China’s rapid embrace of renewable energy is bad news for natural gas producers like Russia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. But it might have decent ramifications for Uzbekistan’s clean energy agenda.

China controls over 70 percent of global manufacturing capacity in every major category of clean energy production except hydrogen electrolyzers, according to a recently published research report produced by BloombergNEF, titled Energy Transition Supply Chains 2025.

The report finds that “mainland China also dominates in attracting new capital for plants to produce clean technology goods such as batteries, solar modules and wind turbines, with 76 percent of such investment in 2024 underwriting plants there.”

Along with enjoying a stranglehold on manufacturing capacity, China has registered explosive growth in clean-power production, especially solar-generated electricity. Renewable energy sources can now meet 80 percent of China’s growing demand for energy and electricity.

“China is on track to have at least 2461 GW of renewable electricity capacity installed by 2030, doubling the 2022 figure, with solar capacity nearly tripling,” according to an analysis produced by Ember, a think-tank dedicated to producing “targeted data and policy insights that accelerate the transition to a clean, electrified energy future.”

Fossil fuels still account for roughly 62 percent of China’s energy usage. But that share is set to fall in the coming years, due to a slowing Chinese economy, the rise of renewables and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s plan for the country to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

All of these factors help explain recent energy developments in Central Asia involving natural gas. China was long seen as the world’s major driver of rising global gas demand, but now its energy calculus is shifting toward renewables. These changing circumstances likely prompted Chinese leaders to balk at a Russian plan earlier in 2025 to send additional volumes of gas to China via Kazakhstan. It additionally explains why the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline project remains stuck on the drawing board.

China’s slackening thirst for gas also may have played a role in Turkmenistan’s recent decision to start sending gas westward via a swap deal with Turkey. Somehow, Ashgabat might have gotten a sense that China will not need such high volumes of Turkmen gas in the future.

The brewing trade war is likely to leave China with a large inventory of solar panels and other goods needed for clean-energy production. That puts Uzbekistan, which is making a big push of its own to embrace renewables, in a position to benefit from potentially discounted prices of Chinese goods.

“With many advanced economies prioritizing protectionism through tariffs, developing markets are receiving a growing share of imports from mainland China,” the BloombergNEF analysis stated.

By Eurasianet.org