Who Drives Policy Discourse of China’s Energy Transition: Considering Time Series Perspective, Network and Core-Peripheral Analysis

China’s energy transition (CET) is a vital foundation and long-term goal for improving sustainable development potential. Exploring development patterns and core driving actors involved in policy discourse (PD) is effective in suggesting future policy directions by finding the universality and specificity of China in the energy transition process. In this study, we examined the change pattern of CET and the change of keywords for actors involved in policy promotion at a macro level. Text data of over 22 years were collected from Chinese online channels with CET as the subject word. A text mining-based network analysis and core-peripheral analysis were performed by building datasets in units of the five-year plan (FYP). Following network analysis, the pattern of PD in CET process indicated a tendency to gradually converge toward diversified participants and global environmental issues. Core-peripheral analysis results revealed that the actors leading the PD changed from the government to the private sector, and the core issue indicated a shift from a domestic energy issue to an international environmental issue. Based on our analysis results, we suggested three dimensions of direction in CET: integration with digital transformation, expansion of the employment ecosystem, and inducement of balanced regional development.