We assembled our 4th cohort fellows on campus @perryworldhouse for 2 days of intensive discussions about their early stage policy papers at the start of their fellowship year. Many thanks to Sarah Beran for her keynote remarks, and all the great discussants who offered feedback!

In our latest #IranConflictBrief, Daniel Sternoff sits down with @coryjcombs (@triviumchina) to break down the volatile triangular relationship between Washington, Beijing, and Tehran, and what it means for global energy security and the Strait of Hormuz. 🎧 Listen here: energypolicy.columbia.edu/ir…

Sharing a new paper by David Zhang of @triviumchina and yours truly on China’s ongoing property market drag. Yes, it will likely bottom out this year. But yes, it is still a major, major drag on the macro. This year, property and its connected upstream downstream industries will likely drag down nominal GDP by 2 percentage points. That is significant. Exports can bridge some of the gap, but there are two critical issues: Unlike property, exports-- especially high-value exports related to AI energy demand, where China shows the clearest strength / resillience-- do not have the same pull on employment and consumption. And the sheer magnitude of the property sector cannot be written off... As Morgan Stanley report pointed out, to offset the 2 percentage point drag, nominal export growth would need to be around 15%... no easy feat! cc @AsiaPolicy

We are thrilled to announce the selection of our fourth fellowship cohort, sixteen truly outstanding next generation China scholars and analysts you can read more about here: global.upenn.edu/future-of-u… Check out the full announcement at: global.upenn.edu/future-of-u…

This week on the Trivium China Podcast from @triviumchina, @coryjcombs is back on the show to talk about what China did and didn't agree to in the talks in Busan when it comes to REE and other strategic minerals. @andrewpolk81 hosts as always! Link below.

🌎 Who controls the minerals that power the future? @annatashton (Ashton Analytics) and @coryjcombs (@triviumchina) join #PIPFellow @jessicamdicarlo (@UUtah) to unpack how China became a global leader in critical minerals. Watch: bit.ly/4fsxaUa

Beijing has made leading-edge, highly-efficient manufacturing capabilities a top policy priority. In this analysis, @triviumchina experts @kendraschaefer and @coryjcombs provide an in-depth overview of this emerging effort, dubbed “new industrialization.”

Beijing has made leading-edge, highly-efficient manufacturing capabilities a top policy priority. In this analysis, @triviumchina experts @kendraschaefer and @coryjcombs provide an in-depth overview of this emerging effort, dubbed “new industrialization.”

Cool paper alert: @coryjcombs takes a stab at predicting which critical minerals are most at risk of export controls by China, and outlines the framework he developed to make those determinations. Input on the framework very welcome! triviumchina.com/research/ga…

I recently published the prediction that China's CO2 emissions could peak early next year, if current rate of clean energy additions is maintained. Many people who have followed China's emissions trajectory for some time pointed out that it seemed once before, in 2015, that emissions, or at least coal use, could have peaked: I made this prediction myself in 2013, and it obviously turned out to be wrong. That means I won't call a peak again slightly, even under the condition that clean energy growth continues. So: what, if anything, is different this time? In short, the idea that China's coal use was on track to peak around 2015 was based on assuming a significant change in China's economic growth model and growth pattern. Instead of heavy industry and construction, growth was going to be driven by household consumption, services and high-tech industries. This would entail a slower rate of GDP growth, to be sure, but much more importantly, the growth would come from less coal- and energy-intensive sectors, implying a slower rate of energy demand growth in relation to GDP (lower GDP elasticity of energy demand). Around 2013-15, this is what seemed to be happening, and also what China's leadership said was going to happen, referring to the shift as the "economic new normal经济新常态". At the same time, clean energy was booming, rapidly catching up to energy demand growth. See here: up to 2015 electricity demand growth slowed while clean energy additions accelerated. Obviously, developments from 2016 onwards didn't follow the scripts. The NDRC ran stealth stimulus in 2017-19 in response first to the domestic economic slowdown and then to Trump tariffs that revived the energy intensive growth pattern. In 2020-21, the economic policy response to COVID, promoting exports and manufacturing, led to an enormous surge in heavy industry and electricity demand. At the same time, coal interests successfully pushed for a slowdown in clean energy deployment, making space for coal power generation to grow and resolve the overcapacity situation in the "wrong" way. Yet if you look at the first graph, while 2013-14 didn't turn out to be the peak for coal use or emissions, it did mark a breakpoint with much slower growth than in the preceding decade. Clean energy additions were maintained well above pre-2013 levels even if growth expectations didn't materialize. So the factors I identified back then turned out to be relevant, if overdone. So what's different now? Peaking emissions this time doesn't require economic growth to slow down or to become less energy intensive. Clean energy has grown to a scale where it can cover electricity demand growth entirely. Peaking also doesn't require further growth in annually added clean energy capacity but "just" that the rate of additions already achieved in 2023 is maintained. This doesn't make the future certain in any way. Pushback from coal interests or failure to reform the power grid to allow clean energy growth to be absorbed could derail things. Energy demand growth could go into overdrive. But currently it seems that there is more potential for energy demand growth to slow and clean energy additions to accelerate than vice versa. In short, predicting a peak in China's emissions in 2023 is a very different proposition from 2013.