China’s power supply is struggling as winter temperatures plunge. Is the ban on Australian coal to blame?

In China, the prospect of resource scarcity is largely thought to be a thing of the past.

But this month, power outages have returned to some parts of the country, conjuring memories of China’s old command economy, where resource rationing was a part of daily life.

Chinese social media has seen tens of thousands of posts complaining about the new electricity restrictions in the country’s central and eastern provinces of Hunan and Zhejiang, which have been viewed more than 150 million times on the platform…