Counterpoint: China is the undisputed leader in renewable energy technology, including battery storage. I don't think they are doing it purely for environmental reasons, but they are doing it.
Or you can look from it from the opposite direction and imagine what would have happened if there was full freedom of movement between China and US (i.e. no visas etc) and thus an actual free market for labor. If you expect workers in such situation to steadily migrate from China to US but not vice versa (at least until cost of labor equalizes), this implies that the workers in China are somehow worse off in absolute quality of life even when accounting for relative cost-of-life differences. That is, if the relationship between two countries wasn't economically exploitative in some way, we wouldn't need to restrict the free flow of labor at the border.
That's a really bizarre take that is obviously false. The disenfranchised migrant laborer or prison slave producing your American groceries is earning approximately as much as a Chinese peasant, i.e. basically nothing.
There is however a vast difference in what the organization looks like above the laborer. In America: vast profits and consolidation. By contrast, China has more small businesses (think street food) and large enterprises are SOE or otherwise constrained by the political system.
In any case, if those were the main two reasons for the disparity, then we wouldn't see the same for other first world countries which have neither cheap migrant labor nor prison slaves. Yet cost of living is still significantly more expensive in, say, Finland than it is in China.
If you pay less in wages, goods cost less.
If you have less environmental regulations/ignore them, goods cost less.
Yes, they are the leader in renewable energy tech. They have also cornered the market with regards to the rare minerals that are some/most of the inputs. The link is not a coincidence.
I don't know if that is also the case in China.
it is exactly the case in china - just with different numbers. It's why shanghai and beijing has some of the highest property price to income ratios. Just like in san fran.
There's cheap property in the USA - rural areas and lower populated areas. Just like there are in china.
I had a friend move his factory to China because the packaging and other costs were so much cheaper. I wish I'd asked for a breakdown. He didn't factor in/expect wages to be much of a savings.