I hadn't considered it before, but China pivoting to electric propulsion for aircraft makes a lot of sense. China is far behind leading nations with regard to jet engine manufacturing and large scale manufacturing of single crystal blades for high bypass turbofan engines.
However, China is far ahead of the rest of the world with mass production of high capacity battery technology. Additionally they have significant high performance electric motor design and manufacturing capabilities. If they put these two mature systems into developing electric aircraft engines, they'll likely achieve results before anyone else in the world.
Couple this with China's lack of fossil fuels and significant investments in wind, solar, and extremely high voltage long distance transmission, it could do very well to serve China's domestic air cargo needs at a fraction of today's cost.