Recently, a contest on the photovoltaic industry on the international stage has attracted widespread attention. This story began with repeated US sanctions against Chinese companies, what factors prompted the White House to unexpectedly announce the release of Chinese photovoltaic products?
For a long time, the United States has frequently found various excuses to suppress and sanction Chinese companies, and the motives are confusing. Recently, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 1,053 batches of solar equipment from Chinese companies with a total value of 1.6 billion yuan, under the pretext of the so-called Xinjiang issue. China's Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, strongly opposes this unjustified repression and calls on the United States to stop this unreasonable behavior. However, the Biden administration seems to have turned a deaf ear.
Just as China plans to take countermeasures to ban and restrict the export of related technologies, the White House's attitude has changed. The sudden announcement of the release of Chinese photovoltaic products has triggered a series of speculations on the international stage. According to sources, in fact, as early as the end of 2022, the US Customs has begun to release Chinese photovoltaic modules batch by batch. Does this mean that the Biden administration has decided to abandon sanctions against Chinese companies and wants to shake hands with China? However, after in-depth analysis, it was found that the White House's action this time was not so simple.
In the context of the current global countries actively promoting the development of new energy, China's photovoltaic industry has become an indispensable part of the world. More than 70% of the world's PV modules come from China, and the annual export value of PV products exceeded US$51.2 billion. This makes the United States heavily dependent on China's photovoltaic products, and nearly 50% of photovoltaic modules need to be imported from China. The U.S. PV industry relies heavily on Chinese supplies.
However, at this critical moment, the White House took tough measures to seize Chinese photovoltaic products regardless of the actual needs of the United States, which is undoubtedly self-defeating. To make matters worse, this practice has also aroused the alarm of many Southeast Asian countries, which began to refuse to supply photovoltaic products to the United States, making the US photovoltaic industry in trouble. In addition, data from the Clean Energy Association of the United States shows that demand has delayed solar projects in the country, and the average price of solar power purchase agreements has increased by 33%.
This series of impacts puts the White House's previous climate change and clean energy goals at risk. The suppression of Chinese photovoltaic companies has led to an imbalance between supply and demand in the US photovoltaic market, which in turn has dragged down the progress of US solar projects. If China restricts the export of photovoltaic silicon wafer technology again, it will have a greater impact on the US photovoltaic industry, which may be the reason why the Biden administration has to announce the release of Chinese photovoltaic products. This incident once again shows that only when the US side feels the pain of reality will it show weakness and compromise. But judging from the past behavior of the White House, similar incidents may occur in the future.
Overall, this contest in the photovoltaic industry reveals the intricacies of international politics and economy. The impulses of the United States and China's determined rivalry are intertwined to form the main thread of this story. Although the White House compromised this time, the game behind it is far from over. In the context of the changing global pattern, countries are working hard for their own interests, and the dispute in the photovoltaic industry is only one of the microcosms.