Geopolitical conflicts and the energy transition complicate risk linkages among conventional energy, new energy, ESG assets and gold. Using quantile time–frequency connectedness and complex network analysis, this study examines an ESG index, coal and natural gas equity indices, five new energy subsector indices, an aggregate new energy index and a gold ETF across market states and horizons. Under normal conditions, wind power, photovoltaics, natural gas and new energy vehicles are net transmitters, while the remaining markets are net receivers. Total spillovers rise sharply under extreme conditions, and short-term spillovers dominate across market states. Static estimates show stable transmission roles for photovoltaics, wind power, natural gas and gold across quantiles and frequency bands, alongside conditional switching in other markets. Dynamic estimates reveal additional variation over time. The Russia–Ukraine conflict is associated with a sustained increase in long-term connectedness, whereas COVID-19 primarily coincides with short-term volatility pulses. Network analysis identifies coal as a central node and photovoltaics as a major transmission hub within new energy. These findings inform market-state- and horizon-specific risk monitoring, asset allocation and crisis responses.

Geopolitical conflict and the energy transition can alter the dependence between conventional energy, new energy, ESG assets, and gold. This study examines ten Chinese-market exposures using quantile time–frequency connectedness and network analysis. Mean rolling total connectedness is 60.406% at the median, 86.868% in the lower tail, and 86.664% in the upper tail. Wind power and photovoltaics have the largest median outgoing strengths, but directional positions differ across sectors and frequency bands. Short-frequency contributions dominate the baseline estimates; the long-frequency share is larger in the lower tail. Unknown-break tests do not reject constant-mean stability at 5%, and fixed-date confidence intervals include zero; neither result identifies a permanent causal effect of the Russia–Ukraine conflict. A separate portfolio evaluation over 1500 dates shows that minimum-variance allocations reduce realized variance, although weights and performance depend strongly on the gold proxy. Coal/gold-only and positive-NET allocations have different risk–return tradeoffs, and a net-receiver position alone does not establish hedge effectiveness. The findings support monitoring dependence across return states and testing explicit allocation rules, subject to common exposures, preprocessing, and instrument verification.