日益严重的干旱和风暴，可能改变洋流和全球天气模式，扰乱粮食生产，加深生物多样性危机，随着海平面上升，世界上一些最大的城市会被淹没，此外还有其他风险。

The Trump administration has dismissed those concerns. The United States energy secretary, Chris Wright, a former natural gas executive, has described climate change as “a side effect of building the modern world.”

特朗普政府驳斥了这些担忧。曾在天然气行业担任高管的美国能源部长克里斯·赖特将气候变化描述为“建设现代世界的一个副作用”。

Asked about the diverging energy pathways of China and the United States, Ben Dietderich, a Department of Energy spokesman, said, “The United States is blessed with an abundant supply of energy resources and the Trump administration is committed to fully utilizing them to meet the growing energy needs of the American people.” Past efforts to encourage cleaner energy like solar or wind, he said, “harmed America’s energy security.”

在被问及中美两国不同的能源发展路径时，美国能源部发言人本·迪特里奇说，“美国有幸拥有丰富的能源资源，特朗普政府致力于充分利用这些资源，以满足美国人民日益增长的能源需求。”他说，过去鼓励太阳能或风能等清洁能源的努力“损害了美国的能源安全”。

Amanda Eversole, executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for fossil fuel companies, said her organization monitored Chinese advances and that she was downplaying their strategic threat. “We continue to keep a very close eye on what the Chinese are doing, because we believe it’s in our national security interests and our economic interest to continue to dominate from an American energy perspective,” she said.

为化石燃料公司游说的美国石油协会执行副总裁阿曼达·埃弗索尔说，她的组织监控了中国的进展，她淡化了中国的战略威胁。她说：“我们继续密切关注中国在做什么，因为我们相信，从美国能源的角度来看，继续占据主导地位符合我们的国家安全利益和经济利益。”

The White House declined to comment on energy strategy and China’s advances.

白宫拒绝就能源战略和中国的进步发表评论。

Most of the world’s energy still comes from fossil fuels. Yet as countries try to address the perils of climate change, they’ve been steadily adopting cleaner alternatives. By 2035, solar and wind power are expected to become the two largest sources of electricity production, surpassing coal and natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency.

世界上大部分的能源仍然来自化石燃料。然而，为了应对气候变化的危险，各国一直在稳步采用更清洁的替代品。根据国际能源署的数据，到2035年，太阳能和风能预计将超过煤炭和天然气，成为全球最大的两大电力来源。

As the cost of renewables keeps falling, the U.S. strategy may leave China poised to capitalize on the world’s growing appetite for not only cleaner but cheaper power.

随着可再生能源的成本不断下降，美国的战略可能会助力中国，使其从世界日益增长的清洁、廉价能源需求中获利。

“The U.S. will champion a fossil fuel economy, and China will become the leader of the low-carbon economy,” said Li Shuo, who heads the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “The question for the U.S. now is, where do you go from here?”

“美国将支持化石燃料经济，而中国将成为低碳经济的领导者，”亚洲协会政策研究所中国气候中心主任李硕说。“美国现在面临的问题是，从现在开始要往哪个方向走？”

How America Lost Its Lead

美国是如何失去领先地位的

The United States had every opportunity to lead the world in renewables. In fact, it once did.

美国完全有机会在可再生能源领域引领世界。事实上，它曾经做到过这一点。

Americans created the first practical silicon photovoltaic cells in the 1950s and the first rechargeable lithium-metal batteries in the 1970s. The world’s first wind farm was built in New Hampshire nearly 50 years ago. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House in 1979.

美国人在20世纪50年代发明了第一块实用的硅光伏电池，在70年代发明了第一块可充电的锂金属电池。近50年前，世界上第一个风力发电场于新罕布什尔州建成。1979年，吉米·卡特在白宫安装了太阳能电池板。

But with oil, gas and coal in abundant supply, and the fossil-fuel industry funding efforts to downplay climate concerns, America’s commitment to promoting clean energy investment has ebbed and flowed, sometimes dramatically.

但是，由于石油、天然气和煤炭供应充足，化石燃料行业又资助各种淡化气候问题的活动，美国对促进清洁能源投资的承诺时好时坏，有时甚至是大起大落。

1979年，吉米·卡特总统在白宫屋顶上参加了一场活动，当时他身后的太阳能电池板已经安装完毕。

For example, in 2009, the Obama administration began offering loan guarantees to emerging energy technologies. Tesla got $456 million, a loan that proved crucial to its later success.

例如，2009年，奥巴马政府开始为新兴能源技术提供贷款担保。特斯拉获得了4.56亿美元的贷款，这笔贷款对特斯拉后来的成功至关重要。

Then there was Solyndra.

但也有Solyndra公司这样的例子。

A maker of solar cells, Solyndra received a federal guarantee for loans totaling $528 million, then went out of business, leaving taxpayers on the hook. More than a decade has passed, yet critics of American efforts to promote clean energy still cite Solyndra as evidence of the folly of renewables.

Solyndra公司是一家太阳能电池制造商，获得了总计5.28亿美元的联邦贷款担保，然后它倒闭了，让纳税人陷入困境。十多年过去了，批评美国推动清洁能源的人仍然把Solyndra作为可再生能源愚蠢的证据。

Chinese officials have been mystified by the Solyndra fixation.

关于美国对Solyndra的执着，中国官员一直感到困惑。

“You are a little bit worried by Solyndra? Very small companies, why are you worried?” Li Junfeng, a key architect of China’s wind and solar policies, said in a 2017 interview. Beijing had a bigger appetite for taking risks, which meant sometimes failing, but also sometimes reaping bigger payoffs.

“你们对Solyndra过于担心了；很小的公司，你们为什么那么担心呢？”中国风能和太阳能政策的关键设计者李俊峰在2017年的采访中说。北京更喜欢冒险，这意味着有时会失败，但有时也会收获更大的回报。

China’s goal of dominating clean energy technology wasn’t about climate change. It was born in a moment of strategic self-awareness two decades ago, when the country’s leaders looked to the future and understood that controlling energy production was vital to national security.

中国主导清洁能源技术的目标与气候变化无关。它诞生于20年前的一次战略觉醒，当时中国领导人展望未来，明白控制能源生产对国家安全至关重要。

In 2003, Wen Jiabao became China’s premier, the country’s second-highest position. A rare-earths geologist, Mr. Wen saw energy policy as both a business opportunity and geopolitical necessity.

2003年，温家宝成为中国总理——该国的第二高官。作为一名稀土地质学家，温家宝认为能源政策既是商机，也是地缘政治的需要。

2003年，中国清洁能源转型的推动者温家宝在全国人民代表大会上发言。

China had become dependent on imported oil. It felt vulnerable to upheavals in the Middle East and to the control of shipping lanes by the United States and India, two sometimes hostile powers.

当时中国已开始依赖进口石油。面对中东的动荡，以及美国和印度这两个时有敌意的大国对航道的控制，它感到很容易受到影响。

Air pollution in China was terrible, killing people and creating a global embarrassment with images of cities smothered in gray. And the economy still relied on relatively unskilled manufacturing. Mr. Wen saw in energy a chance to solve both problems by making China an energy innovator.

中国的空气污染非常严重，造成了人员死亡，城市笼罩在灰色之中的画面令它在全球面前感到颜面无光。此外，当时中国经济仍然依赖于技术含量相对较低的制造业。温家宝从能源领域看到了解决这两个问题的机会，使中国成为能源创新者。

“Instead of making flip-flops, they’d make clean tech,” said Jennifer Turner, director of the China environment program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

伍德罗·威尔逊中心中国环境项目主任詹妮弗·特纳说：“他们想制造清洁技术，而不是人字拖。”

Mr. Wen’s government essentially wrote a blank check.

温家宝政府实际上开出了一张空白支票。

China provided hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to wind, solar and electric car manufacturers while protecting its markets from foreign competitors. It established a global near-monopoly over many key raw materials, such as cobalt for batteries.

中国向风能、太阳能和电动汽车制造商提供了数千亿美元的补贴，同时保护自己的市场不受外国竞争对手的影响。中国在全球范围内几乎垄断了许多关键原材料，如电池用的钴。

Low-cost electricity from heavily polluting coal plants allowed the country to run aluminum smelters and polysilicon factories more cheaply than anywhere else. Critics have also accused China of using forced labor in places like Xinjiang to drive down costs, though China denies this.

来自污染严重的煤电厂的低成本电力使中国能够以比其他任何地方都低的成本经营铝冶炼厂和多晶硅工厂。批评人士还指责中国在新疆等地使用强迫劳动来降低成本，尽管中国对此予以否认。

At the same time, China has invested in research and a skilled workforce. These moves offered Chinese clean energy companies a level of sustained support that was nonexistent in the United States.

与此同时，中国在研究和技术劳动力方面进行了投资。这些举措为中国的清洁能源公司提供了美国所没有的持续支持。

“It’s hard to get China to commit to a long-term goal,” said Jian Pan, co-chairman of CATL, the world’s largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles and electric grids. “But when we commit, we really want to get it done, and all aspects of society — government, policy, private sector, engineering, everybody — work hard toward the same goal under a coordinated effort.”

“让中国投入到一个长期目标上是很难的，”全球最大的电动汽车和电网用电池制造商宁德时代联合董事长潘健表示。“但是，一旦投入，我们会真的希望完成它，社会的各个方面，包括政府、政策、私营部门、工程、每个人，都在协调一致的努力下朝着同一个目标努力。”

China’s efforts paid off.

中国的努力得到了回报。

Little more than a decade ago, CATL was a start-up created to buy a Japanese electronics company’s nascent electric-car battery division. Today, from its headquarters, which are shaped like an enormous battery, it operates a global network of mines, chemical processors and factories. Its founder is one of the wealthiest people in the world.

十多年前，宁德时代还是一家为收购日本一家电子公司的新兴电动汽车电池部门而成立的新公司。如今，在其形似巨大电池的总部，公司运营着一个由矿山、化学加工厂和工厂组成的全球网络。该公司创始人是世界上最富有的人之一。

中国宁波，极氪电动汽车工厂里的机器人。

Over that same short stretch of time, China came to dominate even clean energy industries the United States had once led. In 2008 the United States produced nearly half of the world’s polysilicon, a crucial material for solar panels. Today, China produces more than 90 percent. China’s auto industry is now widely seen as the most innovative in the world, besting the Japanese, the Germans and the Americans.

在同样短的时间内，中国甚至主宰了美国一度领先的清洁能源产业。2008年，美国生产了世界上近一半的多晶硅，多晶硅是太阳能电池板的关键材料。如今，中国的生产份额超过90%。中国的汽车工业现在被广泛认为是世界上最具创新力的，超过了日本、德国和美国。

To slash manufacturing costs, China has automated its factories, installing more robots each year from 2021 through 2023 than the rest of the world combined, and seven times as many as the United States.

为了削减制造成本，中国实现了工厂的自动化，从2021年到2023年，中国每年安装的机器人数量超过了世界其他国家的总和，是美国的七倍。

Eric Luo, vice-president of LONGi Green Energy Technology, a Chinese solar panel maker, said that a practice known as “cluster manufacturing” had proved beneficial. “There are places where, within a three- to four-hour drive, you can have everything,” he said. The components, the manufacturer, the skilled workforce, everything. “There’s nowhere else globally where you can have all that innovation clustered together.”

中国太阳能电池板制造商隆基绿能副总裁罗鑫表示，被称为“集群制造”的做法被证明是有益的。“有些地方，你可以在三、四个小时车程范围内得到所需的一切，”他说。组件，制造商，熟练的劳动力，应有尽有。“全球没有其他地方可以将所有创新集中在一起。”

Clustering also imparts huge benefits in the car battery business. Robin Zeng, CATL’s founder, said in an interview last summer that it costs six times as much to build a battery factory in the United States as in China, and that was before the Trump administration set out to weaken the financial incentives to build such plants in the United States.

集群也给汽车电池行业带来了巨大的好处。宁德时代创始人曾毓群去年夏天在接受采访时表示，在美国建一家电池工厂的成本是在中国的六倍，而这还是在特朗普政府着手削弱在美国建厂的经济激励措施之前。

Beyond its domination of manufacturing and technology, China has also gone on an epic clean-energy building spree.

除了在制造业和技术方面的主导地位，中国还掀起了一场大规模的清洁能源建设热潮。

Last June, the Urumqi solar farm, the largest in the world, came online in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China. It is capable of generating more power than some small countries need to run their entire economies.

去年6月，乌鲁木齐太阳能发电场——全球规模最大的光伏项目——在新疆维吾尔自治区并网发电。它的发电能力足以满足一些小国家的全部经济需求。

It’s hardly an anomaly. The other 10 largest solar facilities in the world are also in China, and even bigger ones are planned. The Chinese automaker BYD is currently building not one but two electric vehicle factories that will each produce twice as many cars as the largest car factory in the world, a Volkswagen plant in Germany.

这绝非个例。世界上另外10个最大的太阳能设施也都在中国，甚至还有更大的项目正在规划中。中国汽车制造商比亚迪目前正在建造的电动汽车工厂——不是一座而是两座——每座的产量都将是世界最大汽车厂（位于德国的一家大众汽车工厂）的两倍。

The United States was slow to see the full picture. Only toward the end of the Obama administration and during the first Trump administration did many Washington policymakers realize they had surrendered so much of the clean energy race to China.

美国迟迟未能看清全局。直到奥巴马政府末期和特朗普首个任期，许多华盛顿的决策者才意识到，他们在清洁能源竞赛中已经将大部分优势拱手让给了中国。

“The U.S. was asleep,” said Michael Carr, a former staff member at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee who is now executive director of Solar Energy Manufacturers for America, a trade group. “You can invent the greatest tech in the world, but if you don’t know how to manufacture it, it won’t matter.”

“美国沉睡了太久，”前参议院能源和自然资源委员会幕僚、现任美国太阳能制造商协会执行董事的迈克尔·卡尔说，“纵使能发明顶尖技术，如果缺乏制造能力，终归还是徒劳。”

Of course, the United States could reverse course. A future administration could aggressively swing once again to clean energy research and investment.

当然，美国可以扭转航向。未来的政府可以再度发力清洁能源的研究和投资。

But it will have lost precious time. Investments made years ago by China are paying off now, and Beijing is continuing to pour money into developing its domestic energy industry and exporting those goods to the world.

但宝贵时机已然错失。中国多年前的投资正在获得回报，北京仍在持续加码国内能源产业发展的投入，并将相关产品推向全球市场。

Beijing’s ‘Soft Power’ Ambitions

北京的“软实力”野心

Among China’s biggest green-energy customers is a petrostate, Saudi Arabia. On desert land renowned for its boundless oil reserves, Chinese companies are building one of the world’s largest battery-storage projects alongside solar farms.

沙特阿拉伯这个石油王国竟成为了中国绿色能源的最大客户之一。在这片以无尽石油储量闻名的沙漠地带，中国企业正在建设世界上最大的电池储能项目之一，同时还有与之配套的太阳能发电场。

Around the world, Beijing is using its clean energy clout to build or expand political and economic relationships.

在世界各地，北京正在利用其清洁能源的影响力来建立或扩大政经关系。

Both the United States and China not only see energy independence as essential at home, but understand that supplying other countries with energy is a vital way to project power. And yet, their approaches couldn’t be more different.

美中两国不仅视能源自主为立国之本，而且明白向其他国家供应能源是投射力量的重要方式。然而，两国的做法却截然不同。

Today, China’s dominance of so many clean energy industries is enabling it to expand its sphere of influence by selling and financing energy technology around the world. These relationships allow China to forge multidecade financial, cultural and even military ties at a moment of shifting geopolitical alliances.

如今，中国在多个清洁能源领域居于主导地位，这使其能够通过在全球销售和资助能源技术来扩大其影响力范围。在地缘政治格局不断变化之际，这些关系使中国能够建立持续数十年甚至更长时间的金融、文化乃至军事联系。

The projects read like a world atlas. Beijing is working on deals to supply nuclear reactors to countries like Turkey that once did business mainly with the United States and Europe. In Pakistan, China is already building what will be the country’s largest nuclear plant.

这些项目仿佛形成了一张世界地图。北京正向土耳其等传统欧美客户供应核反应堆。在巴基斯坦，中国已经在建设该国最大的核电站。

Chinese firms are building wind turbines in Brazil and electric vehicles in Indonesia. In northern Kenya, Chinese developers have erected Africa’s biggest wind farm. And across the continent, in countries rich with minerals needed for clean energy technologies, such as Zambia, Chinese financing for all sorts of projects has left some governments deeply in debt to Chinese banks.

中国企业正在巴西建造风力涡轮机，在印度尼西亚生产电动车。在肯尼亚北部建成了非洲最大的风力发电场。而在非洲各地，比如赞比亚等富含清洁能源技术所需矿产的国家，中国为各种项目提供的融资使多国政府深陷对华债务。

Since 2023, Chinese companies have announced $168 billion in foreign investments in clean energy manufacturing, generation and transmission, according to Climate Energy Finance, a research group.

根据研究机构气候能源金融的数据，自2023年以来，中国企业宣布的在海外清洁能源制造、发电和输电领域的投资达到1680亿美元。

来源：气候能源金融（CEF） 注：圆形大小按投资价值确定。“其他”包括水电项目、输配电网络以及绿色氢能。

“They are dominating these markets,” said Dr. Turner of the Woodrow Wilson Center. “And market dominance can be a form of soft power.”

“他们正在主导这些市场，”伍德罗·威尔逊中心的特纳说，“而市场主导权就是一种软实力。”

The Trump administration is taking a different road. By dismantling a vast network of foreign aid programs, it has abandoned America’s longstanding strategy for projecting soft power.

特朗普政府正在走一条不同的道路。通过取消庞大的对外援助项目网络，它已经放弃了美国投射软实力的长期战略。

In its place it is taking a more transactional approach with other countries. In Saudi Arabia, for example, while the Chinese are building a battery project there, the United States recently agreed to a major arms sale, and an American company agreed to set up rare-earth mining, processing and magnet manufacturing. And it is moving aggressively to sell other countries more fossil fuels.

取而代之的是一种更具交易性的往来。例如，在沙特阿拉伯，当中方正在当地建设一个电池项目时，美国最近批准了一项重大的军售，还有一家美国企业同意在那里建立稀土开采、加工和磁铁制造项目。美国还在积极推动向其他国家销售更多的化石燃料。

Mr. Trump, who last year accepted more than $75 million in campaign donations from oil and gas executives, promised to “drill, baby, drill” and deliver an era of “energy dominance.” In his first few months he has tried to clear the way for more exports and to nudge foreign governments to buy more American gas.

去年收取油气巨头超7500万美元政治献金的特朗普，承诺开启“钻探吧，宝贝，钻探吧”（指油气能源开采。——译注）主导的能源时代。上任数月即扫清出口障碍，敦促外国政府增加购买美国天然气。

Ukraine, for example, is desperate to maintain military supplies from the United States and has signaled it would buy more American gas. It’s another example of the administration’s aggressive approach, even with friends.

连乌克兰这样急需美国军援的国家，也不得不表态将购买更多美国天然气。这再次印证本届政府即使对盟友也采取强势策略。

America gets “geopolitical leverage from oil and gas,” said Varun Sivaram, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who helped write clean energy policy for the Biden administration. “The energy transition is actually very bad for the United States,” he said, “because we cede geopolitical and economic ground to a rival in China.”

“油气赋予美国地缘政治杠杆，”曾为拜登政府起草清洁能源政策的外交关系委员会研究员瓦伦·西瓦拉姆坦言。“能源转型实际上对美国非常不利，因为我们把地缘政治和经济阵地拱手让给了中国这个竞争对手。”

What Will the World Buy?

世界将购买什么？

The future is being defined one deal at a time. The United States is pressing South Korea and Japan to buy more Alaskan natural gas and invest in a huge, longshot pipeline project there. China has been demanding that the European Union allow electric cars from China into its large market, although that could cause widespread job losses in Europe’s own car industry.

未来格局正由一个个具体交易塑造。美国施压韩日购买阿拉斯加天然气，投资那里的一个前景不明的巨型管道项目。中国则要求欧盟向中国电动车开放市场——此举可能导致欧洲汽车业大规模失业。

There is unlikely to be an immediate winner in this global race. The world is only becoming more energy-hungry, stoking an appetite for both solar panels and oil, nuclear and natural gas.

这场全球竞赛不太可能立即分出胜负。世界对能源的需求只会越来越大，太阳能电池板与石油、核能及天然气均不可或缺。

That may work well both for Beijing and for Washington in the short term. The United States still has many customers for its enormous stores of oil, gas and coal. Roughly 80 percent of global energy needs are still met by fossil fuels.

短期内，这可能对北京和华盛顿都有利。美国庞大的油气煤储备仍有众多买家，全球约80%的能源需求仍依赖化石燃料。

But that proportion is widely expected to decline. The International Energy Agency forecasts that by midcentury, oil, gas and coal will fall below 60 percent of global energy needs.

但普遍预计该比例将出现下降。国际能源署预测，到本世纪中叶，化石燃料在全球能源需求中所占比例将降至60%以下。

And China is positioned to pick up the extra business.

而中国已准备好接下这些多出来的生意。

“When the federal government of the United States decides to go out of the race, it doesn’t stop the race,” said Rafael Dubeux, a senior official in Brazil’s Finance Ministry. “Other countries keep moving.”

“当美国政府决定退赛时，竞赛并不会因此而停止，”巴西财政部高级官员拉斐尔·杜贝克斯说。“其他国家仍在前进。”

山西一处旧煤矿附近的太阳能电池板。