Recent halts in power supplies between Russia and China

Tuesday 20 January 2026

The quiet suspension of electricity exports from Russia to China at the beginning of 2026 might, at first glance, appear to be a marginal technical adjustment in a vast and otherwise resilient energy relationship. In reality, it offers a revealing window into the changing political economy of Russo–Chinese cooperation, exposing the limits of strategic alignment when confronted by domestic constraints, pricing realities and infrastructure bottlenecks.

For more than a decade, electricity trade has formed a modest but symbolically important part of the relationship between Russia and China. Under a contract concluded in 2012 between Russia’s exporter Inter RAO and China’s State Grid Corporation of China, power generated in the Russian Far East has been transmitted across the border to supply north-eastern Chinese provinces. The volumes involved have never been large in the context of China’s overall electricity consumption, but the arrangement has carried political weight as evidence of deepening economic interdependence in Asia.

That arrangement has now stalled. From 1 January 2026, China ceased importing electricity from Russia altogether, declining even the minimum contractual volumes. While negotiations continue and neither side has formally terminated the agreement, the interruption is complete and, at least for now, open-ended.

The immediate cause is strikingly prosaic. Electricity prices in the Russian Far East have risen sharply, driven by growing domestic demand, ageing generation assets and the limited pace of new capacity coming online. For the first time since the contract was signed, Russian export prices exceeded comparable domestic prices within China. Faced with that inversion, Chinese utilities made a straightforward calculation: importing electricity from Russia had ceased to make economic sense. In a system where cost control and price stability remain central to energy policy, Beijing chose to stop buying rather than absorb higher costs for symbolic reasons.

This decision did not arise in isolation. Russian electricity exports to China have been declining for several years. Deliveries peaked in 2022 and then fell steadily as consumption within Russia’s eastern regions increased. Industrial growth, military-related production and the electrification of transport and infrastructure in the Far East have steadily absorbed what was once surplus capacity. By 2025, export volumes had dwindled to a fraction of their earlier levels, leaving little buffer when prices began to rise.

Russian officials have been careful to frame the halt as a temporary market phenomenon rather than a political rupture. Moscow has emphasised that domestic supply security must come first, particularly in a region where power shortages would have immediate social and economic consequences. Exports, in this framing, are a secondary consideration, to be resumed only if prices and capacity permit. China, for her part, has avoided overt criticism, treating the matter as a commercial issue rather than a diplomatic dispute.

Yet the episode carries wider implications. Electricity is a small component of the broader energy relationship, which is dominated by oil, gas and coal. Nevertheless it reveals an important asymmetry. China retains multiple alternatives for electricity generation, including coal, nuclear, hydro and rapidly expanding renewable capacity. Russia, by contrast, faces structural constraints in her eastern power system, where long distances, harsh climates and limited investment have combined to create a tight and increasingly expensive supply environment. In that context, Beijing’s willingness to suspend imports underscores a broader reality: strategic partnership does not oblige China to accept unfavourable commercial terms.

For Russia, the halt highlights a growing dilemma. The Kremlin has invested heavily in portraying Asia as a durable alternative to European energy markets, particularly since 2022. However electricity exports are uniquely sensitive to infrastructure and local demand. Unlike oil or gas, power cannot be redirected easily across continents. Without substantial investment in new generation and transmission capacity in the Far East, Russia’s ability to act as a reliable electricity exporter in Asia will remain constrained, limiting both revenue and influence.

There is also a political subtext. While Moscow and Beijing continue to present a united front in diplomatic rhetoric, the suspension demonstrates that the relationship is transactional rather than unconditional. China’s energy policy remains governed by domestic priorities: price stability, security of supply and diversification. When Russian electricity ceased to meet those criteria, alignment gave way to arithmetic.

In that sense the halt in electricity supplies is less a rupture than a reminder. It illustrates the extent to which market forces continue to shape even the most strategically framed relationships. For all the talk of a new Eurasian energy order, the fundamentals of capacity, cost and consumption still prevail. The power lines between the Russian Far East and north-eastern China remain in place, but for now they carry no current, a silent testament to the limits of geopolitics when confronted by the realities of supply and demand.