Beijing's blockade of Australian coal is backfiring, with a dozen cities forcing residents and office buildings to ration their electricity use. The politically-inflicted situation is so bad street lights have been turned off in the city of Yiwu in China's eastern Zheijiang province as factories are down to part-time hours. In the coastal city of Wenzhou, local Chinese Communist Party authorities have demanded businesses refrain from heating their office unless temperatures are close to freezing. Southern China's Hunan Province is awash with reports on social media platform Weibo of workers in Changsha having to climb dozens of flights of stairs after elevators were shut down.