The West’s Dangerous Dependence On China’s Rapidly Militarizing Economy
For years, Westerners have been told that the only responsible response to (so-called – Ed) ‘climate change’ is a rapid transition to so-called ‘renewable’ energy. Solar panels, wind turbines, EVs, and battery storage are presented as the moral antidote to ‘fossil fuels’, the so-called ‘clean’ technologies that will ‘save the planet’ from human‑caused warming
This narrative is repeated so often that it has become dogma: if you care about the climate, you must support ‘net zero’, and if you support ‘net zero’, you must support the ‘renewable’ technologies that make it possible.
But this story leaves out the most important geopolitical fact of our time: every major clean‑tech supply chain is dominated, if not monopolized, by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
And the CCP has not been shy about its intentions.
To understand the stakes, we must step back and examine the geopolitical architecture that predates the climate debate entirely.
The Pivot to Asia Was Never About Climate — It Was About China’s Rise
In 2011, the Obama administration formally launched the Pivot to Asia foreign policy, a strategic reorientation of US naval power, acknowledging that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was preparing to challenge U.S. dominance in the Indo‑Pacific¹.
But the intellectual roots of this shift stretch back to the 1999 Cox Report, a bipartisan congressional investigation documenting the PRC’s systematic efforts to acquire U.S. military and commercial technology².
Figure 1. Deng Xiaoping’s 1997 “16-Character Policy”, which governs the PRC’s economic, technological and geopolitical strategy.
The Cox Report was not speculative. It was a response to something the CCP had already codified in Deng Xiaoping’s 1997 “16‑Character Policy.” This policy, shown in Figure 1 is not a slogan. It is a formal declaration of a militarized economy³.
Its four pillars are explicit:
- Fuse military and civilian sectors
- Integrate peacetime and wartime production
- Prioritize military output
- Mobilize civilian industry for military aims
This is the CCP telling the world, in plain language, that its economy exists to serve the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its wartime readiness.
Under this doctrine, every major Chinese corporation, especially in strategic sectors, is an extension of the CCP and the PLA. The State Council, through the State Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), oversees a vast network of state‑owned enterprises that blur the line between commercial production and military modernization.
These include:
- China Aerospace Corporation (CASC)
- China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC)
- China North Industries Group (NORINCO)
- Aviation Industries Corporation of China (AVIC)
- China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC)
These are not “companies” in the Western sense. They are instruments of state power and wartime preparedness.
And under Xi Jinping, the fusion of party, state, and industry has only intensified. As of 2023, 80 billionaires occupy senior CCP, PNC, and State Council positions, with a combined net worth exceeding $800 billion CAD⁴.
Nearly half of all private enterprises now host embedded CCP political officers⁵.
This is the context in which Western climate policy must be understood.
Clean Tech Is Not Clean — It Is Mineral‑Intensive, Industrial, and Geopolitically Captured.
The Western climate narrative insists that renewable energy is the path to decarbonization. But renewables are not ethereal, post‑material technologies. They are mineral‑hungry industrial products, dependent on vast quantities of:
- Rare earth elements
- Lithium
- Cobalt
- Nickel
- Graphite
- Gallium
- Germanium
- High‑purity silicon
- Copper
- Manganese
Figure 2 illustrates this clearly: every major ‘net zero’ technology — solar PV, wind turbines, EVs, grid batteries, is built atop a foundation of critical minerals.
Figure 2. Qualitative importance of critical elements in common ‘net zero’ technologies.
And who controls these minerals? The PRC.
China is not merely a large player. It is the OPEC of critical minerals, with near‑total dominance across the entire supply chain⁶:
- 98 percent of global gallium and gallium‑nitride semiconductors⁷
- 100 percent of high‑performance EV magnet production
- 70 percent of global rare‑earth mining
- 90 percent+ of rare‑earth refining
- 80 percent of global solar manufacturing
- 60 percent of global lithium refining
- 75 percent of global battery cell production
This is not a market accident. It is the result of deliberate industrial strategy. The near total monopoly that the PRC has attained over the rare earth elements is a prime example.
Rare earth elements are a group of 17 elements found in the periodic table, including well-known names like neodymium, dysprosium, and lanthanum. Despite their name, these metals are not rare in terms of abundance but are challenging and costly to extract and refine due to their dispersion in ores and high environmental impacts.
These elements possess unique magnetic, optical, and electronic properties that make them indispensable in a plethora of modern technologies.
For instance:
· Neodymium and Dysprosium are critical for making high-performance magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and advanced electronics.
· Lanthanum plays a vital role in hybrid car batteries and camera lenses.
· Yttrium, Europium, and Terbium are essential in creating vibrant colors for LED screens.
Moreover, the defense industry heavily relies on these elements for advanced applications, such as missile guidance systems, advanced radar systems, jet engines, and satellite communications.
This makes them a strategic resource with massive implications for national security.
The geopolitical implications of fact that the PRC has 100 percent control over high performance EV magnets, or the fact that the PRC maintains nearly 98 percent control over all gallium and gallium nitride semiconductors used in the radar systems of fifth generation stealth fighters like the US F-35 Lightning and the F-22 Raptor, or in ship-borne anti-ballistic missile capable Western naval vessels, are indeed profound.
Figure 3 shows how the PRC has redirected capital away from non‑clean‑tech sectors and into ‘clean’‑tech manufacturing, reaching nearly two percent of GDP in 2023. ‘Clean’ tech accounted for half of China’s total GDP growth that year, generating $1.6 trillion USD in revenue⁸.
Figure 3. Chinese dependence on the West’s obsession over ‘net zero’.
This is the engine of China’s economic expansion and Western climate policy is the fuel.
Tariffs, Export Bans, and the CCP’s Weaponization of Supply Chains
When Western nations began imposing tariffs on Chinese solar panels, EVs, and batteries, Beijing responded exactly as a geopolitical strategist would expect: it weaponized its chokehold on critical minerals.
China has now banned or restricted exports of:
- Gallium
- Germanium
- Graphite
- Rare‑earth processing technologies
These are not trivial materials. They are essential inputs for:
- EV motors
- Wind turbines
- Solar inverters
- Radar systems
- Missile guidance
- Stealth aircraft
- Naval vessels
The PRC’s dominance over gallium and gallium‑nitride semiconductors is especially alarming. These materials power the radar systems of the United State’s F‑35, F‑22 stealth fighter technologies and advanced Western naval platforms⁹.
In other words: the West’s clean‑tech transition is structurally dependent on the same regime that supplies the materials for its military deterrence.
This is not just a contradiction. It is a national‑security crisis.
The PLA Is Preparing for Regional Conquest — And the World Pretends Not to Notice
While Western governments lecture their citizens about recycling and heat pumps, the PRC is building the largest naval fleet since World War II.
Satellite imagery shows Chinese shipyards producing guided‑missile destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers at a pace unmatched since the U.S. wartime mobilization of the 1940s¹⁰. By 2035, the PLA Navy will match the U.S. Navy in both tonnage and number of major surface combatants.
In aerospace, the PLA has moved from fifth‑generation to sixth‑generation fighter prototypes in 12 years, while the U.S. has yet to field a sixth‑generation aircraft after more than two decades¹¹.
But the most brazen act of all is China’s illegal seizure of the South China Sea.
The PRC has:
- Built seven militarized artificial‑island bases.
- Installed runways, missile batteries, radar systems, and deep‑water ports.
- Claimed 3.2 million square kilometers of maritime territory; nearly the entire South China Sea.
This is a direct violation of the Rules‑Based International Order and the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling.
Yet Western governments, the same governments that demand ‘net zero’ compliance from their citizens, remain silent. Why? Because the same regime that is militarizing the South China Sea also controls the supply chains required for Western climate policy and national defense.
The West Cannot Mine Its Way Out — Not Fast Enough
Some argue that the solution is simple: build domestic mines. But the timelines tell a different story.
The average mine‑development timeline in North America is:
- 18 years at the optimistic end¹²
- 29 years at the realistic end¹³
Even a wartime‑level mobilization cannot compress these timelines enough to counter the PRC’s entrenched dominance. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of War has begun funding critical‑mineral projects in both the U.S. and Canada, which is a tacit admission that the supply chain is now a national‑security priority.
But the gap is enormous and time is short.
The Trojan Horse Question
In retrospect, the former US President Bill Clinton’s advocacy for the PRC to be admitted into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was under the premise that this would lead to the long term liberalization of the CCP and its economy.
History appears to be showing that this was extremely naive.
While Clinton may have forgotten that the US Democrat Party had financed, provided military aid and intelligence support to the Chinese National Army in their civil war with Mao Zedong’s Chinese Red Army, you can be sure that the PRC did not when it disingenuously signed onto the WTO’s admission conditions in 2001.
So we return to the central question: Are clean technologies and critical minerals the Trojan Horse of the Chinese Communist Party? The answer depends on whether Western nations recognize the trap before it closes.
If the West continues to pursue climate policy without acknowledging the geopolitical architecture beneath it, the CCP wins.
If the West continues to mandate technologies it does not control, the CCP wins.
If the West continues to transfer wealth, industrial capacity, and strategic leverage to Beijing, the CCP wins.
And if the West continues to ignore the fusion of civilian and military power in the PRC, the CCP wins.
The climate debate is not just about ‘carbon’, it is about sovereignty, security, and the future of the global order.
The last time the world underestimated an authoritarian regime’s industrial ambitions, the consequences were catastrophic.
We must not make that mistake again.
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