Highlights
- China’s Minmetals Corporation demonstrates a comprehensive strategy to dominate global graphite production, controlling 77% of world output in 2023.
- The company integrates technological innovation, AI-driven exploration, and political ideology to create a powerful mineral resource acquisition system.
- The United States faces significant vulnerability, importing over 90% of graphite and risking strategic dependence on China’s mineral supply control.
In a visit heavy with strategic signaling, Chen Dexin (opens in a new tab), Chairman and Party Secretary of ChinaMinmetals Corporation (opens in a new tab), conducted an on-site inspection of Minmetals Exploration & Development Co., Ltd. on April 25, underscoring Beijing’s intensified push to secure critical mineral resources, especially graphite, while embedding Communist Party oversight deeper into corporate operations.
Global graphite mine production was 1.6 million tonnes in 2023, a 23% increase from the previous year. China was the world’s leading producer, accounting for 77% of total production according to Natural Resources Canada (opens in a new tab).
The visit, officially described as a guidance mission, included briefings on the company’s 3D geological databases, mining rights systems, and high-purity graphite processing. Chen remotely toured the Longjiang Graphite Project, one of China’s key domestic assets for spherical and battery-grade graphite production—materials essential for electric vehicle batteries, defense applications, and clean energy infrastructure.
The implications for the United States and allied democracies are immediate: China is consolidating technical, political, and economic control over the upstream supply of critical minerals—graphite included—at a time when the West remains highly dependent on Chinese exports.
Graphite Supply Chain as Geopolitical Lever
Chen Dexin’s remarks signaled that Minmetals will not merely operate as a mining enterprise, but as an instrument of state industrial policy and ideological alignment. His emphasis on implementing Xi Jinping’s directives on energy security, resource nationalism, and Party leadership reaffirms China’s whole-of-system approach to mineral dominance.
Key points from the visit include:
- Vertical integration of the graphite supply chain, from ore to high-purity output.
- Expansion of China’s mineral reserve enhancement capabilities, with advanced geological modeling and real-time data tools.
- Emphasis on a “three-pronged strategy”—resource acquisition, development, and reserve accumulation.
For Western industries relying on stable graphite supplies for EVs, aerospace, and military-grade components, this reflects a sharpened risk: China is no longer simply the dominant supplier—it is the political architect of supply choke points.
Technological and Ideological Integration
Beyond operational goals, Chen called for the fusion of AI, space-based mapping, and underground sensing into a unified national exploration architecture. This integrated “four-chain” system includes:
- Data chain (geological mapping platforms)
- Technology chain (prospecting tools and automation)
- Industrial chain (mining-to-processing operations)
- Policy chain (regulatory and rights frameworks)
Such deep fusion of intelligence, governance, and minerals suggests China is building an adaptive, politically fortified extractives complex—a model without parallel in the West.
Chen also emphasized “bottom-line thinking” and “Party leadership in high-quality development,” revealing the extent to which ideological training and loyalty enforcement are inseparable from resource control. Governance, under this model, is both administrative and doctrinal—making industrial decisions inseparable from geopolitical intent.
What does this mean for the United States and its Allies?
Chen Dexin’s visit to Minmetals Exploration underscores the growing strategic complexity surrounding global graphite supply chains. With the U.S. importing over 90% of its graphite and China maintaining overwhelming control of both production and processing, Beijing’s intentions to deepen this asymmetric position through resource nationalism and export policy cannot be ignored. Minmetals, far from being a traditional commercial enterprise, operates as an extension of state strategy, where corporate activities are tightly aligned with national security objectives. This integration of Party oversight, technological R&D—including AI-driven exploration—and tightly controlled mining rights suggests China is building a mineral supply system that is not just efficient, but politically and economically fortified. For the West, especially the U.S., these developments raise urgent questions: Is reliance on Chinese-controlled graphite becoming a critical vulnerability? And can Western governments and industries coordinate quickly enough to develop alternative, resilient systems before that dependence becomes irreversible?
Not Just Resources—A System of Control
Chen Dexin’s visit is a stark reminder that China’s critical mineral dominance is not market-based—it is state-engineered, politically disciplined, and technologically orchestrated. In contrast, the United States and allies continue to treat graphite and other minerals as commodity problems, not strategic systems with political depth.
Unless the West rapidly mobilizes a public-private critical mineral strategy—one that incorporates funding, exploration incentives, permitting reform, and strategic reserve policy—it will remain structurally dependent on a country that has weaponized its mineral wealth with both precision and purpose.
Source: Adapted from China Minmetals Corporation, May 19, 2025
Chen Dexin Investigates Minmetals Exploration and Extends His Regards to the Company’s Staff
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