Net-Zero and the China Challenge: Decarbonisation amid Great Power Competition in the Indo-Pacific

Julie de los Reyes and Jewellord Nem Singh

With tensions mounting between the United States and China, the Indo-Pacific is thrust once again into the geopolitical spotlight. On April 11, 2024, the first trilateral summit between the United States, the Philippines, and Japan purportedly took place in response to China’s growing military presence in the region.

For many Global South countries, the inability of the United States, Japan, and allied countries to match what China has achieved underscores the glaring failure of the liberal international order to address pressing social and environmental issues. Countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia increasingly are taking a more pragmatic relationship with the Chinese state and capital to meet their energy needs and deliver on climate pledges. African governments have welcomed Chinese aid and loans, given their loose political conditionalities compared to traditional international financial lenders. Although these partnerships are naturally not without problems, China has provided an alternative avenue to pursue development and growth. Nevertheless, in a carbon-constrained world, China is itself hard-pressed to provide a credible alternative. Although its state-led development model has delivered breakneck technological advancements, its approach has also been marred by its fair share of ethical and environmental problems. Internally, this success also came at a cost, manifesting in severe environmental degradation and social inequality. Despite its new, greener offerings, China will have to show leadership at unwinding the fossil fuel buildup that it has partially enabled.

The solutions will require a collective approach that takes seriously, above all, the sheer urgency of the climate crisis. In practical terms, this will require finding ways to build a constructive relationship between the United States and China. For the United States and its allies, this may mean accepting China as an inevitable partner in facilitating the worldwide adoption of low-carbon technologies, and more broadly, in solving the climate crisis, despite the challenge posed to U.S. hegemony. This is, of course, no easy task. But as the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy puts it: “no country [should] withhold progress on existential transnational issues because of bilateral differences.

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