The US and European Union should step up production of affordable electric vehicles to justify their tariffs on Chinese EVs, Beijing’s top envoy in South Africa said, speaking ahead of a major China-Africa summit where green energy is expected to be high on the agenda.
Chinese ambassador Wu Peng said at a climate change event in Pretoria on Thursday that China – a leader in EV technology, solar energy and other new energy products – had played a big role in cutting harmful carbon emissions.
In 2023, China produced nearly 9.5 million electric vehicles and exported nearly 1.8 million, which helped cut global carbon emissions by about 50 million tonnes, Wu said.
Wu then challenged the EU and US, which have imposed high tariffs on Chinese EVs, to catch up to China in making green vehicles.
“Let’s wait and see. If they can catch up to produce more EVs [that are] affordable for the customers in a very quick way, I think that’s OK, no problem,” he said. “But if they don’t, I think [the tariff policy is] a little bit unreasonable.”
Wu made the comments during a climate change and just transition workshop organised by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and the Chinese embassy in South Africa ahead of next month’s 2024 Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit.
The Chinese diplomat noted that in 2023, over half of the world’s newly installed renewable energy capacity came from China. Additionally, China’s total investment in the new energy sector reached US$676 billion, accounting for 38 per cent of total global investment, Wu said.
Wu, who became China’s ambassador to South Africa in June, said the US and EU continued to blame China for what they called “overcapacity” in the EV sector, but no country should be blamed for production capacity in the green energy industry.
“If we are truly serious in tackling climate change, green energy production capacity in any country actually belongs to the whole world,” Wu said.
On June 12, the European Commission shocked China by announcing it would impose additional tariffs of up to 38 per cent on imported Chinese electric vehicles from July 4.
The news came just a month after the US announced similar plans to increase duties for Chinese EVs from 25 per cent to 100 per cent.
The tariff increases are the result of the European Commission’s anti-subsidy investigation launched last October. Brussels and Washington have both accused China of distorting the market by giving subsidies to Chinese carmakers, leading to an influx of lower-cost EVs.
China also produces 70 per cent of the world’s solar and wind farm equipment and other key components.
“Yes, we export these green energy products to developed countries. They may not be very happy about it,” Wu said.
He said the US and EU “should be aware that it is exactly these made-in-China products that help reduce the carbon dioxide emissions for those developed countries by about 570 million tonnes per year”.
That amounted to nearly 41 per cent of the world’s carbon savings from renewable energy in the same period, Wu added.
According to Wu, green development cooperation will feature in the discussions at the FOCAC ministerial conference, set to start on September 3 in Beijing.
“I found that we have a lot of common language with African ambassadors based in Beijing. They said the topic of green development must be in the theme, and we totally agree with that,” he said, referring to a meeting he held with African envoys earlier this year when he was still the director general for African affairs at China’s foreign ministry.
Wu said China had already invested heavily in Africa’s green energy industry, such as in Morocco’s NOOR II and NOOR III concentrated solar power projects in Ouarzazate, Egypt’s 500-megawatt Gulf of Suez II wind farm and the Garissa solar power plant in Kenya.
“China has implemented hundreds of clean energy power generation and green projects in Africa, many of which have been landmark projects for local clean energy development,” Wu said.
China has signed 18 cooperation documents on climate change with 16 African countries including Nigeria, Ethiopia and Benin.
Cobus van Staden, research associate at SAIIA and managing editor at China-Global South Project, said he expected green energy cooperation to be on the FOCAC agenda since China had already promised more renewable energy investment during the previous FOCAC summit in 2021.
“This provided a glimpse into the emerging centrality of green energy in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as seen in announcements at October 2023’s Belt and Road Forum. Look for a strong emphasis on green energy cooperation at FOCAC 2024,” van Staden said.
