Securitizing New Energy Amidst the Global Pandemic: The Chinese State and the Politics of Climate Change

This chapter argues that the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the process fulfilling the promise of the neoliberal idea to mitigate the effects of climate change. The neoconservative advocates that created the fictional myths of a minimalist government seem to have demonstrated their insufficient capacity to alleviate the spread of public crises. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of the energy transition caused by turbulent oil prices have compelled the national policy elites to adjust the development strategy of alternative energy with the aim of adapting to climate change. This chapter will focus on the development of China’s new energy and analyse its possible implications of human security amidst the global epidemic, investigating the diversified governance patterns in this emerging field through the central and local states’ altered industrial policies. In this chapter, the main body of the analysis includes the institutional continuity and changes and governance structures of three strategic emerging sectors, being non-hydro renew energy, nuclear energy, and electric vehicles. The study unfolds Chinese governments’ and enterprises’ actions and relations in the trajectory of sectoral development. The study illustrates a transitional bureaucratic restructuring trend towards the central government. However, this trend has formed a potentially new institution that is aimed for regulating the energy markets while striving for maintain a sustained connection between national security and human security in the Chinese context.