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The Electrified Battlespace: China’s Clean Tech Lead and America’s Missed Opportunity
Military power ultimately rests on industrial capacity. China is now translating its dominance in electric vehicles, batteries, and power-management systems into military capability.
A publicly released Army intelligence report highlights how China is leveraging its lead in “clean tech” to build battlefield capability. China’s new hybrid-electric armored vehicles not only reduce fuel consumption and associated logistics burdens, but are designed to be more mobile, quieter, and harder to detect, while also generating substantially more onboard electrical power.
This latter point is particularly important because demand for electricity across the battlefield is increasing, and electricity is becoming a central enabler of combat power, whether at small forward operating bases, in space, or across air, sea, and land platforms. Modern militaries increasingly need this power not just for propulsion, but also to meet the growing demands of AI-enabled systems, drones, advanced sensors, electronic warfare, communications, directed-energy weapons, and additive manufacturing.
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The Devil is in the Details: Minerals, Batteries, and US Dependence on Chinese Imports
By Ben Taulli and Joshua Busby
China Seizes an Opportunity from the United States in Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Response
In early March, former USAID China Advisor Francisco Bencosme warned that withdrawing disaster relief and food aid risked undermining the United States’ power and influence in the Pacific Region. Indeed, over the last month, the United States’ strategic competitors have begun to fill the $54+ billion aid shortfall caused by that retreat.
While the humanitarian toll of the USAID withdrawal is severe – fueling preventable deaths, global health risks, conflict, and inequality – it also threatens US national security interests. The dissolution of USAID has created a soft power vacuum in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific for China to easily fill.
The Chinese government has long used foreign aid and investments via the Belt and Road Initiative to gain strategic influence in Africa, Asia, and South America. However, it had to navigate existing US investments and partnerships. Now, with US resources gone, China has the opportunity to bolster its geostrategic interests – and outcompete the United States.
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China’s Massive Hydropower Project in Tibet Illustrates Climate Security Risks
Late last year, the Chinese government announced its approval of a massive dam project along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet. The dam is estimated to eventually generate more than three times the kilowatt hours as the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest hydroelectric power center. Beijing has not released any information regarding the technology to be utilized, the construction timeline, or other infrastructure details for the Medog Hydropower Station. The region is prone to earthquakes and vulnerable to diminishing glacial melt due to rising temperatures. At the same time, the dam would significantly alter river flow for downstream nations, India and Bangladesh, impacting fresh water supplies, ecosystem dynamics, and more.
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