THE RARE EARTH WAR: CHINA'S MONOPOLY AND THE NEW GREAT GAME

RSN SINGH analyses how the monopoly of rare earth by China poses a grave threat to global stability, and particularly to India and what the latter is doing to neutralise the Chinese threat

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At the recently concluded BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Prime Minister Narendra Modi remarked, "We need to work together to make supply chains for critical minerals secure and reliable.

It is important to ensure that no country uses these resources for its own selfish gain or as a weapon against others." His comments were a veiled critique of China, a founding member of BRICS since 2009.

One of the underlying objectives of BRICS has been to challenge the dominance of the West, particularly the American-led global order. However, on the issue of critical minerals and Rare Earth Elements (REES), India finds itself strategically aligned with the United States and other democracies against China.

India, too, has been a victim of China's weaponisation of critical minerals.

On 1st July, the foreign ministers of the Quad countries - the United States, Australia, Japan, and India met in Washington. They announced the launch of the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative (QCMI) with the aim of "collaborating on securing and diversifying supply chains" of these vital resources.

Though the Quad was originally conceived as a strategic counter to China in the Indo-Pacific particularly in response to its assertiveness in the South China Sea internal divergence existed.

Each member nation had differing stakes and threats posed by China. However, critical minerals and REES have emerged as a strong unifying force, bringing coherence and geopolitical synergy to the grouping.

Indeed, the race for critical minerals has the potential to reshape the global order.

Rare Earths and the New Industrial Revolution

The First Industrial Revolution was powered by coal, and the Second by oil.