Rare Earth Exchanges

China Northern Rare Earths Expands Global Reach, Tightens Grip on Strategic Markets

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Highlights

  • CREG increased raw rare earth material exports by 19.7%.
  • CREG captured 24.5% of China’s total exports.
  • CREG expanded its market into over 20 countries.
  • The company strategically shifted from raw materials to high-value, application-ready rare earth products.
  • CREG penetrated Western high-tech markets.
  • CREG’s export growth signals China’s evolving role from raw material supplier to advanced technological rare earth product manufacturer.

In a strong display of industrial and export momentum, China Northern Rare Earth Group (opens in a new tab) (CREG) solidified its global dominance in 2024, exporting its products to more than 20 countries and regions. The Inner Mongolia-based giant posted a 19.7% year-on-year increase in raw rare earth (RE) material exports, making up 24.5% of China’s total RE exports—a national first-place finish by volume.

According to the state-owned conglomerate, CREG’s footprint grew meaningfully across Asia and into the West, adding new markets, including Vietnam, South Korea, Russia, Turkey, Italy, the United Kingdom, and France.  Notably, 60% of export growth came from new customers, signaling not just expansion but fresh strategic penetration. Meanwhile, its exports of functional RE materials and finished products—used in everything from clean energy to defense systems—increased by 3%, with strong sales in Japan, South Korea, the U.S., Europe, and Southeast Asia. This momentum is further elevating China’s industrial influence in critical supply chains.

Core Materials–China’s Reputation and Precision Drive Sales Surge

CREG’s surge is no accident. The company doubled down on international market development, honing a formula of quality assurance, brand trust, pricing agility, and targeted regional strategies. By closely tracking global price shifts and adjusting marketing in real-time, CREG ensured its products not only shipped—but sold well—across major markets, including Europe, Japan, the U.S., and Southeast Asia.

While light rare earths—like lanthanum and cerium—helped anchor China’s international position, 2024 also marked a historic breakthrough for mid-to-heavy rare earth exports, such as dysprosium and terbium, which are critical for high-performance magnets. CREG focused on exporting high-margin, value-added materials and strengthening profitability while optimizing logistics to meet demanding customer schedules.

Magnetics–Beijing Unit Cracks the European Market

One of the most notable advances came from CREG’s Beijing Sanjili subsidiary, which made a successful push into Europe’s high-end magnetics market. By customizing bonded NdFeB (neodymium-iron-boron) powders—a key input in EV motors and defense components—the company secured new profit centers and established footholds in new supply chains.

This expansion was fueled by sustained R&D investment, the rollout of a rigorous quality management system, and active technical collaboration with European clients. As Chinese-sourced magnetic materials become embedded in Western products, the implications for industrial autonomy grow increasingly complex.

Polishing Materials–Advanced Products Meet the Data Age

Meanwhile, CREG’s Tianjiao Qingmei division responded swiftly to a growing international appetite for advanced rare earth polishing materials essential for ultra-high-density data storage, real-time cloud computing, and AI infrastructure. Through a mix of on-site engagement and agile online coordination, the team co-developed tailored polishing solutions with overseas partners.

With five new product lines launched in 2024, CREG is reinforcing its global leadership in rare earth polishing technology. These precision-engineered compounds are vital to manufacturing hard drives, fiber optics, and semiconductor wafers—technologies at the heart of the digital economy.

What are the Strategic Implications

CREG’s 2024 export performance is not just a business story—it’s a geopolitical signal. The company now accounts for a full quarter of China’s rare earth exports, and its shift from raw materials to value-added, application-ready products marks an aggressive move up the industrial value chain.

The company’s deepening presence in Western markets—the UK, France, Italy, and the United States—means China is becoming not just the world’s mine but also its factory and lab for rare earth products. Meanwhile, its breakthrough in mid-to-heavy rare earth exports—used in advanced motors and clean energy tech—could dampen Western urgency to develop independent sources or recycling capabilities.

Also of note is China’s engagement with Russia as a new rare earth client. While little detail is public, this emerging trade relationship suggests a tightening alignment between two resource-rich nations with increasingly aligned strategic interests—raising red flags for NATO economies and critical supply chain planners.

CREG’s ability to custom-develop products for international clients also makes the company harder to replace, embedding China even deeper into Western high-tech ecosystems and challenging efforts at decoupling.

For the U.S. and Its Allies: Time to Move Faster

The takeaway for Washington and its partners is clear: China is no longer just a raw rare earth exporter—it is now the leading global supplier of engineered, high-tech RE products.

This complicates U.S. ambitions to onshore critical mineral supply chains. While companies like MP Materials, Lynas, and Energy Fuels are ramping up, they face steep challenges in matching China’s R&D investment, logistics mastery, and client service infrastructure.

The race is not just about mining—it’s about building a technological, agile, and customer-integrated RE ecosystem. Initiatives like the DOE Critical Materials Hub, DPA Title III funding, and Five Eyes supply chain pacts need acceleration, coordination, and sharp focus.

As China’s rare earth complex expands its global shadow, the West must decide: Will it build an industrial base that can compete—or remain strategically dependent in the clean energy and defense age?

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Daniel

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2 responses to “China Northern Rare Earths Expands Global Reach, Tightens Grip on Strategic Markets”

  1. Paul Stephen Rainbow Avatar
    Paul Stephen Rainbow

    How long will it be before President Trump’s advisers wakes up to the fact that China not only controls the World’s supply of Critical Minerals, but that they are currently taking aggressive actions to ensure that China dominates the next technological revolution. How ? by actively imposing a stranglehold on those Companies who are trying to supply the West with the raw materials needed to make these Magnets, which will power everything from Robots to Transportation.

    It was Deng Xiaoping in 1992 who first recognised China’s ability to monopolise the Rare Earth market, and it is his successor Xi Jinping who has now weaponized that monopoly by making sure that the West never gets a chance to develop their own RE industries.

    The first shot fired by China was price control. The Shanghai Metals Market sets the daily price for Rare Earths supposedly at open auction. However, as the CCP sets monthly trading limits and quotas. Word went out to the already nationalised producers to drop the prices of RE’s below a level that mining companies can make a profit at. While such a move was highly successful in dissuading Western mining companies from exploring for and developing new RE projects, it also had the adverse effect also making their own Chines mines uneconomic. But as the CCP controls most industry in China, they simply moved the price points to recover those sacrificed profit margins at the downstream end producers. To help matters along, across the board destruction of Western Companies ‘Market Capitalisation’ ensured projects were unable to raise necessary operating capital.

    Then, so as to appear not to be deliberately blocking competition, the CCP started to make strategic investments in those Western companies with the potential to develop Critical Mineral mines in the future. Mountain Pass was an early acquisition, dropped fairly quickly when it became apparent that it had fairly limited Ore Reserves. They then made a number of quick partial acquisitions in three Companies with projects that had potential to become significant producers: Peak, Greenland Minerals, and Arafura Resources, the latter was finally blocked by the Australian Government. However, Peak soon found themselves tied up in a Board room stalemate going nowhere; while Greenland Minerals found that a well-financed “Green” opposition had taken control of the Country and had imposed a total Mining ban!

    There are now only three significant projects left around the World ie ones that actually have enough size and grade to make a meaningful contribution to Western demand. Mkango’s Songwe Hill in Malawi, Arafura’s Nolans project in central Australia and Pensana’s Longonjo mine in Angola. All are now about to go into construction, All made major news releases to their respective Stock-exchanges recently, and All saw their share prices rise rapidly at first, only to get hammered back down almost immediately. While such dramatic movement could perhaps be attributed to Broker or Trading greed, the extent of these sell downs is excessive and highly illogical. This is particularly true in Pensana’s case where they had just received US$260M funding for the construction of their mine. In the course of a week their SP rocketed 100%, only to be quickly dragged back down to per-announcement levels!

    This latest tactic, taken by China is a far cheaper way to ensure that the West will never get a chance to produce its own Rare Earths in meaningful quantities, or to develop 21st Century technologies! Why sacrifice billions of your own mine’s revenues? when you can simply destroy the competition by dumping on their share price, castrating their future ability to raise finance for development.

    If Trump wants to get serious about developing Western resilience to China’s Monopoly, then he should start by letting Elon loose in the NYSE, to determine exactly who these Brokers and their clients are, who are manipulating the share price of these Companies! The TSX, LSE and ASX should do likewise. Sun Tzu would be proud; Xi is using his enemy’s own commercial greed to defeat itself.

    Reply
  2. Daniel O'Connor Avatar
    Daniel O’Connor

    Paul’s comment is intriguing. Warning that China is strategically weaponizing its rare earths monopoly—first by manipulating global prices to undercut Western mining, then by destabilizing promising Western rare earth projects through financial pressure and targeted investments. The CCP suppresses competition by crashing the market capitalization of key Western firms, rendering them unable to raise capital, all while pushing downstream dominance. What to do? investigate stock market manipulation that undermines rare earth independence. Very interesting and thanks Paul for this important wisdom.

    A question for the REEx community: Is China quietly defeating the West and USA critical mineral ambitions not with bullets, but by crashing share prices—and will the U.S. and West finally fight back with financial intelligence of its own?

    Reply

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