A lie that can be seen from space
Does China have no wind farms?
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It is taken as a given by President Trump’s allies and foes alike that he lies. But there are many different kinds of lies. One kind that has been appearing recently is not just a lie about something that is easily checkable, but an additional assertion made on top of the lie that acts to compound it. We saw this in the case of the killing by an ICE officer of Renee Good in Minneapolis.1
The BBC was fact checking President Trump’s speech at Davos and offered another example:
Does China have no wind farms?
He singled out China, claiming that although it made lots of wind turbines, he had not “been able to find any wind farms in China.”
The compound lie nods to the norm that is breaking: that claims require proof, that your bold claim has been checked. In this case “been able to find,” suggests the president looked.
He couldn’t have looked that hard:
China has one of the largest wind farms in the world at Gansu, which can be seen from space.
China generates more wind energy than any other country, according to Our World in Data. Its statistics show that in 2024 China generated 997 terawatt-hours from wind.
That was more than double that of the US - which was in second place.
Chart the distance between what the president said and what is so. He said that he could find no wind farms: They are literally visible from space. To look and not find wind farms requires an active effort not to look.
China’s wind energy sector is the largest in the world by every major metric:
Generation: In 2024, China generated approximately 997 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity from wind (Our World in Data). For comparison, the U.S. (in second place) generated less than half that amount, roughly 425 TWh.
Total Capacity: By the end of 2024, China had installed over 560 gigawatts (GW) of wind power (World Wind Energy Association). By early 2025, wind and solar combined were generating roughly 26% of China’s total electricity in peak months (Renewable Energy Institute).
Offshore Leadership: China operates more than half of the world’s total offshore wind turbines (Global Energy Monitor). In 2024 alone, they were responsible for nearly 55% of all new global offshore additions.
Given the magnitude of China’s wind dominance, the president’s claim that it has no wind farms is like asserting that Florida is landlocked.
The compounding lie in this case and the Renee Good case isn’t just repetition or emphasis. It’s adding a false claim about the epistemology of the original claim. It’s saying “I’ve been careful about this” when you haven’t.
The pattern has shifted. The president used to defer verification when he made a claim that was untrue on its face —”you'll see in two weeks,” he’d promise. Now he claims the verification already happened. The lie no longer postpones proof; it performs it.
…with another lie.
They’re turducken lies. Lies wrapped in false assurances that the normal standards of verification were met.
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