According to US media reports, Russell Abney, 49, a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology, supported his family in the solar energy industry. For the past decade, he worked at Perrysburg, a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, as a well-paid equipment engineer for one of the largest solar panel manufacturers in the United States. On the other side of the world, Gao Song, a former organic fruit retailer, now lives in the dusty Chinese city of Wuhan. Four years ago, he installed solar panels on his own roof, found it profitable, and began installing them for others. By the summer of 2016, he and a team of 50 employees were installing solar systems on nearly 100 rooftops each month.

　　The New York Times website reported on April 8th, under the headline "The New King of Solar Energy: How China Began to Dominate the Solar Industry," that China later shook the global solar energy industry—changing the lives of these two men ever since.

　　"Small tremors in China could lead to price collapses around the world," said Frank Haugowitz, a solar industry consultant currently living in Beijing.

　　In late last summer, China began drastically cutting subsidies to domestic solar panel buyers. Gao Song's business plummeted, forcing him to lay off half his workforce.

　　The report states that Chinese solar panel manufacturers subsequently slashed prices by more than a quarter to attract customers, causing a global collapse in solar panel prices. Western companies found themselves unable to compete with their Chinese counterparts, leading to job losses across industries from Germany to Michigan to Texas.

　　Perrysburg was not spared either; Abney and about 450 other employees suddenly found themselves unemployed. "Everything collapsed in just a few months," Abney said.

　　The report notes that the leaders of China and the United States recently met at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump vowed to end what he called unfair Chinese business practices. However, much of Trump's speech focused on old-fashioned, high-smokehouse industries, such as steel, whose jobs had already begun to disappear before China's rise.

　　But economists and business leaders warn that China's industrial ambitions have entered a new and significant phase. The Chinese government has allocated substantial funds, the technology has become increasingly sophisticated, and a comprehensive plan has been developed to reduce reliance on foreign companies, aiming to become a leader in future industries such as renewable energy, big data, and autonomous vehicles.

　　The report states that in the solar energy sector, China has already achieved this, now possessing two-thirds of the world's solar panel production capacity. Its products are increasingly approaching the efficiency of solar panels produced by American, German, and South Korean companies in converting sunlight into electricity. Because China also purchases half of the world's new solar panels, it now effectively controls the market.

　　For much of the past century, the ups and downs of the US economy could mean a good job or poverty for a Chilean copper miner or a Malaysian rubber plantation farmer. Today, China's policy shifts and business decisions, once exploited by political brokers in Washington, New York, and Detroit, can have the same global impact.

　　The report states that China's rise in the solar panel sector illustrates the country's influence on US presidents. China's massive and rapidly developing economy allows it to redefine industries almost instantaneously. Under government leadership, China is committed to achieving dominance in key industries. This approach by China poses a direct challenge to countries where leaders typically allow businesses to make their own business decisions.

　　The report states that China is already the world's largest manufacturer and buyer of steel, automobiles, and smartphones. While it may not necessarily dominate these industries, its government is replicating its success in areas such as robotics, chips, and software—just as it has in the solar energy industry.

　　Yuan Haiyang, CEO of Grapp Solar, a solar panel distributor based in Eugene, Oregon, said that Chinese solar panel manufacturers "have the capital, technology, and scale," and they will "crush" their American competitors.