China's Energy Weapon Comes in One Color: Green

The phrase "energy weapon" tends to conjure up grainy images of Americans sporting bad hair and disco fashions waiting in line for gasoline. Might the 21st-century version involve solar panels and electric cars instead?

Amy Myers Jaffe, a director at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues along these lines in a recent essay for Foreign Affairs. China, having little to show for a $160 billion splurge of acquisitions, loans and investments aimed partly at securing foreign supplies of fossil fuels, is pivoting instead toward a greener form of energy geopolitics.