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India wants to build its own solar industry from the ground up. But it still can’t cut the cord from Chinese suppliers. That contradiction is now shutting down factories across the country.
Reuters reports that a shortage of domestically made solar cells has forced several panel manufacturers to halt operations entirely. Companies now face waits of up to eight months for local cells that were meant to replace Chinese imports.
Industry insiders warn this bottleneck threatens to derail India’s 2030 solar power targets.
India wants solar independence. Chinese parts still call the shots.
A Third Of Factories Down
The numbers tell a stark story. Nearly a third of India’s 140 small and medium-sized solar panel manufacturers have already stopped production, according to India’s Solar Manufacturers Association.
Those idled plants account for 60% of the country’s national manufacturing capacity. The remaining factories aren’t faring much better. They’ve scaled back to running just once every three to four days.
Going local comes with a steep price tag right now. Manufacturers without their own cell production lines face six to eight month waits for domestic cells. That delay has pushed the cost of India-made panels to nearly double the price of panels built with Chinese cells.
Shailendra Shukla, chairman of manufacturer Icon Solar, put it bluntly. “We have suffered a lot due to the domestic cell unavailability for the past three months,” he said. He expects his company’s output to plunge from 3.2 gigawatts to roughly 1 gigawatt.
Mandate Meets Reality
Earlier this year, the Indian government started to force the issue. From June 1 onward, solar projects must use compliant domestically produced cells to cut reliance on imports. The policy backfired in practice. India’s local cell production capacity simply couldn’t keep up, leaving companies with plenty of module capacity but no cells to put in them.
The scale of the mismatch is striking. Indian firms have built roughly 200 gigawatts of solar panel manufacturing capacity. Solar cell capacity, by contrast, stands at just about 27 gigawatts, with actual operational output running even lower at 16 to 18 gigawatts.
Closing that gap won’t happen overnight. Rajan Kalsotra, senior consultant at German research firm EUPD Research, estimates it could take India three to five years to build enough domestic cell capacity to match its module output.
Solar power reaches even India’s temporary settlements.
A Supply Chain Still Made In China
India’s photovoltaic industry has leaned on China’s supply chain for years, and that dependence hasn’t loosened. About 95% of India’s solar cell imports come from China. Imports in the last fiscal year rose 37% year-on-year to roughly 1.86 billion US dollars.
Building an independent supply chain takes more than ambition. Solar cell factories require substantial capital, technological partnerships, and lengthy commissioning periods. China dominates the global market for solar manufacturing equipment and technology, and Indian firms say Beijing’s export restrictions on related technology have made it even harder for India to expand its own capacity.
The clock is ticking on India’s climate commitments. Indian solar companies warn that the cell shortage is driving up costs, delaying project construction, and could jeopardize the country’s 2030 target of installing 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel energy capacity. Currently, India’s non-fossil energy capacity stands at about 288 gigawatts, with solar accounting for roughly 29% of that total.
The human cost is mounting too. Industry insiders say Indian solar project costs could rise by about 35% until domestic cell capacity expands. Companies reliant on photovoltaic manufacturing are also facing employment pressures. In Gujarat state alone, module manufacturers lacking cell production capacity account for roughly 45,000 jobs.
Deep Throat
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace back in 1974. The Watergate scandal made him the poster child for American political corruption. More than half a century later, the man who once insisted “I’m not a crook” has become an unlikely idol for a new generation of conservatives. Call it “Nixonmaxxing”: internet slang for taking Nixon fandom to the extreme. He is going viral all over again, recast as a pioneer of “America First.” The rebranding echoes President Donald Trump’s own style, and some are now calling the long-dead Nixon Trump’s “newest ally.”
Nixon addresses the nation on Watergate, August 15, 1973.
Social media feeds are flooded with archival Nixon footage. Editors chop it into short clips and memes, set to music from popular American rappers, and the results spread fast. Young conservative influencers now wear merchandise printed with slogans like “Pretty Girls for Nixon” and “Nixon Now More Than Ever.” Baseball caps, T-shirts and fanny packs bearing the word “Nixonmaxxing” have reportedly sold out within hours of hitting shelves.
“I’m not a crook” is trending again. Gen Z conservatives have made Nixon their idol.
From Disgraced President to Meme Icon
The Wall Street Journal reported on July 17 that young American conservatives are using TikTok and Instagram to recast Nixon as a pioneer who stood up to the establishment and the “deep state.” Some American netizens have even joked online: “Is Nixon staging the greatest political comeback in history?”
Five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 to plant wiretaps, and got caught in the act. The investigation that followed traced the break-in back to Nixon’s re-election campaign. Nixon then tried to cover it up and failed, triggering the scandal that bears the building’s name to this day.
The Simpsons has mocked Nixon for decades.
Ultimately, Nixon resigned in 1974, the only US president in history to leave office mid-term. Several of his aides went to prison, and Congress passed a wave of reforms curbing presidential power. Nixon and Watergate have served as staple material for American political satire ever since.
Nixon has long been a punching bag on American television. The Simpsons mocked him repeatedly over the years. Futurama went further, portraying him as a disembodied head floating in a jar. The 1999 comedy Dick built its entire plot around Watergate, poking fun at Nixon throughout.
Futurama’s take: Nixon, reduced to a head in a jar.
The anonymous administrator behind the Instagram account “Kawaii Richard Nixon” told the US online magazine Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera that they don’t fully support Nixon. But they believe Watergate overshadowed some genuine achievements of his presidency. “Watergate was of course wrong,” the administrator said, “but compared to some of the things happening today, it’s barely anything.”
“Nixonmaxxing” caps sold out in hours.
Nixon’s politics symbolize a bygone era, they added, one “completely different from today.” He pushed through liberal policies such as establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and advanced cancer research. The administrator estimated that most of the account’s followers are high school and college-age Gen-Zs.
The Trend Takes Hold in US Politics
The “Nixon craze” hasn’t stayed on social media. It has taken root inside American political circles. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has long admired Nixon. During his second term, Trump has repeatedly pushed back against the limits on presidential power that emerged after Watergate, a stance now echoed by senior Republican figures.
Trump wrote to Nixon in 1982, calling him “one of this country’s great men”. The two kept up a correspondence for years afterward, bonding over shared grievances. Nixon wrote back in a 1990 letter: “Dear Donald — I know nothing about the intricacies of your business enterprises but the massive media attack on you puts me in your corner!”
Vance made the connection explicit in June. Speaking at an event at the Nixon Presidential Library in California, he said: “I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, but I think deservedly so.”
Vance, at the Nixon Library in June: Nixon’s legacy is having “a renaissance.”
Vance then compared Nixon’s 1972 election victory directly with Trump’s. He argued that the coalition returning both men to the White House was broader and more durable than the one that elected Ronald Reagan. “you know Reagan could not have won his landslide in 2024,” Vance said, pointing to America’s changing demographics, “Richard Nixon maybe could have won his landslide in 2024.”
To some in this new generation of conservatives, Nixon is no longer labelled as Watergate’s villain. He has become an “America First” pioneer instead, a tough president loathed by the mainstream media, besieged by investigative agencies, and ultimately brought down, in their view, by the “deep state.”
Years of Rebranding Behind the Scenes
None of this happened by accident. The Nixon Foundation has quietly run a years-long rebranding campaign, working to re-present the former president’s “historic achievements.” Those include the Apollo moon landing and the Sino-US rapprochement.
Jim Byron, chairman of the Nixon Foundation, said planning began back in 2018. The goal was to repackage the more than 46 million documents and 3,700 hours of recordings held at the Nixon Presidential Library into short-video content. Once the foundation started posting clips on Instagram and TikTok, “We really saw it explode,” Byron said. Some clips have racked up millions of views on YouTube.
A 2024 short video posted by the foundation, with selected footage from the old TV series “Mad Men” that features the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race, went viral on X. The clip opens with the character Don Draper’s assessment of the two presidential candidates, waxing poetically about “the Abe Lincoln of California, a self-made man,” before concluding: “Kennedy, I see a silver spoon. Nixon, I see myself.”
The footage then cuts to photographs of Nixon set to music by an American rapper. In an accompanying recording, Nixon can be heard saying: “And believe me, when you’ve gone through the fires of having to work your way through school, of having to fight campaigns with no money, of having to do it on your own, you’ll come out a pretty strong man, and you’re not in awe of anybody.”
Netizens have flooded the comments with praise. Many call Nixon “one of the most underrated presidents,” while others say “we were probably too hard on Nixon.”
Matthew Foldi, an editor at the conservative outlet Washington Examiner, said the Nixon Foundation once gave him a limited-edition baseball cap. It was printed with Nixon’s iconic V-for-victory hand gesture.
A Mirror to America’s Political Mood
Nixon’s renewed popularity taps into something bigger. It reflects the hard-edged populism and nostalgia that have taken hold on the American right in recent years.
Conservative commentator Shashank Tripathi argues that Nixon represents “heterodox middle finger to the establishment”. That is precisely what appeals to the young conservatives championing him. In their eyes, Nixon is no longer merely the “crook” of Watergate. He has become an early victim of the “deep state,” a framing that resonates deeply with Trump supporters.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed in 2024 that Watergate was actually a “deep-state coup” orchestrated by the CIA and FBI. Podcast host Joe Rogan later echoed similar claims on his own show, saying “the whole thing was set up by the government”.
1982: Trump calls Nixon “one of this country’s great men.” A friendship is born.
Republican political adviser Roger Stone revealed that Trump has repeatedly asked him why Nixon chose to resign rather than fight back. Stone believes that “Nixon was in fact brought down by the same deep-state institutions that tried to bring down Trump”.
White House spokesman Kush Desai struck a similar note. He said former President Nixon exposed the betrayals of the deep state and the “fake news” media. Decades later, Desai added, President Trump continues fighting these entrenched interest groups on behalf of the American people.
The Wall Street Journal noted that those pushing to rehabilitate Nixon’s reputation see it as more than restoring the standing of one president. It is also a challenge to the system of constraints on presidential power built up after Watergate.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, the White House has taken a series of steps to weaken these constraints. These include expanding presidential control over fiscal spending, firing inspectors-general, and adjusting protections for career civil servants.
Conservative commentator Christopher Rufo has gone further still. Nixon’s importance to the right, he says, lies in the fact that “America has been essentially stuck in the year 1968.” The right, he argues, needs to launch a “counter-revolution.”
Watergate holds fresh appeal today for a simple reason. Americans can now scarcely imagine a president choosing to resign with dignity, sparing the country a long, divisive impeachment battle on the principle of putting “America first” rather than himself first.
Today’s “Nixonmaxxing” may have less to do with young Americans genuinely warming to Nixon himself. It works more as a mirror, reflecting present-day American society’s fraught relationship with its own past, its institutions, its power structures and its political order.
© 2023 Bastillepost. All rights reserved.
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