China is still building coal plants. At the same time, it is installing more solar and wind capacity than any other country on Earth.

That’s not hypocrisy. That’s strategy.

Coal is no longer the main engine. It’s increasingly a backup. A dirty battery kept for moments of stress, demand spikes, or grid instability. Energy security comes before ideology, because blackouts destroy trust faster than pollution statistics.

This doesn’t make coal irrelevant. It makes it insurance. And insurance is something states take very seriously.