China and New Geopolitics of the Electricity Age
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper examines how the global transition from a fossil-fuel-based energy system to an electricity-centered energy order is reshaping the geopolitical structure of power. It argues that the rise of an electricity-based civilization is not merely an energy transition, but a profound transformation in the material foundations, strategic logic, and institutional forms of global politics. In contrast to the oil age in which geopolitical competition primarily revolved around the control of fuel reserves and transport routes, the electricity age is increasingly defined by competition over critical minerals, high-end power equipment, nuclear energy technology, and grid standards. Focusing on copper and lithium as strategic resources, transformers and nuclear power as key industrial capabilities, and ultra-high-voltage transmission and technical standards as instruments of structural influence, the paper analyzes the emerging geography of power in the electricity era. It further compares the strategic choices of China, the U.S., and the European Union, showing that China seeks to consolidate full-chain industrial advantages and enhance its rule-shaping capacity, the U.S. prioritizes hegemonic maintenance through supply-chain restructuring and alliance-based exclusion, and the European Union pursues a balancing strategy centered on energy sovereignty, regulatory influence, and multilateral coordination. This paper contends that the geopolitics of electricity is shaped by three principal fault lines — resources, technology, and rules — while also generating new incentives for cooperation under conditions of climate vulnerability and infrastructural interdependence. It concludes that the future global electricity order is likely to evolve toward a pattern of multipolar leadership, regional integration, and pluralistic co-governance, in which technological capability, resource control, and standard-setting authority jointly determine the reconfiguration of global power.
Author: Hongyuan Yu
Language: English
Subfield: General Energy
Field: Energy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7160016340