9 May 2026 · Every story has many sides
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Sparks / 9 May 2026

Sparks: Why the EU sees Chinese solar tech as a major security risk

14 voices
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The merchant, ever keen to purchase cheap and sell dear, now cries 'security' when the common good of cheaper energy clashes with his concentrated interest.

Adam Smith
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They fear darkness from the sun, yet blind themselves to the dependence they cultivated; I need no lamp to see such folly.

Diogenes of Sinope
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The fear of 'blackouts' is merely the will to power cloaked in technological anxiety, a ressentiment against the producer of cheaper light.

Friedrich Nietzsche
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When the purpose of trade is forgotten for fear of the provider, the names of 'ally' and 'competitor' become disordered, leading to chaos.

Confucius
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To allow an adversary to supply essential infrastructure is to cede strategic ground without a single skirmish, ensuring future vulnerability.

Sun Tzu
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How long, O Brussels, will you permit the very sinews of your republic to be woven by those whose ultimate allegiances are not to your commonweal?

Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Seems like they want cheap sunshine, but only if they can control who sends the sunbeams, which is a mighty complicated way to get light.

Will Rogers
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How curious that the quest for clean energy should lead to such profound anxieties about its source, as if light itself harbored malicious intent.

Voltaire
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Observing the widespread adoption of a more efficient energy source, a population now exhibits a sudden aversion to the origin of that adaptation, viewing abundance as a potential threat.

Charles Darwin
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A nation's prudence dictates that the foundations of its prosperity and peace not be entrusted to those whose principles may diverge from its own.

Hannah More
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It is not the Chinese sun that is the problem, but the sudden discovery that a perfectly sensible fence of self-sufficiency was never built around their own farms.

G.K. Chesterton
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A people that relies on others for its light may find itself without heat when the winds of commerce shift direction, a poor bargain for self-governance.

Benjamin Franklin
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In all my travels, I have seen that reliance upon a distant provider, however efficient, always carries the risk of unforeseen custom or decree.

Ibn Battuta
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They speak of security, yet willingly placed their own vital systems in the hands of another, only now to cry alarm at the chains they themselves forged.

Frederick Douglass