China’s Rare Earth Dominance Isn’t Just About Supply-It’s About Control

Highlights

• China controls 49% of global rare earth reserves and the world’s only fully integrated rare earth supply chain.
• Western countries remain dependent on Chinese processing and manufacturing despite having promising mineral deposits.
• Without a comprehensive industrial policy and coordination, the rare earth market remains heavily tilted in China’s favor.

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Provocative commentary out of China underscores a sobering truth for Western markets during this trade war and ongoing rare earth and critical mineral crisis.  Rare earth independence remains a distant goal.

Fu Xiaofang, writing for Caixin Global (opens in a new tab), reminds the world that China holds not only the largest proven reserves of rare earth oxides—44 million tons, or 49% of global supply—but also the world’s only fully integrated supply chain across all 17 rare earth elements.

China controls every node of the rare earth value chain, from upstream mining to midstream refining to downstream deployment in electric vehicles (EVs), drones, semiconductors, and missile guidance systems. No other nation, least of all the United States, has achieved this level of vertical coordination. Even countries with promising deposits, like the U.S. and Australia, remain dependent on Chinese processing and component manufacturing.

Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) was founded to cut through the noise and arm retail investors with the insight they need to navigate the high-stakes, high-impact world of the emerging “ex-China” rare earth supply chain. In a sector dominated by geopolitics, industrial policy, and strategic resource control, investors can’t afford piecemeal analysis—only a holistic, hard-nosed, and comprehensive understanding will do.

While Western investors debate which stock, MP or IDR, deserves a place in their portfolio, China is operating with a unified industrial strategy. It’s not competing company by company. It’s winning system by system. 

Until the U.S. and its allies adopt equally comprehensive industrial policy and coordination, the rare earth race is China’s to lose—and the West faces ongoing and intensifying risks.