Highlights

• China convened 150+ experts at its 2025 National Rare Earth Standardization Technical Committee meeting to upgrade, unify, and internationalize rare earth standards across the full supply chain.
• Four strategic directives aim to:
  • Align standards with state policy
  • Accelerate innovation integration
  • Deepen international cooperation to boost global influence
  • Ensure strict industry-wide implementation
• Delegates approved 26 new technical standards and validated 30 for 2026, signaling China's push to institutionalize global rare earth rules faster than Western competitors.

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China convened its 2025 National Rare Earth Standardization Technical Committee annual meeting (opens in a new tab) in Tonglu County, Zhejiang Province, from November 12–13, bringing together more than 150 experts from across the industry. The conference—organized by China’s leading state research institutes for nonferrous metals—centered on one message: China intends to upgrade, unify, and internationalize its rare earth standards across the full supply chain.

China’s Standards Strategy: Four Directives

Cao Yiding, a senior official with China’s market regulation authority, issued four directives shaping China’s rare earth future:

Directive	Summary
Align standards with state industrial policy.	Accelerate new standards across mining, separation, processing, and advanced magnet manufacturing to push the sector toward “high-end, intelligent, and green” development.
Use innovation to drive rapid standards upgrades	Better integrate research, new technologies, and industrial rollout—essentially speeding the time from lab breakthroughs to commercially codified standards.
Deepen international cooperation to boost China’s global influence	Track international rare earth standard trends, compare and harmonize with foreign systems, and expand China’s role in setting global norms.
Ensure strict implementation across product design, production, quality control, and certification	Strengthen nationwide training and propagate standards across the entire industry.

Why This Matters for the U.S.

Two developments stand out:

1. China is framing rare earth standards as a strategic tool for geopolitical leverage.

The meeting underscored that China wants its standards—technical, environmental, and operational—to become the default global rulebook, giving Beijing structural influence over prices, environmental norms, and market access.

2. As Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) often reports, China is aggressively developing standards for emerging applications

Including advanced NdPr magnets, energy-efficient manufacturing, “dual-carbon” (carbon neutrality) metrics, and digitalized mine-to-magnet operations. This directly affects sectors where the U.S. is trying to rebuild capacity, such as defense-grade magnet manufacturing requiring Dy/Tb.

New Approvals and 2026 Pipeline

Delegates completed final reviews for 26 new technical standards (including cerium-praseodymium-neodymium oxides) and validated 30 proposed national and industry standards for 2026. Another 12 national and industry standards were approved on November 13, covering scandium, neodymium-aluminum alloy targets, and upstream scandium concentrate.

The Strategic Signal

This meeting reinforces the foundational role of standardization as an instrument of state power in China’s rare earth industrial strategy. For the West, especially the United States, the implication is clear: China is attempting to institutionalize the rules of the global rare earth game faster than any competitor.

This news item originates from the media department of a state-owned entity; the information should be verified independently.

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