US leaders want China's clean energy boom to drive technology exports and are sending a sales mission to Beijing this week. But Beijing wants to create its own suppliers of wind, solar and other equipment and is limiting access to its market, setting up a new trade clash with Washington and Europe. China passed the United States last year as the biggest clean power market, stoking hopes for Western sales of wind turbines, solar cells and other gear. But U.S. and European companies find that while Beijing welcomes foreign technology, it wants manufacturing done here and know-how shared with local partners. In the wind industry, foreign suppliers with factories in China say they are shut out of major projects. “China is very keen on being able to depend on themselves,” said Frank Haugwitz, a renewable energy consultant in Beijing. US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke says clean energy sales to China can help fulfill President Barack Obama's pledge to double US exports over the next five years and create 2 million jobs. Locke is leading a group of 24 American suppliers to Beijing and Shanghai this week to drum up business. But Chinese leaders want clean energy to be one of a series of emerging industries with their companies playing a leading global role. They are using regulations to ensure the bulk of Chinese sales go to local producers. “There is a clash there that I think is going to become more and more prominent unless both sides come to some agreement,” said Jim McGregor of APCO Worldwide Inc., a consulting firm, and a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. China already is embroiled in an array of disputes with Washington, Europe and others over currency, trade in goods from steel to shoes to chicken and Beijing's industrial policies that favor Chinese companies in areas including computer security and telecoms at the expense of foreign competitors. Washington and Beijing have so far avoided a formal dispute over clean energy and have pledged to cooperate in research. The potential Chinese market is huge: Beijing invested $34.6 billion in renewable energy last year, nearly double US spending of $18.6 billion, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Foreign suppliers range from General Electric Co. and Europe's Siemens AG to Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S and smaller startups. Products run the gamut from 20-story-tall wind turbines to generators powered by chicken manure. “Low-carbon development in China represents an enormous opportunity for American businesses,” said David Sandalow, an assistant US energy secretary, in an April statement to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
