Creative-Destruction in China’s Strong and Smart Grid Initiatives: The Shift to Ultra-High Voltage

Abstract In this chapter we examine China’s efforts to build an electric power grid capable of powering the world’s largest manufacturing system. China’s ‘strong and smart’ grid initiatives need to be examined in the context of the state’s emerging developmental-environmental orientation, and relatedly its evolving ‘creative’ and ‘destructive’ ambitions and capabilities. We ask: What has motivated the Chinese state to become so involved in ‘strong and smart’ grid industry creation initiatives, especially in the UHV grid arena? How have Chinese policymakers pursued their ‘creative’ ambitions? Why has the government appeared more ambitious in ‘strong and smart’ grid industry creation than in extricating fossil fuels out of the energy system? And to what extent is this ‘creative-destructive’ misalignment now resolving? We divide this chapter into three parts, structured temporally. This allows us to explore the varying degrees of alignment between the state’s ‘creative’ and ‘destructive’ ambitions from the 1980s to 2021.