(Electrical) Power Geopolitics

What is the real core competitiveness of great power competition in the 21st century?

The subtitle’s question comes from within the following article from Guancha, “What are we talking about when Trump questions China’s wind power?” and is posed by the Mind Observation Institute. This topic’s been explored several times at the Gym but this one has a different angle thanks to a vacuous statement by Trump at Davos last month. Instead of ridiculing Trump’s clear ignorance, the author uses a different approach that allows for a much deeper exploration of the underlying issue—AI’s requirement for massive computing power and thus the electrical power to run those systems. Several critically important points are noted. But before we dig into the essay, here’s a seemingly unrelated article that actually reveals a portion of the heart of the matter I’ve wanted to present to Gym readers. Now for our essay:

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump asked a seemingly simple but mocking question: China makes almost all wind turbines, but he can’t find any wind farms in China. He also did not forget to add, saying, “China is very smart, they produce wind turbines and then sell them at a high price. They sell these generators to stupid buyers, but they don’t use them themselves.”

The remarks caused quite a stir on social media, but if we only use it as fodder for another political war of words, we are really missing out on the deeper story behind this debate--a story about energy, infrastructure, computing power, and great power competition.

In fact, Trump’s rhetoric of “not finding wind farms” is either deliberately misleading or a serious lack of information about China’s energy transition. As of the end of November 2025, China’s installed wind power capacity has exceeded 600 million kilowatts, equivalent to 600 GW. What does this number mean? It means that China’s installed wind power capacity has ranked first in the world for 15 consecutive years, equivalent to the power generation capacity of about 600 nuclear power units.

From the gigawatt wind storage projects erected on the endless grassland of Sunit Shiqi in Inner Mongolia, to the 850 megawatt offshore wind arrays in the waters of Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, to the country’s first million-kilowatt offshore wind farm in Shapa, Yangjiang, Guangdong Province — these megaprojects are rewriting China’s energy map. Saying that China has no wind farms is as absurd as saying that the United States does not have highways.

But Trump’s remarks, despite their factual errors, unexpectedly open a window of observation for us: Why has China been able to build wind power infrastructure of this scale in just over a decade, while the United States, once an infrastructure powerhouse and a leader in technological innovation, seems to be faltering in this race for energy transition? The answer to this question is far more complicated than the sentence “who is stupid”. It involves differences in political systems, challenges in geographical conditions, the evolution of capital logic, and the patience of society as a whole for long-term investment.

The speed of China’s wind power projects is truly breathtaking. Taking the Inner Mongolia Energy Xisu Wind Storage Project as an example, this project with an installed capacity of 1,000 megawatts will be completed in 2025, becoming the first project in China to apply 10 megawatt large-scale onshore wind turbines. What does this mean? A 10 megawatt fan with an impeller diameter of more than 200 meters, equivalent to the length of two football fields. Such giant equipment, from design to manufacturing, from transportation to installation, every link is a test of industrial capabilities. In the waters of Dafeng, Jiangsu, the 850 megawatt offshore wind power project became the largest offshore wind power project in Jiangsu during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, and its technical difficulty has increased exponentially—offshore construction not only has to face harsh sea conditions, but also to solve a series of challenges such as seawater corrosion and typhoon intrusion.

What’s more noteworthy is that these projects are not just power generation facilities, they often integrate various technologies such as energy storage, smart grids, and hydrogen energy production. For example, the Kubuqi Desert Base Wind Power Project, as the benchmark of the first batch of large-scale wind and solar bases in the national “Shage Wilderness”, not only makes use of the rich wind and light energy resources in the desert area, but also explores the collaborative model of photovoltaic sand control, ecological restoration and clean energy development. This systematic thinking is China’s unique advantage in the energy transition. [The linked article in the intro deals with the need to develop such thinking.] It is not just building a single wind farm, but building a complete energy ecosystem covering power generation, energy storage, transmission and distribution, and application.

Of course, behind the scale is a huge investment. These projects, which cost tens of billions of yuan, rely on China’s unique mixed investment model of government guidance, state-owned enterprises and private enterprise participation. Large state-owned enterprises such as and Three Gorges Group not only undertake the mission of energy security, but also promote the cutting-edge exploration of technological innovation. They can withstand long payback cycles and can be deployed at scale at an early stage when commercial returns are uncertain. This ability to “calculate long-term accounts” is quite scarce in the United States, where the market economy is dominated.

So why hasn’t the U.S. built wind power infrastructure of a similar scale? The answer to this question needs to be analyzed from multiple dimensions.

The first is the constraints at the political level. The bipartisan political system in the United States has long been deeply divided on energy policy. Democrats tend to promote the clean energy transition and support the development of renewable energy such as wind power and photovoltaics, while Republicans prefer the traditional fossil energy industry, emphasizing the importance of oil and gas to the economy and employment. This ideological divide has led to obvious cyclical fluctuations in U.S. energy policy. Whenever there is a change of government, energy policy can take a 180-degree turn.

The Clean Energy Plan during the Obama era was abolished in Trump’s first term; After Biden took office, he re-emphasized green energy, but ushered in Trump’s re-election in 2025. This policy discontinuity has made companies worry about long-term investment decisions— will the billions of dollars invested today be lost four years from now because of the policy shift?

The deeper problem is that the federal structure of the United States creates obstacles to large-scale infrastructure projects. Every link of wind power project site selection, environmental assessment, land use, grid access, etc. involves the approval and coordination of federal, state, and county governments. Laws and regulations vary greatly between states, with some states being supportive of renewable energy, offering tax incentives and subsidies, while others have set up various invisible barriers. Transmission lines crossing state lines are even more difficult because they need to travel through multiple jurisdictions, each with its own interests and political considerations. This fragmented governance structure makes it difficult for the United States to promote large-scale energy infrastructure construction through unified planning and coordination like China.

Differences in geographical conditions cannot be ignored either. China is a vast country, from the Three Norths region in the northeast to the Gobi Desert in the northwest, and from the southeast coast to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. More importantly, China’s population and industrial centers are mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, which happen to have high-quality offshore wind energy resources. Offshore wind power projects in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other provinces can directly provide clean electricity for local electricity loads, with short transmission distances and low losses. Although the United States also has good wind energy resources, they are mainly concentrated in the central Great Plains and offshore, while the population and industrial centers are on the east and west coasts. This means that the United States needs to build a large number of long-distance transmission lines to transport wind power from the central region to the load centers of the east and west coasts. This not only increases costs but also faces the aforementioned cross-state coordination problems.

The logic of capital plays a delicate role in this competition. The capital market in the United States is highly developed and theoretically not short of money, but the problem is that capital pursues short-term returns and high liquidity. Wind power projects are typical asset-heavy, long-term investments, often taking five to ten years from construction to stable operation, with a longer payback period. In the US financial system, such projects are much less attractive to investors than the Internet, financial derivatives or real estate. What’s more, wind power projects are also facing the triple attack of policy risks, technical risks and market risks. In contrast, China’s banking system, under government guidance, can provide long-term, low-interest credit support, and the assessment system of state-owned enterprises is not entirely oriented towards short-term profits, which makes Chinese capital more patient.

The gap between labor cost and engineering capability is also a practical constraint. China has the world’s largest and most experienced infrastructure construction team. From the Three Gorges Dam to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, from the high-speed rail network to the urban subway, Chinese engineers and construction personnel have accumulated rich experience in a variety of complex environments. This accumulation of engineering capabilities allows China to quickly and efficiently promote large-scale wind power projects. In the past few decades, the United States has underinvested in infrastructure and lost engineering talent, and many large-scale projects have either been outsourced to international contractors or have fallen into long delays and cost overruns. Boston’s Big Dig project took 15 years and overspent billions of dollars; California’s high-speed rail project has been launched for more than a decade and has not yet built an inch of track. This decline in engineering capabilities has made the United States, even if it has money and technology, weakened to the point of not being able to implement projects efficiently.

Another factor that is easily overlooked is the lack of social consensus. In China, energy transition and green development have become the consensus from the central government to the local government, from the government to enterprises. The goal of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” is clear, and the whole society is working in this direction. But in the United States, there is still a fierce debate about whether climate change is real and whether an energy transition is necessary. Many conservative voters see climate change as a hoax and clean energy as a betrayal of workers in the traditional energy industry. This social tearing makes it difficult for any large-scale energy infrastructure project to gain widespread public support. The location of wind power projects is often opposed by local residents, with reasons ranging from “damaging the landscape” to “noise pollution”. These protests and lawsuits have further slowed down the project.

When we look at these factors together, we will find that the gap between China and the United States in wind power infrastructure is not caused by a single reason, but is the result of multiple factors such as politics, economy, society, and culture. China’s rapid progress relies on the concentration and efficiency of its political system, with continuous and stable policies, the long-term patience of capital, the strong accumulation of engineering capabilities, and the consensus of the whole society on energy transition. The United States, on the other hand, is trapped by political polarization, fragmentation of federalism, short-sightedness of capital, decline in engineering capabilities, and tearing up of social consensus.

But this debate about wind power is much more than wind power itself. It actually reflects a deeper question: what is the real core competitiveness in the great power competition in the 21st century?

If the great power competition in the 20th century was about steel, oil and nuclear weapons, then the competition in the 21st century is increasingly focused on computing power, data and artificial intelligence. The emergence of ChatGPT has made the world realize that large language models and artificial intelligence are no longer concepts in science fiction, but are profoundly changing the real forces of human society. From autonomous driving to medical diagnosis, from financial transactions to scientific research, the application of artificial intelligence is penetrating into every corner of the economy and society. And what supports all this is massive computing power.

The competition for computing power is essentially the competition of energy. Training a large language model requires thousands or even tens of thousands of GPUs to run continuously for weeks or even months, consuming electricity in megawatt-hours. OpenAI’s GPT-4 training process is estimated to consume hundreds of thousands of dollars in electricity. If every company and research institution has to train its own AI models in the future, then the demand for electricity will be astronomical. These computing centers and data centers cannot rely on unstable and intermittent power supply. They need stable, reliable, cheap, and preferably clean electricity.

This is why the construction of renewable energy infrastructure such as wind power and photovoltaic is not only an environmental issue, but also a strategic security issue. Whoever can take the lead in building a large-scale, low-cost clean energy system will have an advantage in the future computing power competition. China’s large-scale investment in wind power and photovoltaic power is ostensibly to combat climate change, but in fact it is laying the foundation for the future digital economy and smart economy. Those wind farms all over the grasslands of Inner Mongolia and Guangdong waters, and those photovoltaic arrays covering the northwest Gobi are not only providing power for current homes and factories but also storing energy for future AI computing centers and data centers.

From this point of view, Trump’s doubts about China’s wind power are particularly ironic. He may not realize that when he laughs at China’s wind turbines for “not finding wind farms”, he is actually laughing at the United States’ own backwardness in energy infrastructure. China not only manufactures most of the world’s wind turbines, but more importantly, it installs these wind turbines on its own land and seas, converts clean energy into real electricity, and then transports this power to factories and data centers to transform it into economic growth and technological progress.

And what about the United States? It is still arguing over whether to develop wind power, over which states a transmission line should cross, and litigation over whether wind power projects will “destroy the landscape”.

Of course, this does not mean that the United States has lost this competition. The United States still maintains huge advantages in technological innovation, capital markets, and high-end talents. Silicon Valley remains the center of global technological innovation, Wall Street still holds the voice in global finance, and top universities in the United States continue to attract the best students from around the world. But if the United States cannot solve deep-seated problems such as insufficient infrastructure investment, political polarization, and social consensus tearing, then these advantages are likely to be gradually eroded. Technological innovation needs the support of infrastructure, capital needs a stable policy environment, and talents need a good social atmosphere. If the foundation is not solid, the earth will shake.

Of course, China’s wind power industry is also facing a series of problems such as overcapacity, subsidy dependence, and grid-connected consumption. Many wind farms face the phenomenon of “wind abandonment” after completion, that is, all the electricity generated cannot be integrated into the grid, resulting in waste of resources. The immaturity of energy storage technology, the rigidity of grid scheduling, and the difficulty of cross-regional power transmission are all problems that China needs to solve in its energy transition. But the difference is that China is actively exploring solutions, from technological innovation to institutional reform, from market mechanisms to policy guidance, all of which are constantly adjusting and improving. The United States, on the other hand, seems to be still stuck in the debate of “whether to do it” and has not really taken the step of “how to do it”.

Returning to Trump’s remarks in Davos, we can say that he raised a valuable question, even if it was based on false premises. China does manufacture most of the world’s wind turbines, but China is also building the world’s largest wind power infrastructure. This is not a contradiction, but a complete layout of the industrial chain—from R&D and design to manufacturing and production, from project construction to operation and maintenance. China is building a wind power ecosystem covering the entire industry chain. Although the United States still has advantages in some high-end technology fields, it has lagged far behind in terms of the integrity of the industrial chain, the scale of infrastructure, and the continuity of policies.

The deeper problem is that Trump’s remarks reflect a dangerous mindset: China’s development is seen as a threat to the United States, and win-win cooperation is seen as a zero-sum game. In the face of global challenges such as climate change and energy transition, China and the United States should work together to jointly promote the innovation and application of clean energy technologies. China’s advantages in wind power and photovoltaic manufacturing, and the advantages of the United States in technological innovation and financial capital can be fully complementary. But unfortunately, in the current political climate, this cooperation is becoming more and more difficult. Trade wars, science and technology wars, and tariff barriers have turned what should have been a field of win-win cooperation into a battlefield of confrontation and competition.

When we look further into the future, we find that wind power is just the beginning. In the foreseeable future, a series of clean energy technologies such as solar energy, hydrogen energy, energy storage, smart grid, and nuclear fusion will usher in breakthroughs and large-scale applications. Whoever can take the lead in building a clean, efficient and stable energy system will occupy the commanding heights in future economic competition. Because energy is the foundation of everything: without sufficient energy, there is no strong manufacturing. Without clean energy, we cannot meet the challenges of climate change. Without stable energy, it is impossible to support massive computing power demand.

In the era of artificial intelligence, computing power is becoming the new “oil”. If the war in the 20th century was about competing for oil, then the competition in the 21st century is likely to be about competing for computing power. Behind the computing power is energy. If a country cannot build a large-scale, low-cost, clean and stable energy system, it will not be able to support the massive demand for data centers and AI computing power and will lag behind in the competition in the intelligent era. This is not alarmism, but a cold reality. Tech giants such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta are frantically expanding their data centers, and their power needs have exceeded those of many small and medium-sized cities. In the future, when every enterprise needs AI capabilities, and when every industry is undergoing intelligent transformation, the demand for electricity will increase exponentially.

Trump’s ridicule of China’s wind power in Davos actually fails to see China’s far-reaching strategic layout in the energy field. China’s large-scale construction of wind power is not a joke, but a reserve of cheap and stable clean energy for future AI computing power, manufacturing and the digital economy. China has taken solid steps on the energy track, and at a time when the energy, digital and intelligent revolutions are reshaping the world pattern, wind energy is being transformed into electricity and computing power, and then into future competitiveness. In this race for the future, every kilowatt-hour of electricity can determine the outcome of tomorrow. [My Emphasis]

Showcased are the reasons why China has exhibited the most remarkable continuous record of economic growth in our modern era—its banking system, government and consistent long-term planning that all underpin the Long Game. Yes, China needs much greater energy storage capacity which is in the process of being solved via new sodium ion capacity. As the article I linked in the intro, China is already investing in the engineering needs of the future where adepts will be capable of working in multiple disciplines. Western Capitalism’s failure resides in its private nature where profit and mammon accumulation are the only goals, where societal advancement is deemed a waste of capital. But that truth can never be admitted in the West. It ought to be clear that the Outlaw US Empire will lose its economic competition with China since China doesn’t need the Empire for anything, which is why we see such wild desperation exhibited by Trump and his gang. Today, Larry Johnson posted some very key economic indicators at his blog post, “Trump’s Plan to Economically Bully China Has Failed… Scott Bessent is Clueless,” that I suggest be read. I also need to advocate Warwick Powell’s substack again and his three latest essays, this being the second.

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