China and India are making massive strategic investments in green hydrogen while Western nations retreat from their ambitious climate goals due to cost constraints. China's $2 billion project in Inner Mongolia will use renewable energy to produce hydrogen for fertilizer, marine fuel, and steel production. India is even more aggressive, targeting 5 million metric tons of green hydrogen annually by 2030 with $2.1 billion in subsidies. This represents five times the current global market size and double China's projected output. Both nations are using state power and political will to force market creation through subsidies, demand steering, and cost reduction through scale. India pairs subsidies with offtake guarantees from refineries and steelmakers to attract private capital. For India, the motivation is energy security given past supply shocks from natural gas imports.
