Mutually assured disruption: China's rare earths give US a reality check

Beijing's grip over these minerals reveals true balance of leverage in superpower rivalry.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

Let's be honest: The 17 rare earth elements lurking at the bottom of the periodic table — with names like dysprosium and terbium — are hardly on most people's radars.

Even those with a passing grasp of chemistry likely have no idea what they look like, let alone what they are used for.

Yet these ingredients, critical to fighter jets, wind turbines, smartphones and electric vehicles, are now front and center in Western strategic thinking, especially in the United States.

Despite the name, rare earths are not rare. But they are hard to extract in viable concentrations, and harder still to process. In most cases, mining them is not commercially feasible.

That, however, is not what explains the current frenzy. What has triggered alarm is China's near-total grip on the rare earth supply chain — and its growing willingness to use it.

After President Donald Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs, Beijing hit back with export controls on seven rare earth elements and the magnets made from them.

It was a pointed show of dominance that forced Western policymakers into confronting what had long sat at the edges of their consciousness: China has serious leverage in this arena, and it is ready to wield it.

It controls 60 per cent of global rare earth mining, more than 85 per cent of refining, and over 90 per cent of permanent magnet production, the most strategically important end use.

That dominance was built over decades with heavy state backing and steep environmental costs, as the US and others pulled out, deeming the industry too dirty, not profitable, and not worth the trouble.

Until recently, Beijing had used this mineral power sparingly. But its decision to aim it at the Trump administration — part of a broader vow to "fight to the end" if the trade war escalated — marked a shift.