Archive for the ‘protectionism’ tag
Suntech’s plant in Arizona and Sino-American stimulus politics
China’s Suntech today announced plans to set up shop in Arizona. This seemed to be suspiciously timed following the storm in a teacup of a couple of weeks ago that Senator Schumer (D-NY) set off – he was trying to block stimulus funds for a wind farm in Texas because, it was said, the lion’s share of the cash was going to end up in China.
Of course, this ignored the fact that China’s stimulus money earlier in the year had been benefiting American companies. No outcry over that.
The wrinkle in the story is that China has been enacting protectionist policies specifically to benefit its burgeoning clean energy industry.
Hence today’s announcement: the Chinese want to counter the nativist/protectionist sentiment like that caused by the Texas wind farm earlier this month. The jury’s out on whether or not it’s more of an elaborate and expensive PR exercise than anything else. It sounds great that China’s creating jobs in Phoenix, Arizona, but at this point it’s just going to be 75 new places:
ThinkEquity analyst Colin Rusch said that [between] six and 12 Chinese solar companies are “seriously considering” establishing small manufacturing in the United States to raise their profile in the country and gain market share.
“It’s a brand exercise,” Rusch said.