The United States should not blame China for stealing American green jobs. Tan Yingzi in Washingtonand Meng Jing in Beijing report.Meng Jing in Beijing report. The first three Chinese-made wind turbines on the United States soil have been working well since testing began in January in Uilk Wind Farm, southwest Minnesota. 

The 1.5-megawatt wind turbines are not the only representative of China's clean energy in the U.S. In October last year, the Shenyang Power Group signed on to supply 240 of its huge 2.5-megawatt wind turbines to West Texas.
  
However, the deal is more than buying 240 wind turbines from China. The $1.5 billion project, one of the largest in American wind farms, is a Chinese-U.S. consortium that receives 49 percent of cash from the Chinese side.
  
Since Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama's Beijing summit last year, seven programs have resulted in significant partnership opportunities in clean energy development, including research, technology, manufactuing, regulatory policy and low carbon-development strategies.
  
Yet, there are serious concerns in the U.S. about this cooperation.Many Americans worry that China's growing industrial base for wind and  solar power equipment threatens the potential to create jobs in the U.S. in these sectors.
  
China is the world's largest wind power market and is home to the world's largest wind turbine manu-facturing industry, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said.
  
Steve Sawyer, the council's secretary-general, said at a news conference in Beijing that China is likely to surpass the U.S. as the leader in cumulative wind power capacity by the end of this year.
  
In the solar energy sector, China also occupies the top position in production, with about 40 percent of the global output of photovoltaic devices that convert the sun's energy into electricity.
  
The explosive growth in China's renewable energy industry reinforces concerns in the U.S. In early September, the biggest industrial labor union in the U.S. called for an investigation into China's support for its renewable energy industry.
  
Responding to a complaint by the United Steelworkers union, the biggest industrial labor union in the U.S., the Obama administration said recently it has opened a trade inves- tigation into China's alleged I illegal aid for its renewable energy industry.
  
"It is sending a wrong signal of trade protectionism to the rest of the world," China's National Energy Administration responded in a website statement.
  
Zhang Guobao, head of the administration said that the U.S. decision is "unjustified and groundless."
  
China's wind power equipment  market was worth 85 billion yuan ($12.7 billion) in 2009, out of which 21 percent had the involvement of foreign companies, Zhang said.
  
Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, a non-profit organization of more than 600 member companies and institutions to promote renewable energy, said the U.S. should not blame China for stealing American green jobs, but needs to look at its problems in the clean energy sector.

In 2000, both countries had two wind-turbine companies and five solar PV manufacturers each. Now, the U.S. has still the same number while China has 83 wind-turbine companies and 528 solar PV manufacturers, Eckhart said at the Brookings Institute recently when addressng trade issues in U.S.-China clean energy cooperation.
  
Some U.S. media and politicians have criticized China for unfair competition in clean energy by the use of government subsidies, believing  less expensive, made-in-China wind turbines and solar panels have caused thousands of Americans to lose their jobs.
  
But U.S. federal and state governments have also been subsidizing the industry with similar policies, Eckhart said, but because the results are not very encouraging, they feel guilty and become angry toward China.
  
" We need to step up urgently indus-tries and take on the world market," he said.
  
A report released recently by international advisory firm Garten Roth-koptf provided sufficient proof that clean energy cooperation with China will not result in job losses in the U.S.
  
The report, Anatomy of a Partnership: Benefits of U.S.-China Private Sector Cooperation in the Power Sector, said Cooperation in the Power Sector, said Cooperation in the Power Sector about 73 percent of direct jobs created through the development of the energy sector stay on U.S. soil.
  
In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center during the release of the report, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said clean energy cooperation between China and the U.S. was a win-win effort and that the ties would continue to strengthen.
  
"In no area is that win-win situation more clear than in the energy sector," he said.
  
China and the U.S. account for 42 percent of global energy demand and share similar challenges, such as a growing need for investment in the power infrastructure, the reduction of CO2 emissions and continued dependence on coal-based power generation.
  
Despite China's rapid growth in renewable energy, Zhu Junsheng, president of Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association, pointed out the need for China to cooperate with other countries.
  
"China remains dependent on Europe and America for the key design technology of wind turbine generator systems, the developers of Chinese wind power lack experience in the long-term operation and maintenance of wind power plants, and Chinese skills in cultivation and maintenance of wind power remain insufficient," he said.
  
With less than five years' experience in solar power development and no more than five years experience inthe installation and operation in this field, the development of solar energy is not advanced, either.
  
Since 2000, Japan has had 45 percent of the solar energy patents worldwide; the U.S., 20 percent; and    Germany, 10 percent. China is fourth with 8 percent. "China and the U.S. have so much to exchange in the development of renewable energy," Sven Teske, a senior energy expert at Greenpeace International, said, adding that the two countries should work together instead of fighting each other.
  
"Both of them have huge markets, there's a lot of room for more companies." Dejan Ostojic, energy expert of the East Asian and Pacific region at the World Bank, is positive about the cooperation between China and other countries.
  
In the past, there were some barriers, he said, such as the 70 percent local content requirement in China for wind turbine products, but last year, China made a "breakthrough" by lifting the restriction and created a better competitive environment for foreign companies.
  
"We can see the positive trend (in international cooperation in clean energy)," he told China Daily.
  
"There are maybe some barriers but they are not insurmountable."
  
"It is just a matter of time to see more foreign investors in China in this area and the openness further increase."

Spare a thought for efforts in conservation
                                                    
Comment: John Coulter
 
There are reports of fairly frequent blackouts in some of China's provinces, especially Hebei, which almost encircles Beijing. Some of the reports detail the inconveniences caused, and the conflict between cutting power supply to manufacturers (to lower production) and to households, which involves social costs and discomfort.
  
For uninitiated observers, such as most Western journalists and their readers, this may be no news or plain "rustic mismanagement." In fact, the deliberate reduction of power supply is part of a concerted national effort to limit energy consumption, negotiated between the central and provincial governments.
  
China's attempts at self-deprivation are worth taking note of. Admirable national policies are being implemented slowly and surely against inertia. It is not strange for newly arrived Westerners, or those ensconced in comfortable urban pads, to see the problems and overlook the work in progress.
  
There are still some huge gaps in under-standing between the West and China, and the miraculous three decades of China's development has given rise to serious pains among the Chinese as well foreigners. It is necessary to read between the headlines on one issue: China has overtaken or is about to overtake the U.S. as the country with the most voracious appetite for energy. But it seems Chinese and U.S. nationals both have failed to do so.
  
Wall Street Journal reporters were told by the International Energy Agency (IEA) chief economist in New York that preliminary 2009 estimates of total-oil-equivalent consumption showed China was above the U.S. For the Western media, this became a stick to beat China with.
  
What the media deliberately neglected to state is that renewable wind and solar energy and hydro-electricity had been added with oil and coal. No wonder, there is zero acknowledgement of China's advances there. Also, China's per capita energy consumption is still one-fifth that of the U.S.
  
The IEA website headlined the news in a way that suggested China was overtaking the U.S. as the largest energy consumer. But then it softened the rhetoric, and even added a paragraph to say China had made "much progress" in curbing energy intensity (energy per dollar of output) and in becoming a world leader in renewable energy technologies.
  
A headline that did do justice to China's frenetic endeavors in research and development in alternative energy technologies was in the Sept. 8 edition of The New York Times.
  
Though critical of "aggressive government policies" on clean energy initiatives, including special deals for some entrepreneurs, reporter Keith Bradsher lauded China's booming clean energy sector that would help slow global warming.
   
Driving a wedge between what China is doing well and where the U.S. has lost its way are extreme views such as those of James P. Hoffa, who accuses China of playing "dirty tricks" on clean energy (Hungton Post, Sept. 13). Hoffa is the president of the U.S.' most powerful union and has earned the favor (and gratitude) of hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers, who find it easy to believe that China is stealing their jobs.
  
Writing for an industry magazine, Today's Machining World, on Sept. 3, Hoffa said theChinese have "suckered" the U.S. into disadvantageous trade bills, and "we've been stupid enough" to become its victims.

Fortunately there are visionaries in the Barack Obama administration who do not blame or criticize China's efforts to promote new energy- efficient technologies, and are keen to cooperate, allowing the two nations to exploit  their comparative advantage.

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