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How China’s Renewables Push Upends Geopolitics

On Tech Won't Save Us: Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay on the future of the global energy system.

Paris Marx

August 28, 2025

Solar panels built over aquaculture ponds for shrimp and crab farming in Qingdao West Coast New Area in Shandong Province, China, on August 11, 2025.(Costfoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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How China’s Renewable Push Upends Geopolitics | Tech Won’t Save Us
byThe Nation Magazine

Paris Marx is joined by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay to discuss the geopolitics behind China’s investments in green tech and electrification, and how it presents the prospect of a new development model based on renewables instead of fossil fuels.

Kate Mackenzie is an adjunct fellow at Macquarie University. Tim Sahay is co-director of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. They are the co-writers of the Polycrisis newsletter⁠ from Phenomenal World.

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Paris Marx is joined by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay to discuss the geopolitics behind China’s investments in green tech and electrification, and how it presents the prospect of a new development model based on renewables instead of fossil fuels.

Kate Mackenzie is an adjunct fellow at Macquarie University. Tim Sahay is codirector of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. They are the cowriters of the Polycrisis newsletter⁠ from Phenomenal World.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Tech Refusal Has a Very Long History w/ Thomas Dekeyser / Tech Won’t Save Us
byThe Nation Magazine

We are often told that resisting technological development is impossible and ‘progress’ is inevitable, but history says otherwise. Thomas Dekeyser joins Paris Marx to discuss how understanding radical resistances of the past can help us rethink our modern relationship with technology and reshape our vision of the future.

Thomas Dekeyser is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Southampton, author of Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine, and co-creator of the documentary Machines in Flames.

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Subscribe to The Nation to Support all of our podcasts

Paris MarxParis Marx is the author of Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires. He hosts the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast and writes the Disconnect newsletter.


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