Jersey Lee , Andrew Goledzinowski
Why the West Must Learn To Pick Winners – and Partners
Albanese must convince Trump that only allied cooperation can break China’s rare earth chokehold.
Last week, China rolled out sweeping new export controls, expanding earlier measures that targeted Rare Earth Elements (REEs) to now include the technologies used in their extraction and refining – an apparent bid to kneecap nascent Western efforts to develop alternatives.
While much Western attention has focused on extraction, China’s true dominance – and leverage – lies in refining. For years, Beijing has controlled the global processing of rare earths, giving it a critical chokepoint in the supply chain.
Australia’s experience offers a model for how to respond.
The world’s largest non-Chinese REE supplier is the Australian company Lynas Rare Earths, which will soon celebrate its 15th anniversary as a producer. It almost never got off the ground. After China’s first wave of de facto REE restrictions in 2010, Japan stepped in to bankroll the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant in Malaysia, even though it made little commercial sense at the time. Since then, Beijing has repeatedly tried to shut it down, but Malaysia, for its part, has stood firm.
Here’s how that supply chain works: REE concentrate from Mount Weld in Western Australia is refined in Malaysia, metallised in Japan, and turned into finished products across East and Southeast Asia, with the largest end user being the United States.
Other Australian companies, including Australian Strategic Materials, are following the path blazed by Lynas, with strong supply chain connections with Vietnam and South Korea.
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