The ElectroYuan: How China Hijacked Climate Finance
While the West lectured on governance, Beijing bought the developing world at interest rates no one could refuse.
The numbers tell the story before the words do.
By February 2025, American treasury yields hit 4.22 percent while Chinese bonds sat at 1.79 percent. A 250 basis point gap.
High American interest rates meant dollar debt became impossible for most of the Global South. Nations trying to service existing loans watched their payments explode.
Western development banks—the ones that spent decades lecturing about good governance—priced themselves out of existence. Seven percent. Eight percent. Sometimes more.
China saw the opening.
Not out of generosity. China had its own problems. Deflation. A collapsed property sector. Consumer confidence in free fall.
And most critically: staggering overcapacity in solar panels, electric vehicles, and lithium batteries.
By 2025, China was producing 70 percent of the world’s solar panels. Those panels had to go somewhere.
Enter the ElectroYuan.
The mechanism is simple. China lends renminbi to a developing nation at around 3 percent interest. Way below dollar rates. That nation uses the renminbi to buy solar panels, wind turbines, or batteries from Chinese manufacturers. The infrastructure generates revenue. The debt gets repaid in renminbi.
Notice what’s missing.
Real choice.
A Brazilian solar developer takes a 160 million renminbi loan from a Chinese bank. The terms look beautiful compared to dollar debt. But the money flows directly to Chinese suppliers. The technology locks the buyer into Chinese standards for decades.
And if the project fails, the green loan turns just as sour as any other.
At the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in late 2024, President Xi pledged over 50 billion dollars for African development. For the first time, a significant chunk was denominated in renminbi.
Brazil’s national development bank signed its first foreign currency loan in RMB.
By early 2025, 41 percent of Brazil-China trade was settling in renminbi.
The Global South isn’t choosing China because China offers a better deal morally. The Global South is choosing China because the West walked away.
Because dollar debt became impossible. Because the Just Energy Transition Partnership that Western nations promised turned into bureaucratic quicksand while Chinese money moved fast.
Between 2013 and 2022, China mobilized nearly 45 billion dollars in climate finance for developing countries.
Not grants. Loans. Loans tied to Chinese goods.
The Western response made everything worse.
Instead of offering competitive alternatives, the United States doubled down on containment. Executive Order 14105 banned American investment in Chinese semiconductors, quantum tech, and AI.
The practical effect? Pushing China harder toward the Global South.
The European Union launched investigations into Chinese wind turbine suppliers, claiming unfair subsidies. What Europe calls market distortion, Africa calls affordable development.
Then there’s the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. In January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security added 37 entities to the list, targeting solar and battery supply chains.
The intent may be righteous. The consequence? Chinese manufacturers, blocked from American markets, dump surplus capacity on developing nations at lower prices.
Every Western trade barrier becomes another Chinese opportunity.
The nations caught in this have no good options. Take China’s money and lock into technological dependence. Or refuse it and watch development stall while populations demand electricity and jobs.
Some call this the new Cold War.
That’s too clean. Cold Wars had ideologies.
This is just exploitation with better branding.
The ElectroYuan isn’t anchored to oil like the petrodollar. It’s anchored to the capital goods required for decarbonization. To solar panels a country can’t manufacture itself. To batteries it can’t produce domestically.
The United States priced itself out of development finance while insisting its finance remains the only legitimate kind. China stepped into the void with cheap money tied to surplus goods.
And the Global South, abandoned by one power and ensnared by another, makes choices that aren’t really choices.
The green transition was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be about justice. About lifting nations out of poverty while saving the planet.
Instead, it’s becoming another arena where the powerful exploit the desperate.
The panels get installed. The batteries get charged. The electric vehicles roll off production lines.
And the debt accumulates. In renminbi. At 3 percent interest. For thirty years.
The same old trap, painted green.
References:
After the Fall: China’s Economy in 2025
Take Two: US inflation continues to fall; China growth expected to slow