LEVERAGE AROUND THE WORLD
Australia, for example, is relatively insulated from rare earth coercion, holding the sixth-largest reserves of rare earths in the world, much of which is untapped.
That doesn’t mean that Australia’s military can’t be affected by poor quality Chinese metal or its reliance on other Beijing resources, such as the 2021 shortage of urea, another form of spice and an ingredient in the fluid needed by diesel trucks and agricultural machines.
China also has a history of creative forms of coercion, such as cutting tourism to certain countries, weaponising trade tariffs, and even halting trash processing.
Attempts to diversify supply chains have run into further obstacles. Africa represents an opportunity for the supply of rare earth metals, but Beijing has already multiplied mining investment by Chinese entities on the continent 25 times in the period 2005 to 2015.
Much of this access to resources is tied to investment in infrastructure, which in turn links up with China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
As the world moves towards generating sources of renewable energy and combatting climate change, Beijing is one step ahead.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, China has gained access to the largest untapped reserves of the key metal cobalt, an essential component in electric car batteries.
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