The Great Realignment: What Global Investors Must Know About China in 2025

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The world is in the middle of a structural reset—one where global capital can no longer pretend geopolitics, climate, and industrial policy are background noise. From liquefied gas to lithium, from advanced chips to artificial intelligence, the foundations of the global economy are now strategic terrain. It’s in this moment—when investors are trying to sort hype from risk, narrative from reality—that Jefferies investment bank is hosting a lineup of experts who bring unusually grounded insight into China’s role in the next phase of global competition and decarbonization. The event is titled: US China Summit – Understanding Geopolitical Rivalry & Strategic Priorities. This isn’t a postmortem. It’s a map of where the fractures are forming and where opportunity, resilience, or failure may follow. I’m honored to be among the speakers.

Shaun Rein will open the event with a session titled “Will Sanctions and Tariffs on China Work?” and few are more qualified to address that question. As the founder of the China Market Research Group and a longtime advisor to Western multinationals navigating China’s consumer and regulatory landscape from his home base in Shanghai, Rein has argued consistently that U.S. economic pressure campaigns are fundamentally miscalibrated. In his book The War for China’s Wallet, and in frequent interviews with Bloomberg, CNBC, and others, he’s emphasized the domestic strength of Chinese consumption, the Party’s ability to absorb and redirect pressure, and the counterproductive nature of Western sanctions. He’s not defending Beijing—he’s explaining why it isn’t folding. For investors, Rein’s perspective is an antidote to wishful thinking. If you’re still hoping that tariffs will force supply chains out of China or trigger political realignment, Rein is likely to offer a sobering but necessary recalibration.

I recently contrasted Rein’s most recent book, The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order with a Chinese mainland senior economist’s recently, highlighting that China is not what the dominant western narrative, especially that in the USA, says it is.

Following Rein, Joanna Lewis will take the stage to discuss “China’s Green Industrial Policy.” Her academic work has mapped this space for years. As a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor at Georgetown and a lead author on the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, Lewis is one of the most respected Western analysts of China’s renewable energy strategy. Her book Green Innovation in China dissected the way China built its wind power sector—not just technologically, but institutionally—and she’s continued to research how state-led industrial coordination has underpinned the country’s cleantech dominance. She’s spoken at the Asia Society, advised the Energy Foundation China, and repeatedly shown how China’s approach blends scale, policy certainty, and global ambition. What Lewis brings to this conversation is not just description but pattern recognition. She helps investors understand why Chinese solar and EV companies are exporting at margin-killing prices and how that’s not a market failure—it’s a market strategy.

Dr. Michal Meidan will extend that logic in her session on “China’s Past and Future Energy System.” As the Director of the China Energy Research Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, and a longtime analyst of China’s energy security posture, Meidan brings depth and nuance to what’s often an oversimplified story. Her work spans Chinese oil policy, independent refining dynamics, and most recently, the monthly evolution of China’s coal, gas, and renewables balance. In her past roles at Eurasia Group and Energy Aspects, she consistently emphasized the duality of China’s energy strategy—rapid clean energy deployment paired with stubborn reliance on coal. In her recent public commentary, she’s highlighted the tension between short-term reliability and long-term decarbonization, especially as China prepares to lean on domestic fossil assets for energy security while continuing to dominate clean tech exports. For investors watching commodity markets or infrastructure funds, Meidan’s contribution will be essential in understanding where the risk curve lies.

Later in the morning, I’ll speak to the supply side of this system: how China became the world’s dominant refiner and processor of critical minerals for both defense and clean technology. From lithium and cobalt to rare earths and graphite, China controls 60% to 90% of global midstream mineral processing capacity. This isn’t just a clean energy story—it’s a geopolitical chokepoint, and one that’s proving difficult to diversify around. In my own writing and analysis, I’ve laid out why Western efforts to rebuild mineral supply chains are running into basic constraints: permitting delays, capital scarcity, refining know-how, and the brutal timeline mismatch between political cycles and industrial development. My talk will lay out where we are, what’s realistic in the next five years, and why China’s role in minerals isn’t going away anytime soon.

Dr. John Helveston will follow with a presentation titled “Competition vs Collaboration Across Clean Tech: Is Reshoring Possible?” Helveston is uniquely qualified to answer that. As an assistant professor at George Washington University specializing in EV adoption, clean tech policy, and China-U.S. industrial comparisons, he brings data, not dogma. His landmark comparative study of electric vehicle preferences in China and the U.S. helped explain why China’s EV market scaled so quickly—and why American buyers were slower to shift. More recently, his research has focused on clean tech manufacturing dynamics and policy feedback loops. Helveston is skeptical of simplistic reshoring narratives. In past op-eds and academic commentary, he’s argued that global clean tech success has depended on distributed supply chains, not national self-sufficiency. He’s likely to frame reshoring as costly, incomplete, and—at best—selective. For investors betting on U.S. battery plants, solar gigafactories, or IRA-fueled manufacturing, his insight will provide essential ground truth.

After lunch, attention will shift from energy to technology with Reva Goujon’s talk on “Semiconductor and AI Competition.” At Rhodium Group, Goujon leads China corporate advisory and has long been one of the clearest voices linking geopolitics with industrial and technological risk. Her time at Stratfor, where she led global intelligence and strategic forecasting, sharpened her ability to model how states behave when technology becomes a national security asset. She’s been writing about China’s semiconductor ambitions for years, and in recent Rhodium briefings, she’s parsed how export controls, investment screening, and AI governance battles are reshaping corporate strategy. Goujon doesn’t treat the chip war as a one-off policy spat—it’s a structural break with decades of global tech integration. Her talk is likely to connect semiconductors with AI systems, intellectual property policy, and the emerging bifurcation of digital infrastructure. For investors in advanced manufacturing, cloud infrastructure, or AI software, understanding the implications of this divide will be critical.

Closing the day is Michael Mehling with “Great Power Competition: Climate, Trade, and Geostrategic Rivalry in the US.” Mehling operates at the intersection of law, policy, and climate economics, with roles at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the University of Strathclyde Law School. He’s been a key advisor on carbon pricing frameworks and has written extensively on the interaction between climate policy and international trade rules. In recent years, Mehling has emphasized how industrial policy tools—carbon border adjustments, green subsidies, clean energy credits—are becoming instruments of strategic influence. He’s also warned that without coordination, these tools could spark a trade war among allies, complicating the already fragile global decarbonization effort. In this session, he’s likely to explore how U.S. and EU climate trade policies impact global flows of steel, cement, batteries, and hydrogen—and whether a multipolar climate regime can hold together under increasing pressure.

This event comes at a moment of inversion: when what used to be assumptions are now risks, and what used to be noise—mineral flows, carbon policy, permitting timelines—are now signal. For global investors, the message is clear. The future isn’t just shaped by technological innovation. It’s shaped by who controls the inputs, who writes the rules, and who can execute policy with coherence and scale. China is central to every one of those levers, and understanding how and why is no longer optional. It’s foundational. This event offers not just a diagnosis but a framework for action—and one that, if taken seriously, could help avoid the most costly misreads of the coming decade.

This event is only open to Jefferies’ clients, so reach out to your client contact if you haven’t received an invite already. I’ll share my slides, talking points and the questions that were asked, just as I did with my last Jefferies client presentation on the future of electrical generation.