Working, grid-scale fusion power to generate electricity could be a major game-changer. It's everything our high-tech lifestyle demands while also being what "green" energy advocates and climate scolds claim to want: Clean, reliable, affordable (once it's scaled up) and producing a level of energy density hitherto unknown, greater even than fission reactors.
But of all that, the key term is "could be." The United States and the nations of Europe have been working on a practical fusion reactor for decades, and while there are a lot of claims of breakthroughs floating around, it hasn't happened yet. A lot of us - this writer included - are tacking over to the "believe it when we see it" course.
Here's the thing: The United States' primary geopolitical rival, China, is working on a fusion reactor as well, and it seems to be developing into something of an energy race; much will depend on which side gains grid-scale fusion power first. The Gatestone Institute's Lawrence Kadish has some thoughts on just that issue, and they're worth considering.
By anyone's observation, China seeks to dominate the 21st century, and they will do so by "any means necessary." In the process, they will use their military might to create a sphere of influence that is designed to cow nations that range from Japan to Australia to India.
Their invasion of Taiwan is almost a foregone conclusion among many military observers, who believe it is not a question of if but when. But "when or if" China launches its amphibious assault, it will have determined that the United States is not willing to risk its armed forces to defend an island that produces the majority of the world's computer chips, especially the most advanced ones.
All this is likely true, and it's all material we've discussed in these virtual pages many times. But here's what's not mentioned, and again, it's something we've discussed many times: China is about to fall off a demographic cliff, and time is not on the Middle Kingdom's side. That's a novel concept for a culture that views its history in terms, not of centuries, but millennia; but that's the fact.
So, if China is going to act, they have to act within the next generation or two, at the most. And that action will require them to amp up not only their traditional forces, but their modern technology, and the generation capacity that powers it - therefore, a new focus on fusion energy.
China's eventual decision to deploy its military throughout the Pacific Rim will likely be preceded by confidence in its ability to harness extraordinary advances in AI resulting from its access to unlimited, clean, inexpensive electricity available from fusion power. It is an emerging technology currently the beneficiary of what is believed to be untold billions of Chinese yuan of investment. One executive at Brookhaven National Laboratory told me earlier this year:
"We have no idea how much they are truly spending because of the secrecy surrounding their efforts but we get the sense 'whatever it takes' to achieve a breakthrough in fusion."
The strategic linkage is clear and without question. Consider the facts: AI has the means to alter the course of a country's history. But to harness its full potential requires incredible amounts of energy. Create that energy, and AI becomes a 21st-century strategic weapon.
It's a certainty that any nation that can bring grid-scale fusion power will have a big advantage. But how close is China to that, really?
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China isn't a nation or a society known for innovation. Now and then, they reveal a new fighter aircraft that looks suspiciously like a recent American design. They are building a navy, but their navy is still little more than a coastal defense force; they have nothing to compare to, for example, the Virginia-class fast-attack submarines or the new Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers. It will take time before they can bring a modern, blue-water navy to bear, and it's not at all clear they have that time.
It's also not at all clear they have time to develop what the Western world has not succeeded in developing for well over half a century, although we should note that the Trump administration has shoved all of its chips into the fusion energy bet as well.
But the United States has ample energy already. The Trump administration has rapidly expanded traditional fossil fuel and fission power development, although we haven't yet seen a lot of talk of vital things like increasing generation capacity and hardening the grid. Traditional sources - coal, natural gas, and fission - should be enough to power our increasingly high-tech society for a while, if we're willing to build up the generating and transmission capacity. And any advance in fusion power, we should note, will also require hardening the grid, if we intend to keep it secure.
Lawrence Kadish notes:
That indifference has profoundly changed during the last quarter of 2025. The White House recently created an Office of Fusion within the Department of Energy, significantly elevating focus and urgency on this technology. Equally important is the announcement that President Donald J. Trump is getting into the fusion power business through a $6 billion merger between his social media company and the fusion research company TAE Technologies.
If there is any message that needs to be heard by China, it is that Trump recognizes that the winner of the fusion race will secure its nation's future and dictate whether democracy and freedom will flourish or the misery of communism will fall upon tens of millions of people. History may well view that out of all his accomplishments, the president's investment in fusion was the one upon which the fate of nations was determined.
Pouring resources into a possible working fusion reactor design may well launch a new era of American dominance. Or it could be another "Star Wars" initiative, where the United States puts up an elaborate front to prompt China into devoting resources that they can't afford to divert, into a research field in which they are already lagging behind. That would be a very Trump-like thing to do.
Yes, it's probably true; whichever nation gains workable fusion power first will have a big advantage. But China almost certainly isn't the nation that will take that great leap forward.
