Climate not a contest for China, US

Tom Friedman's recent column in The New York Times, "How Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' Will Make China Great Again", is characteristically sharp and timely. He rightly sounded the alarm over the possibility — now a reality — of US President Donald Trump rolling back hard-won clean energy policies, not only jeopardizing the United States' economic future but also undermining the global fight against climate change.

But by claiming that China is the primary beneficiary of Trump's anti-environment decisions — and by implication, the US' adversary — Friedman has risked reinforcing the kind of zero-sum logic that has long paralyzed global climate cooperation.

China has made tremendous progress in clean energy. It leads the world in solar and wind power generation and use, dominates the global supply chain for electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries, and has invested huge amounts in green infrastructure at scale. But these gains have taken years to achieve and come with severe challenges. China still relies heavily on coal for power generation for economic growth and people's livelihood, and the country's transition to clean energy still needs long time to complete — it's not an easy task.

China is not celebrating the US' rollback. Quite the contrary, it knows that if the US abandons its climate commitments, global efforts to keep temperatures across the world below catastrophic warming thresholds will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. It will delay the energy transition for all countries, and send the wrong signal to developing and emerging economies. Equally important, it will raise the cost — human, environmental and economic — of adaptation to and mitigation of climate change across the globe.

The idea that China "wins" when the US "loses" in climate action is a geopolitical mirage. There is no scoreboard. There are only rising mercury levels.

Friedman's contention reflects a broader pattern in the US discourse: using China as a rhetorical device to spur domestic action. The suggestion that emerges from such a discourse is that the US should increase investment in science and technology, improve its infrastructure, and reform its education system, because China is doing so. This tactic may generate short-term political momentum, but it also reinforces the false image that the US and China are adversaries on every front.

In the case of climate policy, it risks feeding into the "us versus them" mindset at a time when the world needs the opposite: to work together to address common global challenges. The US, or any other country for that matter, cannot let fear of another country's progress be the primary driver of its own eco-friendly, development-oriented policies and actions. No country should fall into the trap of seeing another's misstep as a strategic gain.

The world should welcome, and encourage, China's success in clean energy. And the US should recommit to climate leadership not to "beat" China, but to help build a livable planet for itself, other countries and the generations to come.

At a time when nationalism is rising in many parts of the world and global cooperation is fragile, climate should remain one of the few domains where shared survival compels joint action. The future of energy cannot be framed as a tug-of-war between major powers. It must be seen as a relay race — one in which progress is pursued, supported and scaled, no matter where it begins, or who begins it.

The author is dean of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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