In Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, the Trisolarans face an existential challenge. Their planet orbits three suns in a chaotic, unpredictable system. Survival demands planning across centuries, not quarters.

Beijing’s energy strategists face their own trisolaran dilemma—balancing three competing forces: economic growth, energy security, and decarbonisation.

Get the balance wrong and the system destabilises.

The scale of the beast

No country in history has industrialised this many people this quickly.

China consumes more energy than the United States and the European Union combined. Its electricity demand has more than tripled since 2000. And it is still growing—roughly 6-7% annually in recent years.

To put this in perspective:

• China added more power generation capacity in 2023 than the entire installed capacity of France
• It pours more concrete every two years than the United States used in the entire 20th century
• Its grid must serve 1.4 billion people and the world’s largest manufacturing base

The furnace never sleeps.

The generation mix today

So what feeds the beast?

Coal remains king. It accounts for roughly 60% of China’s electricity generation. This share has fallen—it was nearly 80% a decade ago—but in absolute terms, coal consumption keeps rising.

Hydro is the unsung workhorse. China has more hydropower capacity than any other nation, anchored by mega-projects like the Three Gorges Dam. It provides around 15% of generation.

Wind and solar are growing at breathtaking speed. China installs more renewable capacity each year than the rest of the world combined. In 2023, it added over 200 GW of solar alone. Yet renewables still contribute only around 15% of actual electricity generated. Capacity is not the same as output.

Nuclear is expanding but remains modest. Around 5% of generation today, with dozens of new reactors under construction.

Gas is the outlier. Unlike the West, China lacks abundant domestic gas supplies and remains wary of import dependence. Gas generates less than 5% of electricity—and Beijing intends to keep it that way.

The policy picture

Beijing has made bold commitments:

• Carbon emissions to peak by 2030
• Carbon neutrality by 2060

These targets are taken seriously at the highest levels. President Xi Jinping has staked political capital on them.

The strategy is not to abandon fossil fuels overnight. It is to build so much clean capacity that coal’s share declines even as total energy supply grows. This is addition, not substitution.

The approach is pragmatic. Ideological commitment to any single technology is absent. Five-year plans set targets. State-owned enterprises execute. Capital flows where Beijing directs.

It is central planning applied to the energy transition at civilisational scale.

The tensions and contradictions

Here is the paradox that confounds Western observers.

China is simultaneously the world’s largest installer of renewables and the world’s largest builder of new coal plants. In 2023, China approved more new coal capacity than at any time in the past seven years. This while adding record solar and wind.

Contradiction? Not from Beijing’s perspective.

Energy security is the overriding priority. Chinese policymakers watched Europe’s humiliation in 2022—panic buying LNG, reopening coal plants, rationing industry—and drew a clear lesson. Dependence is vulnerability.

Coal is domestic. China has vast reserves. It requires no imports, no shipping lanes controlled by others, no geopolitical entanglements.

Renewables are also domestic. China dominates the entire supply chain—polysilicon, cells, panels, turbines, batteries. Building more renewables means building more domestic industry.

Gas and oil mean dependence. On Russia, the Middle East, maritime chokepoints. Unacceptable at strategic scale.

The logic is consistent: maximise optionality, minimise vulnerability.

Implications and outlook

What does this mean for the rest of the world?

For commodity markets, China’s choices are decisive. Its appetite for copper, lithium, rare earths, and steel will shape prices for decades. Its continued coal consumption underwrites thermal coal markets across Southeast Asia and Australia.

For climate targets, the picture is mixed. China’s emissions will likely keep rising until the late 2020s at the earliest. No amount of Western solar subsidies can offset this arithmetic. Yet China’s scale in manufacturing clean technology is also driving costs down globally—benefiting everyone.

For energy strategists elsewhere, China offers a lesson. Decarbonisation is not a religion in Beijing. It is one variable among three. Growth. Security. Decarbonisation.

China’s planners will keep juggling. They have no choice. The furnace must be fed. The lights must stay on. And the future must be secured—on Beijing’s terms, not anyone else’s.