At an international symposium on “80 Years after Bretton Woods” in Hangzhou this past May, I proposed a “Global South Green Development Plan,” which some media later dubbed the Chinese Green Marshall Plan.

The proposal includes three goals: assisting developing countries’ green development, expanding China’s aggregate demand and enhancing China’s global leadership. Like the original Marshall Plan, the plan would provide large volumes of commercial credit and investment, policy loans and government aid.

I was inspired by recent discussions about China’s overcapacity in key green industries: electric vehicles (EVs), lithium batteries and solar panels. During a discussion with Peking University professors in April, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen raised this issue and voiced two concerns: That Chinese overcapacity looked like the result of state subsidies and that it had reached a scale that was disrupting international markets. A month later, the United States announced a 100% tariff on EVs from China.