India is also not far behind in this new game of geopolitics. India’s Ministry of Finance while referring to the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) launched in January 2025, says this is central to the country’s strategy to counter China’s stranglehold.
By Salam Rajesh
In environmental negotiations, and protests, all along these years it has always been centered on the extensive fossil fuel exploration and extractions, and use, leading primarily to global warming and climate change concerns globally. This concern seems now to focus on rare earth minerals on a larger geopolitical platform.
Communist China has always been in loggerhead with the United States of America, and with India, too, on the military prowess and supremacy struggle, with of course the race to win the superpower tag. Now, it does appear China is headed to a collision course with the US and India on a subject less deliberated – the geopolitics of rare earth minerals.
So, what exactly are the rare earth minerals? The rare-earth elements (REEs) are a set of 17 metallic elements in the periodic table, including 15 lanthanides, along with scandium and yttrium, according to sources.
The REEs include scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium.
The REEs are utilized in a wide range of utilities ranging from electric vehicles (EVs) and defense devices to mobile phones and laptops, covering almost every modern-day electronic products and gadgets, for civil and military purposes.
The crux of the matter is that over ninety percent of these rare earth minerals are sourced, mined and processed in China. That is China’s thump ace over the other developed countries on the rare earth mineral source and use fronts, perchance dominating over the electronic product platform worldwide.
The Ministry of Finance, Government of India’s Monthly Economic Review for the month of May earlier this year had flagged China’s move to curb rare earth exports as a “concerning development” with the potential to disrupt the global supply of minerals essential to electric vehicles, defense technologies, wind turbines, and solar panels amongst others.
In response to this looming crisis, India had considered pushing for plans to accelerate its domestic exploration, processing, and international partnerships on REEs in what is now seen as a resource-driven geopolitical contest with superpower China, according to sources.
Finfluencer Jayant Mundhra reportedly was the one who raised the red flag over China’s designs to dominate everyone on this critical front. In neighboring Myanmar, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a powerful insurgent group, mines these critical minerals and funnels them to China, Mundhra pointed out.
According to Mundhra, China’s rare earth pipeline from Myanmar began in earnest when the Aung San Suu Kyi-led government banned exports in 2018 to curb the KIA’s influence. In response, China backed a military coup that placed Myanmar’s military in nominal control while the KIA continued operating autonomously in Kachin State, striking deals directly with Beijing, Mundhra said.
Highlighting how India lost a strategic opportunity in neighboring Myanmar’s Kachin State, which is home to nearly 45 percent of the world’s rare earth mineral supply, Mundhra stressed that India missed a rare earth bonanza in its own backyard while China quietly took control of Myanmar’s mineral-rich landscape through a militant proxy war.
Taking the dialogue and concerns on geopolitics over the rare earth mineral policies seriously, the Group of Seven (powerful) Nations (G7) – United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Japan – in its recent summit in June significantly pointed out that the non-market policies and practices in the critical minerals sector threaten the world’s ability to acquire many critical minerals, including the rare earth elements needed for magnets, that are vital for industrial production and progress.
The G7 summit stressed that critical minerals are the building blocks of digital and energy secure economies of the future. The group ‘remains committed to transparency, diversification, security, sustainable mining practices, trustworthiness and reliability as essential principles for resilient critical minerals supply chains, and acknowledge the importance of traceability, trade, and decent work in contributing to our economic prosperity and that of our partners’, it noted.
The G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan endorsed by Australia, India and the Republic of Korea, is focused on a Five-Point Plan for Critical Minerals Security established during Japan’s G7 Presidency in 2023 and advanced by Italy in 2024. The Action Plan will focus on diversifying the responsible production and supply of critical minerals, encouraging investments in critical mineral projects and local value creation, and promoting innovation.
According to the International Energy Agency, China accounts for up to 61 percent of the rare earths extraction, and 92 percent of refining the REEs. Moreover, the communist nation provides nearly 99 percent of the European Union’s supply of the 17 rare earths, as well as about 98 percent of its rare earth permanent magnets.
Global demand for the minerals is expected to increase by 50 to 60 percent by the year 2040, the sources said. In response, industry bodies are pushing for the EU to accelerate its own efforts to diversify supply away from China. Describing the scenario, Antonio Zimmermann writing for the Politico this month puts it plainly as, “China’s got the world in a rare earth choke hold”.
Edwin O. writing for the Energy noted that there is a visible shift in the world’s rare-earth industry, with several countries like America now supporting new rare earth mines, such as the California Colosseum Project, that would put an end to China’s stranglehold while endorsing an economic and national security game-changer for the States.
India is also not far behind in this new game of geopolitics. India’s Ministry of Finance while referring to the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) launched in January 2025, says this is central to the country’s strategy to counter China’s stranglehold.
With a seven-year roadmap running until 2030-31, the mission aims to secure critical minerals through 1200 domestic exploration projects and support for overseas acquisitions by both public and private entities, sources said.
To diversify supply sources, India is also expanding its offshore exploration and forging international partnerships, including with Argentina and Australia. Further, India has joined the US-led Mineral Security Partnership (MSP), becoming the only developing country in the 14-member bloc, the sources pointed out.
Interesting enough, back home Manipur State framed its own mineral policy – The Manipur Mineral Policy 2021 – which basically says, “Mineral being valuable resources and vital raw material for core sectors of the economy, extraction will be optimized through scientific methods, beneficiation and economic utilization”. Time can only tell whether this is done in principle and in its true spirit.