Villagers shiver in China’s north as government gas subsidies shrink
Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
Impoverished local governments, energy market reforms and a stalling economy - these are forcing many in rural China to make hard choices about necessities like heating.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
China
Published Jan 15, 2026, 05:00 PM
Updated Jan 15, 2026, 05:12 PM
BAODING, China - As the dry, freezing winter air envelops his home, 72-year-old farmer He Wenxiang sits on a bed wearing several layers of clothing including a black fur-collared jacket and a cap.
He takes a thermometer off the wall that reads about 14 deg C.
Despite outside temperatures of minus 1 deg C, Mr He runs his gas boiler only occasionally to warm up the radiator in his bedroom.
“Life isn’t easy,” he said. “If any colder, you couldn’t take it.”
Mr He is one of several people in his village outside the city of Baoding, in China’s Hebei province south of Beijing, choosing to barely heat their homes because of rising natural gas prices after cash-strapped
governments scaled back subsidies
designed to drive a transition to clean energy.
In another village nearby, a woman who only gave her surname Song stands in the sun in an alleyway selling used electronics.
She said her family pays 8,000 yuan ($1,478) to heat their home for a winter.
