On a remote mountain ridge in southeastern Laos, a gigantic white blade emerged from the clouds, seemingly suspended in midair. The blade rose to the height of a 50-story building, more than 600 feet above a nearby cluster of wooden houses, and spun back into the clouds. Another blade followed, then another. The clouds shifted, unveiling a phalanx of giant wind turbines marching down the ridge far into the distance.

在老挝东南部的一条偏远山脊上，一片巨大的白色叶片破云而出，仿佛悬在半空。叶片高耸至相当于50层楼的高度，在附近一片木屋群上方180米处旋转着，又隐入云中。接着又出现一片叶片，再接着又一片。云层渐渐散开，赫然露出一排巨大的风力涡轮机，沿着山脊一直延伸到远方。

This was not the first time that some villagers in the district of Dak Cheung had seen powerful new technologies materialize in the skies over their isolated homeland. More than half a century ago, American warplanes dropped millions of pounds of bombs in this region during the Vietnam War. In Dak Cheung, where most inhabitants are members of the Triang ethnic minority, many huts still stand on stilts fashioned from the shells of American bombs. Earlier this year, a tribal elder pointed his bamboo cane at the dirt road in front of his village. “This is the old Ho Chi Minh Trail,” he said, reminiscing about the concealed transportation network built by the North Vietnamese Army and targeted by relentless American attacks. “The bombs fell like rain.”

对于老挝多征地区的村民而言，这并非首次看到强大的新技术出现在他们与世隔绝的家园上空。半个多世纪前的越战期间，美军战机曾在该地区投下了数百万磅炸弹。在这个以达伶少数民族为主的地区，许多小屋的支柱至今仍用美国炸弹壳制成。今年早些时候，一位部落长老用竹杖指向村前的土路说：“这就是当年的胡志明小道”。他回忆起那条由北越军队修建、不断遭到美军轰炸的隐蔽运输网络，“炸弹像雨点一样落下。”

Where once American bombs fell, Chinese wind turbines now rise. Today, along the same stretch of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a state-owned Chinese company has just finished constructing what is touted as the largest onshore wind farm in Southeast Asia — 133 turbines planted across a vast swath of one of Asia’s poorest countries. The $950 million Monsoon Wind Power Project whirred into commercial operation at the end of August. Built by the Power Construction Corporation of China, or PowerChina, and run by a Thai-led consortium, Monsoon is expected to save more than 32 million tons of carbon emissions over the next 25 years. All of the electricity it generates, however, will be sold across the border to Vietnam, a deal that bolsters Laos’s role as “the battery of Southeast Asia” even as it brings limited benefits to the people of Dak Cheung.

昔日美军炸弹倾泻之处，如今竖立起中国的风力发电机。在胡志明小道的同一段，一家中国国企刚建成号称东南亚最大的陆上风电场——在这个亚洲最贫困国家之一的一处广阔区域遍布着133台涡轮机。耗资9.5亿美元的季风风电项目于8月底投入商业运营。由中国电建承建、泰国企业联盟运营的该项目，预计未来25年可减少逾3200万吨碳排放。然而，所有电力将跨境售予越南，此举虽巩固了老挝的“东南亚蓄电池”地位，为多征民众带来的好处却十分有限。

For months, the elder would have seen turbines and their 275-foot-long blades hauled slowly up the road at night. Born in a distant village that he said still has no electricity, the old man was awe-struck by the size of the Chinese-made turbines. Their exact purpose, though, eluded him. “I see them,” he said, “but I’m sorry, I don’t know what they’re used for.”

几个月来，这位长老看到涡轮机和80多米长的叶片在夜间被缓慢运送上山。他出生于一个至今仍没有通电的偏远村庄，对这些中国制造的涡轮机体积之大惊叹不已。但它们的确切用途却让他不明所以。“我看见了，”他说，“但很抱歉，我不知道它们是用来干什么的。”

一座原为法国人所有的机场存放着中国工厂生产的风机桨叶和其他零部件。

The first wind farm in Laos hardly stands out amid China’s clean-energy revolution, but it illuminates how the world’s most prolific producer of greenhouse gases has come to dominate the global trade in renewable energy. China’s investments in clean tech — $625 billion in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency — have fueled a staggering transformation. China now produces about two-thirds of the world’s electric vehicles, more than 60 percent of its wind turbines and more than 85 percent of its battery capacity. Last year, the I.E.A. predicted that China’s export of clean-energy technologies in 10 years will reach $340 billion annually, roughly the same as the current oil exports from Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. combined.

老挝首座风电场在中国清洁能源革命中虽不显眼，却凸显了这个全球最大温室气体排放国如何在可再生能源贸易中占据主导地位。据国际能源署数据，2024年中国在清洁技术上的投资高达6250亿美元，推动了一场惊人的转型：当前全球三分之二电动车、六成以上的风力发电机、8.5成以上的电池产能均来自中国。国际能源署去年预测，十年内中国清洁技术年出口将达3400亿美元，相当于目前沙特与阿联酋石油出口总和。

The world’s two superpowers are speeding in opposite directions. As America abandons its commitment to wind, solar and electric vehicles — the Trump administration’s so-called “big beautiful bill” slashes support for all three — China is strengthening its hold over nearly every link in the supply chains for renewable energy. “There are tectonic shifts underway in clean energy that cut to the core of the great power competition between the U.S. and China,” says Milo McBride, a clean-energy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The U.S. is doubling down on its position as the largest oil and gas producer and exporter. Across the Pacific, China is expanding its prowess as the world’s manufacturer and exporter of clean-energy technologies of the future.”

两大超级大国正背道而驰：当美国放弃对风电、太阳能和电动车的承诺——特朗普政府所谓“大而美法案”削减了对这三者的支持——中国正强化对可再生能源供应链各环节的控制。卡内基国际和平基金会清洁能源专家米洛·麦克布莱德指出：“清洁能源领域正在发生根本性转变，直击中美大国竞争核心。美国正强化其最大油气生产国和出口国地位，而太平洋彼岸的中国正扩展作为未来清洁技术全球制造国和出口国的实力。”

The changes inside China are vital for the planet. But what is happening outside its borders — in the proliferation of China’s clean-energy exports — may have a more enduring impact on the climate and geopolitics. The flood of relatively low-cost Chinese green technology now reaches nearly every corner of the world. Sleek new Chinese electric vehicles fill the streets of Bangkok, São Paulo and Addis Ababa. Chinese-built solar panels blanket the sun-drenched cities of Pakistan and the 13,000-foot altiplano of Argentina. Wind farms with towering Chinese turbines dot the narrow coast of Bosnia, the plains of Kenya and, of course, the highlands of southeastern Laos. Last year, astonishingly, China exported clean-energy technology to 191 of the 192 other U.N. member states, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) in Helsinki. The only country not on the list: the Central African Republic.

中国国内的变革对地球至关重要，但其境外发生的事——中国清洁能源出口的激增——可能对气候和地缘政治产生更持久的影响。如今，相对低成本的中国绿色技术洪流几乎涌向全球每个角落：曼谷、圣保罗和亚的斯亚贝巴的街头满是闪亮的新款中国电动汽车；巴基斯坦阳光普照的城市和阿根廷海拔约4000米的高原上铺着中国制造的太阳能板；波斯尼亚狭长的海岸、肯尼亚的平原，当然还有老挝东南部的高地，均散落着装有中国巨型涡轮机的风电场。赫尔辛基能源与清洁空气研究中心(CREA)的劳里·米利维尔塔分析显示，去年中国向联合国192个成员国中的191个出口了清洁能源技术，唯一不在其列的是中非共和国——这一数据令人震惊。

老挝季风风电项目在主营地和达多村之间建造的办公设施。

Regardless of the motivations at play — Chinese manufacturers selling off their excess capacity, less-developed nations seeking a cheaper route to energy security — these exports are already taking a bite out of global carbon emissions. China’s clean-tech exports in 2024 alone will represent a 1 percent reduction in global emissions outside China, according to Myllyvirta’s calculations. Put another way, the rapid expansion of Chinese clean-energy exports will help forestall the emission of 220 million metric tons of carbon in a single year, roughly equivalent to the annual emissions from 50 million gas-powered cars. “That is huge,” says Myllyvirta, CREA’s co-founder and lead analyst, before adding, “but it’s much less than is needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

无论背后动机如何——是中国制造商消化过剩产能，还是发展中国家寻求更廉价的能源安全路径——这些出口已开始削减全球碳排放。米利维尔塔计算，仅2024年中国的清洁技术出口就将使中国境外的全球排放量减少1%。换言之，中国清洁能源出口的快速扩张每年将助力避免2.2亿吨碳排放，大致相当于5000万辆燃油汽车的年排放量。“这是巨大的贡献，”CREA联合创始人兼首席分析师米利维尔塔表示，但补充说，“但这距离实现《巴黎协定》目标仍相去甚远。”

A quarter-century ago, the pillars of China’s export economy were known as the “old three” (lao san yang): clothing, furniture and home appliances. Now there are the “new three” (xin san yang): solar, E.V.s and lithium-ion batteries (and maybe a future fourth in wind turbines). China’s interest in clean energy began as a hedge against its heavy reliance on oil, much of which is delivered through the strategically vulnerable Strait of Malacca. But as early as 2010, a group of Chinese leaders and scholars began to see clean energy as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for economic growth and geopolitical clout, as well as energy security. One of those figures argued that, historically, countries that develop new energy technologies before anyone else can change the balance of global power.

25年前，中国出口经济的支柱被称为“老三样”：服装、家具和家电。如今则是“新三样”：太阳能、电动汽车和锂离子电池（或许未来还会加上第四项——风电）。中国对清洁能源的兴趣最初源于对冲严重的石油依赖——其大部分石油需经战略上易受攻击的马六甲海峡运输。但早在2010年，一批中国领导人和学者就开始将清洁能源视为几十年一遇的机会，既能实现经济增长和地缘影响力，又能保障能源安全。其中有人提出，历史上率先开发新能源技术的国家往往能够改变全球力量平衡。

When China’s clean-energy companies first looked to foreign markets more than a decade ago, their main targets were Europe and the United States. The financial crisis and rising protectionism, especially in the United States, forced a radical shift in that approach. Chinese companies moved some factories overseas to evade tariffs — making solar panels in Indonesia, for example — even as they scoured the world for new markets. “The mentality of Chinese companies is so global,” says Kelly Sims Gallagher, a China energy expert and dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “In the case of Chinese solar firms, they first looked outside for export-led growth and then, after costs had come down, they saturated their own market.” With prices plunging because of overproduction in China — the cost of solar panels has dropped 50 percent in the past two years — there has been no shortage of countries lining up for Chinese clean tech. One side effect: China doesn’t depend on American consumers. According to Myllyvirta, only 4 percent of its wind, solar and E.V. exports go to the United States. “In a market where global sales volumes are growing 30 percent a year,” he has written, “the U.S. is a footnote.”

十多年前，中国清洁能源企业首次开拓海外市场时，主要目标是欧美。但金融危机和日益加剧的保护主义（尤其是美国）迫使策略发生根本转变。中国企业将部分工厂迁至海外以规避关税——例如在印尼生产太阳能板——同时在全球范围内寻找新市场。“中国企业的思维极具全球性，”塔夫茨大学弗莱彻学院院长、中国能源问题专家凯利·西姆斯·加拉格尔表示。“以中国太阳能企业为例，它们最初依赖出口导向型增长，待成本下降后才转而渗透国内市场。”由于中国产能过剩导致价格暴跌——过去两年太阳能板成本下降50%——各国争相购买中国的清洁技术。一个附带结果是：中国不再依赖美国消费者。据米利维尔塔数据，中国的风电、太阳能和电动汽车出口中仅4%流向美国。“在一个全球销量年增30%的市场里，”他写道，“美国不过是个注脚。”

老挝达维村原住民的家宅边耸立着风力涡轮机。

The most explosive growth is happening in developing nations. Over the past four years, they have driven 70 percent of China’s export growth in solar, wind and E.V.s., Myllyvirta says. Last year, for the first time, nearly half of China’s solar, wind and E.V. exports went to developing nations. And while some clean-tech companies in China might not survive the cutthroat competition and collapsing prices, these export trends are forecast to accelerate. “In three years,” McBride says, “Chinese products will be entering new countries at speeds and scales we haven’t seen yet.”

最迅猛的增长发生在发展中国家。米利维尔塔指出，过去四年中，这些国家贡献了中国太阳能、风电和电动汽车出口增长的70%。去年，中国首次实现近半数的太阳能、风电和电动汽车出口流向发展中国家。尽管部分中国清洁技术企业可能无法在残酷竞争和价格崩塌中生存，但这些出口趋势预计将加速。“三年内，”麦克布莱德说，“中国产品进入新国家的速度和规模将远超以往。”

For all its dominance, China has struggled to turn clean tech into soft power. To effect that kind of alchemy, some advocates are urging Beijing to initiate a green Marshall Plan modeled on the aid program the United States implemented in Europe after World War II. So far, though, Beijing has taken a narrower, more nationalistic approach. Chinese firms, for the most part, have shown more interest in offloading products and cornering markets than in helping countries build their own clean-tech economies. “Chinese companies are going where the demand is,” says Joanna Lewis, a professor of energy and environment at Georgetown University. “They’re not primarily choosing countries based on diplomatic aims.”

尽管占据主导地位，中国仍难以将清洁技术转化为软实力。为实现这种转变，一些倡导者敦促北京启动“二战”后美国在欧洲实施的“马歇尔计划”的某种绿色版。但迄今为止，北京采取了更狭隘、更民族主义的策略。中国企业大多更热衷于倾销产品和抢占市场，而非帮助其他国家建设本土清洁技术经济。“中国企业只会前往有需求的地方，”乔治城大学能源与环境教授乔安娜·刘易斯表示。“它们选择合作国家的首要依据并非外交目标。”

For countries like Laos, with its crumbling finances, clean-energy projects from China can be irresistible. They offer a cheap alternative to fossil fuels, an affordable way to take on climate change, a chance to gain energy security in a volatile world. But beyond this promise lies the peril of dependence. Laos, in many ways, has become a test case for countries trying to walk the tightrope with China. How can they benefit from the clean energy on offer without becoming so reliant on China — or so mired in debt — that they can’t stand up on their own? The question reverberates in the mountains of southern Laos, where the Indigenous Triang people now share their homeland with the whirling turbines of Southeast Asia’s largest wind farm.

对老挝这类财政摇摇欲坠的国家而言，中国的清洁能源项目具有不可抗拒的吸引力：它们提供了化石燃料的廉价替代品，成为应对气候变化的可负担途径，以及在动荡世界中实现能源安全的机会。但在这些承诺背后潜藏着依赖的风险。在许多方面，老挝已成为其他国家与中国“走钢丝”的试验场：如何在受益于中国清洁能源的同时，避免过度依赖或深陷债务，以至于丧失自主能力？这个问题在老挝南部山区回荡——当地的达伶族原住民如今要与东南亚最大风电场的那些旋转的涡轮机分享他们的家园。

老挝达多村，躲在粮仓下方的猪。这些粮仓就建立在越战美军遗留的炸弹残骸之上。

A light rain was falling in the town of Dak Cheung when the big boss from PowerChina arrived to mark the completion of the Monsoon Wind Power Project. It was early July, the actual monsoon season, and the project’s Chinese managers had arranged a celebratory dinner at a restaurant in town, a step up from the canteen at the workers’ main camp half an hour down the dirt road. Money flowing in for the construction of the wind farm has turned this outpost near the Vietnam border into a mini-boomtown, with a new hotel, a Chinese barbershop, a karaoke bar and five brightly lit stores selling competing brands of Chinese mobile phones. There’s a Sichuanese restaurant that is so new its name is scrawled in Chinese characters on a piece of cardboard taped to the wall outside. But the town’s defining feature is the row of gently spinning wind turbines on the hills across its scenic reservoir.

细雨霏霏的多征镇迎来了一位大人物——中国电建集团的老总，此行是为主持季风风电项目的竣工仪式。那是7月初，是名副其实的季风季节，项目的中方经理在镇上的一家餐厅安排了庆功宴，这比半小时土路车程外工人主营地的食堂档次提升不少。风电场建设带来的资金涌入让这个靠近越南边境的偏远之地一夜之间变成了“繁荣的迷你城”：新开了一家酒店、一家中国理发店、一家卡拉OK，以及五家灯火通明、销售不同品牌中国手机的商店。这里甚至还开了一家川菜馆，因为开张不久，店名是用中文手写在一块硬纸板上、贴于店外的。但小镇最显著的标志是风景如画的水库对面山脊上那排缓缓转动的风力发电机。

That night, the boss rode to the restaurant in a black Toyota Land Cruiser with a big red “#1” sticker on the windshield and vanity plates whose numbers (6688) sound like “flowing wealth” when spoken in Mandarin. Inside the restaurant, 13 men (there were no women) stood up to welcome the boss. They were all dressed, almost identically, in white or blue button-down shirts. After gobbling down their dinner, the Chinese men stood up, one by one, and exchanged toasts and shots of Lao whiskey with their leader. There was much to celebrate. The last turbine for the 600-megawatt Monsoon project had been installed in April. Now the test run for all 133 turbines was complete. What PowerChina describes as the biggest wind farm a Chinese company has ever built outside of China’s borders was ready to go. “Gongxi, gongxi, Laoban!” the men called out. (“Congratulations, Boss!”)

当晚，中国电建集团的老总乘坐一辆黑色丰田兰德酷路泽来到举办宴席的餐馆，汽车的前挡风玻璃贴有醒目的红色“#1”标签，车牌号码6688取普通话“六六发发”的谐音。餐厅内13名男性（无女性在场）起身迎接老板，众人清一色穿着白色或蓝色衬衫。匆匆用完餐后，中方员工逐一站起，用老挝威士忌向领导敬酒。值得庆贺的事有很多：装机容量600兆瓦的季风项目最后一台风机已在4月吊装完成，如今133台风机的试运行也全部结束。中国电建称，这是中企在海外建成的最大风电场，它即将正式投入运营。“恭喜，恭喜老板！”众人大声祝贺。

About 10 miles southwest of Dak Cheung town, the main camp of the Monsoon Wind Power Project sat on a small hill above the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, next to a new 500-kilovolt substation that sends the electricity through transmission lines to Vietnam. The fenced-in compound of cement buildings stood out from the Indigenous villages tucked into the mountain forests around it. Built by PowerChina, the camp featured several neat rows of factory-style dormitories with blue metal roofs, a basketball court, a large fleet of white Toyota Land Cruisers and, unlike the nearby villages, rows of flood lights: no shortage of electricity here. The hundreds of PowerChina employees who stayed here at the height of construction have mostly left, their jobs finished as the project moves into its operational phase. The company flag still flutters atop a faux-marble base affixed with Chinese characters that read: “Responsibility and efficiency are best.”

在多征镇西南约16公里处，季风风电项目主营地建在一座小山上，俯瞰着曾经的胡志明小道，紧邻一座新建的500千伏变电站，输电线路从这里将电力送往越南。这座带围栏的水泥建筑群，与周边隐匿于山林的原住民村落形成鲜明对比。在这个由中国电建建造的营地里，整齐排列着数排蓝色金属顶的工厂式宿舍，这里还配备了一个篮球场，以及许多白色的丰田兰德酷路泽。不同于周边的村落，这里装有一排排泛光灯，电力供应充足。项目建设高峰期，这里曾驻扎着数百名员工，如今随着项目转入运营阶段，大部分人已经撤离。公司旗帜仍在仿大理石基座上飘扬，上面镌刻着中文：“责任与效率至上”。

老挝达征村，季风风电项目主营地的工人宿舍。

China’s efficiency is palpable in Laos, a poor, landlocked communist nation that Joshua Kurlantzick of the Council on Foreign Relations calls “a satellite state” of China. PowerChina built the entire Monsoon project in just 27 months, in a stretch of mountainous terrain 12 times the size of Manhattan. Before the company broke ground, bomb-removal squads scoured the area for unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War. Access roads were built along the forested ridges so the Chinese-made turbines could make the long journey up to the high plateau. Working straight through the monsoon season, with its rain and high winds, the company faced engineering challenges — along with the more delicate complexities of dealing with an Indigenous local population on whose sacred ground it was treading.

在老挝这个贫穷的内陆共产主义国家，中国效率体现得淋漓尽致。美国外交关系协会的约书亚·科兰兹克称老挝为中国的“卫星国”。中国电建仅用27个月便在一片相当于曼哈顿面积12倍的山区完成了整个季风项目。在动工前，排雷小组必须清除掉越战遗留下的未爆炸弹。施工团队沿森林覆盖的山脊修建运输道路，使中国制造的风机得以长途运抵高原。即使在风雨交加的季风季节，施工也未停止，这家公司不仅面临工程挑战，更需谨慎处理与当地原住民的微妙关系——因为项目所涉土地是他们的圣地。

Spurred by Beijing to go global, PowerChina has built renewable-energy projects around the world — geothermal in Indonesia, hydropower in Nigeria, solar in Chile, wind in Pakistan. Nowhere is the company more deeply embedded, however, than in Laos. Over the past three decades, it has been involved in more than 150 projects in the country, including the $6 billion Laos-China railway and a $2.7 billion cascade of hydroelectric dams on a tributary to the Mekong River. (These hydropower projects provoked public discontent for damaging the environment and displacing Indigenous inhabitants from more than 100 villages.)

在北京“走出去”战略的推动下，中国电建在世界各地承建了许多可再生能源项目，包括印尼的地热电站、尼日利亚的水电站、智利的太阳能电站、巴基斯坦的风电场。然而，其在老挝的深耕程度无出其右。在过去30年里，中国电建在老挝参与了150多个项目，其中包括60亿美元的中老铁路，以及耗资27亿美元、在湄公河支流上修建的一系列梯级水电站。（这些水电项目因破坏环境、迫使100多个村落的原住民搬迁而引发民众不满。）

PowerChina is almost single-handedly responsible for establishing Laos’s identity as Southeast Asia’s battery. Three-quarters of the country’s generated electricity, most of which comes from hydroelectric dams, is now sold to its neighbors, including Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore. The Monsoon Wind Power Project sells 100 percent of its electricity to Vietnam through a 44-mile transmission line across the border. The Laos government will receive foreign currency from the deal, partly through royalty fees, but there’s a rub: In 2021, to cancel a portion of its debt, Laos handed over 90 percent of the national power grid to a Chinese state-owned company, putting China in charge of all electricity flowing to both domestic and international customers, such as Vietnam.

中国电建几乎以一己之力将老挝打造成“东南亚蓄电池”。该国四分之三的发电量（主要来自水电站）如今出口到泰国、柬埔寨和新加坡等周边国家。季风风电项目所发电力通过70公里长的跨境输电线路全部输送至越南。老挝政府将从这笔交易中获得外汇收入（部分通过特许权使用费），但问题在于：为了抵债，老挝在2021年将国家电网90%的控股权移交给了一家中国国企，使得中国掌握了所有通往国内外（包括越南）用户的电力调度权。

So far, these foreign deals have not alleviated debt or poverty in Laos, where the average rural income is estimated to be around $18 a month. Even if official corruption can be avoided, analysts say, a good portion of Laos’s energy revenues ends up servicing the country’s ballooning external debt. It’s a Catch-22: Costly infrastructure projects meant to bolster the economy have saddled Laos with more than $10 billion in external debt, about half of which is owed to China. The Lao government is not only unable to repay its debt to China; it struggles even to make the interest payments. “Whether by design or neglect, China has created a debt trap in Laos,” an April 2025 report by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, concluded. “Even under the most optimistic scenarios, Laos cannot escape the crisis in the absence of substantial debt relief.”

迄今为止，这些对外交易并未缓解老挝的债务或贫困。老挝农村人均月收入估计仅约18美元。分析人士指出，即便不存在腐败，大部分能源收入也最终用来偿还不断膨胀的外债。这形成了一种恶性循环：原本旨在提振经济的昂贵基础设施项目反而让老挝背负了超过100亿美元的外债，其中约一半的债主是中国。老挝政府不仅无力偿还对中国的债务，连支付利息都很吃力。澳大利亚智库洛伊研究所在2025年4月的一份报告中总结道：“无论是有意还是无心，中国已在老挝制造了债务陷阱。即便在最乐观的情况下，如果没有大规模的债务减免，老挝也无法摆脱危机。”

老挝达征村，赶着水牛回家的达伶族儿童在嬉戏。

Regardless of its motivations, Beijing wields ever-increasing influence over its cash-strapped neighbor. “The debt is having a crippling effect on the economy,” says Ian Baird, a specialist on Laos at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Economic debt has translated into political influence.” China’s operational takeover of the national power grid, which went into effect last year, seemed almost inevitable, given that the grid was largely built by Chinese firms, with Chinese financing, using Chinese technology. PowerChina, which did not respond to requests for an interview, is pressuring Laos to pay its debts, too. This year, a company subsidiary sued Laos’s state utility for $555 million in unpaid bills from its hydroelectric projects. What other state assets will Laos have to hand over if it can’t come up with the cash?

无论北京动机如何，这个资金短缺的邻国正日益受其影响。“债务正在对经济产生毁灭性影响，”威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校老挝问题专家伊恩·贝尔德指出，“经济债务已转化为政治影响力。”中国去年正式接管了老挝国家电网的运营，考虑到该电网主要由中国企业使用中国技术和资金建设，这几乎是必然结果。中国电建——该公司没有回应采访请求——在向老挝施压要求还债。今年，公司的一家子公司起诉老挝国有电力公司，要求支付5.55亿美元的水电项目欠款。若老挝无法筹措资金，还将被迫交出哪些国有资产？

The wind farm in Dak Cheung, at least, will not deepen Laos’s debt, according to Narut Boakajorn, the general manager of the Monsoon Wind Power Company Ltd. The Lao government is not party to any loans, he says, nor does it have an ownership stake in the project. (PowerChina, despite its huge contracting role, is not an owner, either.) “We think the project could help reduce debt somehow,” Boakajorn says. But in its weak position — having given up control of the land (to Monsoon), the grid (to China) and the electricity (to Vietnam) — the Lao government may earn only $100 million, mostly in royalties and taxes, over the next 25 years, he says. It’s better than debt. And the wind farm, Boakajorn believes, shows the Lao government something more valuable: a path to clean energy — and to Laos’s goal of cutting emissions 60 percent by 2030 — with a far lighter impact than an old standby like hydropower.

据季风风电有限公司总经理纳鲁特·博卡乔恩表示，至少多征镇的风电场不会加剧老挝债务。他称老挝政府未参与任何贷款，也不持有项目股权。（尽管中国电建是承建主力，但它同样不是业主）“我们认为该项目有望帮助减轻债务，”博卡乔恩表示。但他指出，在已让渡土地（交给季风项目）、电网（交给中国）和电力（卖给越南）控制权的弱势处境下，老挝政府未来25年可能仅获1亿美元收益，主要来自特许权使用费和税收。这总比债务好。而且博卡乔恩相信，这个风电场向老挝政府展示了更有价值的东西：一条通往清洁能源的道路——帮助老挝实现到2030年减排60%的目标，并且对环境和社会的冲击也比传统的水电项目要小得多。

Wind power, in fact, is gusting hard in Laos. A wind farm with more than double the capacity of Monsoon is under construction north of Dak Cheung. And Boakajorn says another project, still in the planning stages, will be built alongside the existing wind farm in Dak Cheung. Monsoon is preparing to be in the area for the next quarter-century. Bomb-removal squads have already swept the hills for unexploded ordnance. And on a large red-dirt lot down the road from the former main camp, men and women in PowerChina helmets have begun construction on a two-story office complex that will serve as a new base of operations. It won’t be long, it seems, before another flood of workers arrives — many of them Chinese — to erect more monuments to the wind.

事实上，风电产业在老挝正迅猛发展。在多征地区北部，一个装机容量超过季风项目两倍的新风电项目正在建设中。博卡乔恩表示，在多征现有的风电场旁边，还有一个项目仍处于规划中。季风项目预计将在该地区运营25年。排爆小组已对这片山地进行了作业，清除了未爆炸的弹药。从原主营营地往前走一段路，有一片巨大的红土地，头戴中国电建安全帽的工人们已开始建造一栋两层高的综合办公楼，作为新的运营基地。看起来，用不了多久，又将大批工人涌入——其中许多都是中国人，筑起更多风能的“丰碑”。

Nearly 10 years ago, when the United States and China came together to help adopt the Paris Agreement, the world experienced a sort of harmonic convergence. More than 200 countries committed themselves to reducing greenhouse emissions and limiting global warming, and the conversations about climate revolved around shared visions, international cooperation, even planetary governance. That exalted state endured for less than three years before the U.S., under the first Trump administration, squared off in a trade war with China — and China began to assert its dominance over every choke point in clean-energy development. “The sense of shared vision has really waned in favor of a highly competitive era of green-energy statecraft,” says Sam Geall, a fellow at Chatham House, a foreign-policy think tank in London. “And it couldn’t be more notable than in the case of China.”

近十年前，当美中携手推动《巴黎协定》通过时，世界曾迎来一段和谐共鸣的时刻。超过200个国家承诺减少温室气体排放、抑制全球变暖，气候对话围绕着共同愿景、国际合作乃至全球治理展开。但这种各方合作的高峰状态仅仅持续了不到三年，美国就在特朗普首届任期内与中国打响贸易战，中国开始确立其在清洁能源发展各关键领域的主导地位。“共享愿景的感觉已经大幅消退，取而代之的是高度竞争的绿色能源治国时代，”伦敦智库查塔姆研究所的研究员萨姆·盖尔说，“而这一点在中国的案例中尤为明显。”

越战期间美军的轰炸在老挝达兰村边缘地带留下的弹坑。

China portrays its embrace of renewable energy as a reflection of its concern for “ecological civilization.” Globalizing that commitment has been a conscious effort. “No matter how the international situation changes,” President Xi Jinping said in April, “China will not slow down its efforts to address climate change.” For all the seeming altruism, China’s pivot toward clean-energy development has also been driven by its own needs for energy security, economic growth and geopolitical advantage. Alex Wang, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of a forthcoming book, “Chinese Global Environmentalism,” notes how China’s green-energy statecraft balances global concerns and nationalistic self-interest. “China was able to find a dynamic that dovetails well with the Paris Agreement,” Wang says, “but is also very effective in achieving all of these other national security goals.”

中国将自身积极推动可再生能源描绘成对“生态文明”的关切，并有意识地推动这种承诺的全球化。习近平主席今年4月曾表示：“无论国际形势如何变化，中国积极应对气候变化的行动不会放缓。”然而，在所有看似利他的表象之下，中国转向清洁能源同样受到其自身对能源安全、经济增长和地缘政治利益的需求所推动。加州大学洛杉矶分校法学教授、即将出版《中国的全球环保主义》(Chinese Global Environmentalism)一书的王立德指出，中国的绿色能源治国方略在全球关切与国家利益之间取得了平衡。他说，“中国摸索出了一套既与《巴黎协定》契合，又有助于达成所有这些国家安全目标的动态平衡。”

If this is a global competition, what happens when one side, the United States, abandons the field? By phasing out tax credits and incentives for solar, wind and E.V.s, the Trump administration has already torpedoed tens of billions of dollars in planned clean-energy investments — and set back renewables in the U.S. for years, perhaps even a generation. “Strictly in terms of U.S. and China competition, that is a massive own goal,” Myllyvirta says. The starkest contrast came in late August, when the U.S. government halted construction of an almost-completed $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island — on the very same day that the Monsoon Wind Power Project began commercial operations. Trump isn’t simply surrendering clean-energy industries to America’s biggest rival; he’s also relinquishing to China a global leadership role on climate issues.

如果这是一场全球竞争，当其中一方——美国——退赛时会发生什么？通过逐步取消对太阳能、风能和电动车的税收抵免和激励措施，特朗普政府已经重创了计划中的数百亿美元清洁能源投资，而且让美国的可再生能源发展倒退数年、甚至可能是一代人的时间。“严格从美中竞争的角度看，这是一记彻头彻尾的昏招，”米利维尔塔表示。最鲜明的对比出现在8月底，美国政府叫停了罗德岛海岸附近一个接近完工、造价40亿美元的海上风电项目；而季风风电项目正是在那一天开始了商业运营。特朗普不仅仅是将清洁能源产业拱手让给美国最大的竞争对手，同时还将气候议题上的全球领导角色让给了中国。

In Beijing, some influential voices believe this is the perfect moment for China to intensify its green-energy statecraft. Until now, the global expansion of green technology has been led mainly by Chinese enterprises searching for markets that can absorb their excess manufacturing capacity — not by a premeditated government strategy to build soft power. Most of China’s exports, moreover, have been sales of equipment or construction services, not the deeper transfer of technological know-how or manufacturing experience. Still, some analysts believe that there are benefits in keeping China’s influence in the realm of business, not politics. As Javier Borràs of the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs has written: “China is managing to create a new kind of green soft power that doesn’t need Beijing’s stultifying propaganda.”

在北京，一些有影响力的人士认为，这是中国强化其绿色能源治国方略的绝佳时机。迄今为止，绿色技术的全球扩张主要由中国企业主导，它们寻找能够消化其过剩产能的市场——而非出于政府构建软实力的预谋战略。而且，中国的大部分出口也只是设备销售或建设服务，而非更深层次的技术转移或制造经验的分享。不过，一些分析人士认为，将中国的影响力保持在商业而非政治领域是有益的。正如巴塞罗那国际事务中心的哈维尔·博拉斯所写：“中国正在设法打造一种无需北京的笨拙宣传的新型绿色软实力。”

But a haphazard approach — soft power by accident, as it were — is not enough to drive the world’s low-carbon transition. A 2023 U.N. report laid out the challenge starkly: Developing countries need about $1.7 trillion in renewable-energy investments every year to move toward their climate goals, the report said, but they received only $544 billion in foreign direct investments the year before. Galvanized by that report, Huang Yiping, dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development at Peking University, proposed a Marshall Plan for clean energy. According to Huang, only China has the expertise, financing and productive capacity to fill the gap. By sharing these tools, he has written, China can “drive global green development, boost its own economy and strengthen its international leadership all at the same time.”

但缺乏系统性的方式——可称之为偶然的软实力——并不足以推动世界的低碳转型。2023年的一份联合国报告清楚地指出了挑战：发展中国家每年需要大约1.7万亿美元的可再生能源投资才能朝气候目标迈进，但前一年它们仅获得了5440亿美元的外国直接投资。受这份报告激励，北京大学南南合作与发展研究院院长黄益平提出了一个清洁能源版的“马歇尔计划”。黄益平认为，只有中国具备填补这一缺口的专业能力、融资能力和生产能力。他写道，通过分享这些工具，中国可以“推动全球绿色发展，同时促进本国经济，并加强其国际领导力”。

在达征村，一名老挝人在季风风电项目3号区最高点的检查站工作，这里海拔约1500米。

Creating a green Marshall Plan would be the ultimate expression of soft power, but Beijing seems reluctant to make that commitment. It doesn’t help that China is still hooked on coal and oil, and is responsible for 90 percent of the growth in CO2 emissions since 2015, according to CREA. Even so, says Geall of Chatham House, China could benefit from thinking smaller — for example, by exporting products like the cheap solar water heaters that are ubiquitous in the Chinese countryside. “If China were really into soft power, and pushing South-South climate cooperation, you’d think it would be all over exporting things like that to poorer countries,” Geall says. That would “unlock such great development benefits. Yet what ends up happening is often very high-tech, flashy, modern projects.” He adds, “China is really missing a trick in terms of soft power.”

打造一个“绿色版马歇尔计划”将是软实力的终极体现，但北京似乎不愿做出这样的承诺。更糟糕的是，中国依然严重依赖煤炭和石油。据CREA的数据，自2015年以来，全球二氧化碳排放增量的90%来自中国。尽管如此，查塔姆研究所的盖尔表示，中国或可从小处着手获益——例如出口廉价的太阳能热水器等产品，这类设备在中国农村随处可见。盖尔说：“如果中国真的致力于软实力，并推动南南气候合作，理应大力向贫穷国家出口这些东西。”这“将释放出巨大的发展效益。然而最终落地的往往是那些高科技、光鲜时髦的现代项目”。他还说：“在软实力方面，中国确实错失了一个量级。”

For countries concerned about becoming over-reliant on China, one goal is to build low-carbon industries of their own. “I do not see evidence of a grand strategy in the way that China has exported clean-energy technologies,” Lewis, the Georgetown professor, says. “There is a huge opportunity for China to play a much greater role in the low-carbon energy transition across the Global South, not just by exporting solar, wind and other technologies but by helping these countries build their own green industries and to learn from China’s own green industrial policy model.”

对于担心过度依赖中国的国家来说，建立本土低碳产业是目标之一。“我从中国清洁能源技术的出口模式中并未看到宏大战略的证据，”乔治城大学的刘易斯表示。“中国在全球南方的低碳能源转型中有巨大的机会发挥更大作用，不仅仅是出口太阳能、风能和其他技术，还可以帮助这些国家建立自己的绿色产业，并借鉴中国自身的绿色产业政策模式。”

This process is already starting to happen from the bottom up. In Kenya, for example, an E.V. distributor is reportedly transitioning from already-built Chinese imports to locally assembled equivalents. Deals like this are win-win: They provide locals with jobs, technical expertise, even profits, while offering Chinese manufacturers more direct access to dynamic new markets. It doesn’t always work, though. In Chile, two Chinese companies recently backed out of plans to build lithium cathode plants, dealing a blow to the South American country’s ambition to move beyond the export of raw lithium. So far the country that has partnered with China most successfully may be Brazil, the host of a global climate summit in November. Even as the United States targets the country with punitive tariffs, Brazil has secured deals with Chinese companies that include E.V. factories and a wind-turbine assembly plant.

这一进程已开始自下而上地涌现。例如在肯尼亚，一家电动车分销商据报道正从直接进口中国整车转向在当地组装同类车辆。此类双赢合作既为当地创造就业、输送技术甚至带来利润，又使中国制造商能够更直接地切入充满活力的新市场。但并非所有尝试都能取得成功：在智利，两家中国企业决定放弃在当地建设锂电负极材料工厂的计划，打击了这个南美国家想要摆脱单纯出口锂原料的雄心。迄今为止与中国合作最成功的或许是巴西，它将于11月举办全球气候峰会。即便在遭受美国惩罚性关税打击的情况下，巴西仍与中国企业达成了包括电动车工厂和风机组装厂在内的多项协议。

Laos, so deeply in debt, isn’t in a strong position to make demands of China. Yet as the final turbines of the Monsoon Wind Power Project were being installed this spring, the Laos government reportedly signed a new $1.45 billion agreement with another Chinese company to lead a 1,800-megawatt clean-energy project. Even with its heavy debt to China — or perhaps because of it — Laos’s role as an energy exporter shows no sign of diminishing.

深陷债务的老挝并不具备向中国提要求的底气。然而，就在今年春天季风风电项目最后一批风机安装期间，据报道，老挝政府又与另一家中国企业签署了14.5亿美元新协议，由该公司牵头建设一个1800兆瓦的清洁能源项目。即便背负沉重的对华债务——也许恰恰是因为如此——老挝作为能源出口国的角色丝毫没有减弱迹象。

季风风电项目主营地附近的一座路边商店。

Less than a mile from the Monsoon main camp, the village of Dak Dor is nestled in the curves of a river. Across the rickety wooden footbridge, the rituals of daily life continue unabated. In one house, a half-dozen women attended to a mother and her newborn, warding off evil spirits with herbs and heating up cloths to place on the mother’s abdomen. Around the corner, a group of men and boys pulled an aging water buffalo to the ground to be slaughtered for a communal feast. Amid the traditional scenes were hints of foreign influence, too. Like many huts, a rice shed stood on stilts made from the shells of American cluster bombs. Nearby, a modern two-story cement house was under construction, its owner said to be a man who got a job with PowerChina.

距季风项目主营地仅1000多米的达多村座落在一处河湾边。摇摇欲坠的木栈桥对岸，日常生活的仪式依然如常延续。某户人家里，六七名妇女正在照料母婴二人，她们用草药驱邪，又将经过加热的布巾敷在产妇腹部。拐角处，一群男子与少年合力将一头老水牛按倒在地，准备将其宰杀用于村宴。在这些传统景象中亦夹杂着外来影响的痕迹：许多粮仓下方的支撑物是用美军集束炸弹壳制成的。附近一栋现代两层水泥楼正在施工，据称房主是一名在中国电建找到了工作的村民。

A hillside pasture above the nearby village of Dak Rant offered an even clearer view of recent history. In the foreground, a herd of cows meandered around a cluster of circular holes, nibbling on vegetation so peacefully it was easy to forget that these craters came from bombs unloaded by American planes more than 50 years ago. The only trees and bushes on the denuded hill were growing out of the craters. Rising up behind the pockmarked hill, radiating into the distance, row after row of sleek new Chinese turbines extended to the horizon. Under that canopy of turbines lie 32 villages with about 17,000 inhabitants, roughly 90 percent of whom are members of the Triang ethnic minority.

在附近达兰村上方的山坡牧场，可以更清晰地看到历史的印记。近处的牛群在坑坑洼洼的草坡上闲散踱步，悠然啃食青草，几乎让人忘了这些坑洞是50多年前美军飞机投弹所留。光秃秃的山丘上，树木和灌丛都是从弹坑里长出来的。而越过这片疮痍之地，一排排流线型的全新中国风机向远方延伸，直至地平线。在这片风机阵列之下，坐落着32个村庄，约有1.7万名居民，其中大约90%属于少数民族达伶族人。

During construction, Monsoon scrambled to deal with grievances from villagers ranging from the loss of agricultural land to the disturbance of what an impact report refers to as “environmental spirits.” In the hamlet of Dak Bong, villagers voiced their anger about PowerChina’s plans to put a transmission line over the sacred cemetery where their ancestors were buried. According to Boakajorn, the company agreed to change the route of the transmission line so as not to disturb the spirits of the villagers’ venerated ancestors. Often when foreign contractors had to work close to a village, the locals would conduct rituals. Boakajorn says that overall, the company has paid out $1.3 million in compensation for the loss of land, trees, income and cultural heritage. It’s a small line item in a project that cost nearly a billion dollars. But the attentiveness to local needs did have one big success: Boakajorn says that not a single family was forcibly resettled because of Monsoon.

施工期间，季风项目方疲于应对村民的各种不满，从失去耕地到被一份项目影响报告称为“环境神灵”受到的侵扰。达邦村的村民则对中国电建计划在祖坟上方架设输电线表示愤怒。在他们看来，那是安葬先人的圣地。根据博卡乔恩的说法，公司最终同意改变输电线路的走向，以避免打扰村民所敬奉的祖先亡灵。通常，当外国承包商需要在村庄附近施工时，当地人都会举行仪式。博卡乔恩说，公司为土地、树木、收入和文化遗产的损失赔偿总额达到130万美元。对于这个耗资近十亿美元的项目而言，这只是微不足道的支出。但对当地需求的细致关照确实带来一项重要成果：博卡乔恩称，没有一个家庭因为季风项目被强制搬迁。

As disorienting as the arrival of the wind farm may have been, hundreds of villagers found temporary jobs as construction workers, cooks, security guards or truck drivers. Truck drivers received the best salary, one villager said, worth more than $200 a month, which is many times the local average. But most jobs ended after PowerChina installed the last turbine in April. Few villagers have the education or skills to qualify for a job in operations, though Boakajorn says that Monsoon still employs 120 villagers to work in everything from forest protection to community relations. With more than a million dollars set aside annually for the community development fund, Monsoon has become almost a mini-government in the area, awarding scholarships, teaching locals about coffee farming and providing solar modules to a few villages that are furthest off the electricity grid. The company is even turning its main camp into a training facility for the community. For all this, there is still one inescapable fact: The local people do not receive a single watt of electricity from the wind farm that now occupies their land.

尽管风电场的到来令人不适应，但数百名村民在施工期找到了临时工作，比如建筑工人、厨师、保安或卡车司机。其中卡车司机的工资最高，一名村民说，月薪超过200美元，是当地平均水平的好几倍。但4月中国电建安装完最后一批风机后，多数岗位随之消失。鲜有村民具备足够教育背景或技能胜任运营岗位，不过博卡乔恩表示，季风项目仍雇佣着120名村民，从事森林保护到社区关系等各类工作。项目每年拨备逾百万美元设立社区发展基金，几乎成为该地区的一个微型政府，提供奖学金，教授当地人咖啡种植技术，并为最偏远、未接入电网的村庄提供太阳能组件。公司甚至将其主营地改造为社区培训中心。尽管如此，一个无法回避的事实是：当地人并没有从这片占据他们土地的风电场获得哪怕一度电。

Out next to the road, a barefoot woman in her early 20s was managing her family’s open-air convenience store as clients sat at a wooden table perched on beer crates. Asked if the Monsoon project had brought changes to the village, she pointed to the old boarded-up wooden house next door. “The shop used to be there,” she said, “but business was good so we built this new one.” The new cement building boasts whitewashed walls and linoleum tiles, along with a new refrigerator and freezer. Chinese workers often stopped by on their way up and down the road — “They only buy Pepsi and sweets,” she said — but the real uptick in business came from local villagers, many of them subsistence farmers receiving cash wages for the first time.

在靠近公路的一个露天便利店里，一位二十出头、光着脚的年轻女子正在照看家里的生意，顾客们坐在啤酒箱搭成的木桌旁。被问及季风项目是否给村庄带来变化时，她指向隔壁那幢破旧的木屋：“商店原来在那儿，”她说，“但生意不错，所以我们盖了这个新店。”这座新建的水泥屋刷了白墙，铺了塑料地板，还添置了新的冰箱冷柜。中国工人常常在上下工的路上顺便光顾——“他们只买百事可乐和糖果，”她说——但真正让生意兴旺起来的是本地村民，其中许多人是第一次拿到现金工资的自给农户。

在老挝南部运输的铝土矿，这些矿物会出口到国外用于生产铝。

All conversation stopped as three massive trucks rumbled past. They were carrying bauxite from a nearby mine that was destined for Vietnam and, ultimately, China. A PowerChina S.U.V. rolled by, followed by a Land Cruiser with the logo of a Norwegian aid group and an American flag sticker. These were bomb-removal experts who, more than 50 years after the last American bomb fell, were surveying the area for unexploded ordnance. They won’t finish anytime soon: The USAID program that funded efforts like theirs was eliminated this year.

随着三辆巨型卡车轰隆隆驶过，所有交谈戛然而止。卡车载着从附近矿山开采的铝土矿，目的地是越南，最终送往中国。随后驶来一辆中国电建的SUV，一辆挂着挪威援助组织标识和美国国旗贴纸的丰田兰德酷路泽紧随其后。车上坐着排雷专家——在最后一枚美军炸弹落下50多年后，他们仍在勘察这片土地上的未爆弹。他们的工作短期内是不可能完成了，因为资助此类行动的美国国际开发署项目今年已被取消。

The young woman had bigger aspirations than running her family’s shop on the old Ho Chi Minh Trail. She is the first person in her family — and one of the few in her area — to go to college. It was her holiday, and she was back in town helping her parents run the store. After graduation, she said, she would probably leave the village to work in a big town like Dak Cheung or maybe even farther away in the city of Sekong.

这位年轻女子的抱负远不止在古老的胡志明小道上经营家里的铺子。作为家族的首位大学生，也是当地极少数的大学生之一，她趁假期回乡帮父母看店。她表示毕业后可能离开村庄，前往多征这样的大城镇或更远的塞贡市工作。

For now, though, she had a simpler ambition. After meeting some Chinese engineers and seeing what PowerChina had done — bringing cutting-edge technology to an undeveloped highland — she was keen to learn the language.

不过，就眼下而言，她有一个更简单的愿望。接触到一些中国工程师，看到中国电建如何把最前沿的技术带进这片未开发的高地后，她萌生了学习中文的兴趣。

“I want to learn Chinese,” she said, “if somebody could teach me.”

“我想学中文，”她说，“如果有人能教我的话。”