Rare Earths and Clean Energy: Analyzing China's Upper Hand
An ominous resource crunch in the so-called “rare earth elements” is now threatening the development of a number of key industries from energy to defense to consumer electronics. As key components in the latest generation of technologies, including specialized magnets for windmills and hybrid cars, lasers for range finders and “smart” munitions, and phosphors for LCD screens, demand for these rare metals is expected to grow rapidly in the years to come.
But decades of underinvestment in the mining and separation of these elements across the globe has left the industry ill-prepared to meet this growing demand. Over the years, only China has recognized the strategic significance of these resources and has succeeded in gaining a near monopoly on production, currently churning out 97% of the world’s rare earth oxides. Faced with problems of its own, and eager to use its resource advantage to master higher levels of value-added production of rare earth-dependent products, China has increasingly limited the rest of the world’s access to these raw materials. This only complicates what was already projected to be a problematic resource shortage.
This issue demands a higher quality of public debate. Rare earth consuming countries outside of China have only recently become aware of their dependence and started to take stock of the risks. Time is of the essence.
Bringing new supplies online to meet growing demand is a long, complicated and risky process but is nevertheless necessary to ensure the development of high tech industries, notably clean energy. Accessible reserves of rare earths do exist outside of China and mitigating the effects of the looming shortage requires opening up these reserves to production. Yet, as the Chinese experience attests, there are substantial risks to the environment associated with mining and separating rare earths. Care must be taken to ensure responsible mining practices across the globe. Longer-term solutions, such as recycling programs, increased efficiency in resource use and the development of alternatives to rare earths are important endeavors and should be pursued, but they should not be substitutes for developing rare earth supplies outside of China today.
Available in:
Regions and themes
ISBN / ISSN
Share
This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.
Rare Earths and Clean Energy: Analyzing China's Upper Hand
Center for Asian Studies
Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.
The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands.
The Centre for Asian Studies maintains close institutional links with counterpart research institutes in Europe and Asia, and its researchers regularly carry out fieldwork in the region.
The Center organizes closed-door roundtables, expert-level seminars and a number of public events, including an Annual Conference, that welcome experts from Asia, Europe and the United States. The work of Center’s researchers, as well as that of their partners, is regularly published in the Center’s electronic journal Asie.Visions.
The Oceania Factor in France’s Evolving Indo-Pacific Strategy
This paper examines the two-way relationship between France’s Indo-Pacific strategy and developments in Oceania. Oceania was not a priority in the initial years of France’s Indo-Pacific strategy, as the region was largely treated as secondary to major strategic hotspots and key partnerships, while overseas territories were primarily handled as domestic issues and recipients of a top-down strategy.
France’s View: From Diplomacy to Public-Private Action
France has emerged as the EU’s IMEC forerunner, combining port infrastructure, diplomatic alliances and public-private cooperation. With Marseille Fos at its core, the country brings a strategic hub for logistics, energy and digital connectivity to the corridor.
Trump II, the Crisis of the Rules-Based Order and Europe’s Indo-Pacific Strategy
This article examines the implications of Trump II for Europe’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific. The piece contends that Trump II is accelerating the erosion of the rules-based order and undermining the relevance of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) concept, while forcing Europe to refocus on its own continental security amid US retrenchment. Paradoxically, these very constraints create conditions for a more autonomous, pragmatic, and explicitly interest-driven European engagement in the Indo-Pacific, rather than outright withdrawal.
China and Trade in Critical Raw Materials (CRMs)
Critical raw materials (CRMs) have become central features of a new dynamic in global power politics, with China now wielding considerable leverage. Amid rising regional and global uncertainty, resource security is back in the spotlight as a key determinant of sovereignty and national security for Europe, its allies and its partners. The very survival of key, even vital industries, from automotive to aerospace to health to energy to defense, is at stake.