China’s Weaponization of Gallium and Germanium: The Pitfalls of Leveraging Chokepoints
China’s recent announcement of raw material export controls highlights important pitfalls of weaponized interdependence and demonstrates that not all chokepoints are created equal.
On July 3, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced that from August it would restrict exports of raw gallium and germanium as well as products derived from these two metals. China dominates global supply of both elements, which are important notably in the production of semiconductors for electric vehicles, 5G telecommunications infrastructure, renewable energy technologies, as well as in other important uses such as LED lighting, fiberoptic cables or various space and military applications. They are, as of today, critical raw materials for enabling the twin transitions toward a digital, carbon-neutral future.
The measures will come nine months after the United States (US), in a major shift of strategy to stymie China’s technological development in dual-use fields, unveiled stinging export controls on the most advanced range of semiconductors, as well as the tools and knowhow needed to produce them. China’s direct response to this scaling up of American pressure in high-tech domains has been slow to emerge, and its decision to signal a willingness to leverage its raw material advantage is a significant step with potentially far-reaching implications.
But Beijing’s yet-to-be-defined measures highlight two important features of leveraging dependencies in a context of complex economic interdependence. First, from the moment an economy declares its willingness to weaponize its advantage, the strength of its position begins to erode as others seek to reduce their vulnerabilities over time. Second, mutual vulnerability is a central feature of today’s global, networked economy. Indeed, a broad weaponization of gallium and germanium won’t only harm those it sets out to target and press them to develop alternative supplies, but would significantly, and perhaps even disproportionately, undermine China’s own industrial interests as well.
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.
China’s Weaponization of Gallium and Germanium: The Pitfalls of Leveraging Chokepoints
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.
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.
Japan’s Energy Policy after Hormuz. Security, Competitiveness, and Decarbonization
The 2026 Hormuz crisis has strengthened rather than weakened the rationale for Japan’s decarbonization strategy, contrary to what might have been expected. Rather than energy policy supplanting climate policy, the two should actually be viewed as inseparable.
Japan and Nuclear Weapons: Between Extended Deterrence and Normative Dilemmas
Since the late 1950s, Japan’s nuclear weapons policy has been based on the coexistence of two competing normative rationales: the rejection of nuclear weapons, rooted in the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the recognition of the central role of US extended nuclear deterrence for Japan’s security.