Due to a reduction in carbon emissions, a carbon-intensive area has entered a restricted industrial economy based on coke and experienced a decline in downstream demand. Using Shanxi’s coking industry as an example, this paper develops a Core–Intermediary–Affected actors (CIA) framework based on asset modification to explore how different kinds of actors affect the feasible forms of path adjustment under constraints. Based on the above results, the modifications currently being carried out in Shanxi are mainly extensions of the existing high-carbon industrial pathway and do not constitute deep-seated structural adjustments; thus, they should be classified as pathway extension and optimisation rather than profound transformation. Shrinking demand, strengthened regulations, and the lock-in effect of existing assets have jointly restricted the transition space; as a result, asset modification is taking the form of compliance-oriented upgrading, functional reorganization and limited reallocation, rather than a fundamental substitution for the dominant industrial path.
