This stems from unfamiliarity with Chinese economy. China being a late comer to a lot of technologies means that a large portion of their research & patents are in relatively more recent fields, e.g. China has more expertise in manufacturing EVs compared to ICE cars, China is dominating the solar market when they are not as competitive in more traditional silicon industry. Not mentioning the "per capita" argument prevalent in most developing countries, in many occasions, the movement towards reducing emission is helping the economy instead of the opposite, signified by the recent surge of Chinese EVs rendering a lot of western brands obsolete there, VW among the most shocked. This applies or will apply to all the other third world countries such as India, as the mechanism behind this phenomenon is universal.