It is by now all but impossible to have a meaningful conversation about climate politics without including China. At the same time, misunderstandings and the astonishing pace of development with respect to China's role on the world stage mean that these conversations can easily collapse into a simplistic binary: China as the world's green energy saviour, or as its oppressive coal-burning bogeyman.
How, instead, should those of us committed both to the climate and to justice relate to China? The answer is complex, as the panelists for this live episode make clear. Perhaps the strongest thread running through this conversation is a warning not to treat China as a monolith, overcoming both the uncritical optimism of “Chinamaxxers” and the equally shortsighted tendency among Western commentators and think tanks to fixate on China as a military and economic threat.
To think through the climate crisis today and understand what is to come, we must try to see the country as it actually is, in all of its complexity and apparent contradiction. One thing is certain: for all of us, wherever we are, there is no route out of the climate crisis that does not run through China.
This conversation was recorded live at the Verso Books offices in Manhattan on 23rd September 2026, in partnership with Phenomenal World and The Polycrisis.
Li Shuo is head of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute and an experienced UN negotiator on climate and environmental issues.
Tim Sahay is co-director of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University and co-founder of The Polycrisis.
Jeremy Wallace is the A. Doak Barnett Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a contributor to The Break—Down's fourth issue.