How rare minerals are reshaping geopolitics

Who truly commands the foundations of the 21st-century economy? Which states possess the leverage to dictate the supply of critical minerals that underpin modern defence systems, renewable energy technologies, and digital infrastructure? How did a single nation come to dominate a market indispensable to the West's industrial and military ambitions?

- BY NILANTHA ILANGAMUWA

The story begins in Burma, a region historically endowed with rich deposits of tin, tungsten, and rare earths. During the colonial era, British, and later Japanese, interests exploited these resources, extracting wealth with scant regard for local populations or ecological degradation. Historical accounts indicate that tungsten extraction during the Second World War directly financed Japan's war machine, illustrating how control over strategic minerals could translate into military advantage. Even in those early decades, however, the extraction and transport of such metals were fraught with geopolitical complexities: jungle warfare, fragile rail networks, and local resistance ensured that mineral wealth was rarely fully harnessed, leaving a template of exploitation and global competition that would resonate across subsequent decades.

Rare earth elements (REEs) a group of 17 metals including neodymium, dysprosium, and praseodymium are deceptively named, yet indispensable in the manufacture of permanent magnets, smartphones, electric vehicles, and fighter jets. Despite over a decade of Western efforts to loosen China's grip, Beijing remains preeminent. Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2019 visit to a rare earth magnet factory in Jiangxi Province was widely interpreted by the Washington Post as "muscle flexing," a deliberate reminder to Washington of its dependency on Beijing for these critical materials.

China’s strategic foresight traces back to Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 observation in Baotou, Inner Mongolia:

"The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths."