China solar ban

China may ban the export of technology for solar panels. The country dominates the industry by controlling at least 75% of its global supply chain. This situation creates repercussions for the West’s hope to create its own green energy industry.

In the “chip war” between the West and China, America is slowing China’s technological development. America restricts the exports of tools and software used to make advanced chips. Chinese media reported that the ban covers technology and machinery used to create solar panel parts such as large wafers, black silicon, and ultra-efficient silicon ingots. However, to protect the export market, the ban doesn’t apply to China’s solar panels themselves.

Western companies have the experience and intellectual property used in the solar industry that developed in America and Europe. This industry occurred before low-cost China scaled up its production and had control. However, building new factories for solar parts would take a few years, and creating an entire solar supply chain could take four times as long.

Difficult words: repercussion (an unwelcome consequence of an event or action), wafer (a thin slice of an electronic part), ingot (an unfinished piece of material, usually metal).

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Opinion Insights by the Blog’s Author

In my opinion, this is a “bullet answer” (concise response) to what occurred in 2019/2020 after some UE countries broke a milestone agreement to develop 5G networks in 2015 signed by China and UE. Source: The EU and China signed a key partnership on 5G, our tomorrow’s communication networks.

In 2020 countries such as Portugal, Germany, France, and Britain announced a ban on Huawei’s Chinese company, with the excuse “the 5G’s Huawei has a high security risk”. Bloody hell! Source: European countries who put curbs on Huawei 5G equipment.

The West, led by the United States of America, possibly, may have initiated a “campaign” against China due to concerns about Chinese dominance in Europe’s 5G networks.

One clear reason for the recent developments is that the war in Ukraine has made the risks of relying on non-allied countries for critical resources, such as Russian gas, extremely clear to European countries.

Thierry Breton, the current European Commissioner for Internal Market, emphasized this point in his statement in June, “We have been able to reduce or eliminate our dependencies in other sectors such as energy in record time, when many thought it was impossible,” he said. “The situation with 5G should be no different: we cannot afford to maintain critical dependencies that could become a ‘weapon’ against our interests.”

My final, and last comment about this “technology war”.

Considering China’s geopolitical proximity to Russia, it is clear the insecurity and the potential impact on Western interests. I agree with the apprehension regarding dependency on non-allied countries.