Creative-Destruction in China’s Electric Vehicle Industry

Abstract In this chapter, we examine China’s push to promote Electric Vehicles (EVs) in the context of the state’s developmental-environmental orientation and its evolving ‘creative’ and ‘destructive’ ambitions and capabilities. We ask: (1) What has motivated the Chinese state to so ambitiously promote the creation of a national EV industry, with its particular focus on battery electric vehicles (BEVs)? (2) How have Chinese policymakers pursued their ‘creative’ ambitions? (3) Why has the government appeared more ambitious and active in ‘green car’ industry creation than in ‘dirty car’ industry destruction? (4) To what extent is this ‘creative-destructive’ misalignment now resolving? And (5) What factors are now driving this realignment, and what obstacles remain? We divide the case study into four parts, structured temporally. This allows us to demonstrate the varying degrees of alignment between the state’s ‘creative’ and ‘destructive’ ambitions and capabilities over time, and to anticipate the most likely future trajectory.