BEIJING – China’s
sweeping new restrictions on rare earth exports
mark its first major effort to police the global flow of critical minerals it dominates, using the same playbook that allows the US to wield power far beyond its shores.
The rules announced last week require overseas companies to obtain Chinese government approval before exporting products containing even trace amounts of certain rare earths that originated in China. The extraterritorial reach amounts to an assertion of control of global supply chains for materials essential for everything from fighter jets to electric vehicles.
“After decades of striving, China finally has a few real technological advantages over America,” wrote analysts at Gavekal Research in an Oct 13 note.
The barrage of steps has jolted not just the US, which has vowed to reverse them. The European Union “should have a tough response,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, whose country chairs the EU’s rotating presidency, said Oct 14.
EU Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis charged China with “using trade interdependencies for political gain,” speaking in Washington as global finance chiefs gathered for fall meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
While the degree of disruption will hinge on how broadly the new rules will be applied, the move has already energised companies and policymakers alike to look for potential counter-measures, and eventual alternatives to China’s critical inputs.
“We will not let these export restrictions and monitoring go on,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Fox Business interview. “They have pointed a bazooka at the supply chains and the industrial base of the entire free world.”
He said he expected to get coordinated support from Europe and India, along with other democratic governments in Asia – an apparent reference to nations such as Japan and South Korea. Mr Dombrovskis said he expects discussions this week at a meeting of the Group of Seven in Washington.
Meantime, tit-for-tat protectionist measures continue apace, beyond tariff hikes already imposed. China on Oct 14
unveiled sanctions on US units of a South Korean shipping giant,
part of a broader array of measures in the maritime space between Beijing and Washington. And the EU is considering forcing Chinese companies to hand over technology to European ones if they want to operate locally.
Overly aggressive rare-earth implementation by China could supercharge efforts to build alternative supply chains, undermining China’s long-term dominance – the same way that Washington’s export controls on advanced semiconductors risk backfiring and spurring Chinese innovation.
Australian mining companies with critical minerals projects like Resolution Minerals and Nova Minerals logging dizzying stock gains on Oct 14.
In India, automakers and parts suppliers have begun accelerating testing of ferrite-based magnets as a less efficient but geopolitically safer substitute for the heavy rare earths they previously relied on, according to people familiar with the matter. For now, they have enough inventory until December, the people said.
China’s measures represent President Xi Jinping’s adaptation of tactics that were pioneered by the US – using dominance in critical sectors as a cudgel against foreign rivals. Where Washington has the capacity to wield the dollar to exercise long-arm jurisdiction, China is now deploying its stranglehold on rare earth processing and the production of permanent magnets.
“The US has unmatched leverage in financial markets because of the dollar’s reach and because of the centrality of the US financial system,” said Mr Chris Kennedy, a senior geoeconomic analyst at Bloomberg Economics who previously served at the National Security Council in the Biden and Trump administrations. “China has global leverage in its dominance of key industries that are essential to global manufacturing.”
The addition of five rare earths to China’s restricted list – holmium, europium, ytterbium, thulium and erbium – will make it harder for companies to find replacements for magnets made with the seven minerals that were originally affected by restrictions Beijing unveiled in April.
In the short term, alternatives remain limited. China is responsible for 70 per cent of the world’s mined rare earths and more than 90 per cent of permanent magnets made with the minerals. While companies in the EU and US have previously reported supply shortages and production halts during earlier Chinese restrictions, building replacement capacity takes years.
If rigorously enforced, the policy serves as a made-with-Chinese-technology chokepoint that affects virtually every modern industry that relies on high-performance permanent magnets. The measures apply not just to raw materials but to products made overseas using Chinese rare earth inputs – even when those materials make up as little as 0.1 per cent of a product’s value.
China’s Ministry of Commerce justified the restrictions on national security grounds, noting that medium and heavy rare earths have important military applications. Officials emphasised the measures would not prohibit exports entirely, and promised to approve applications meeting regulatory requirements.
Regardless of the intent, the ambition to police the global flow of the minerals was captured in an Oct 13 commentary by a researcher for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government-linked think tank.
Mr Wang Ziyang, assistant research fellow at the institution, said China is shifting from being a supplier to a “governor of the rare earth order,” arguing that the measures prevent the military use of the elements and are in the common interest of the global community.
The latest move caps years of expansion in Beijing’s export control regime. Since 2020, China has systematically built an architecture mirroring US controls, from blacklisting entities to establishing extraterritorial jurisdiction over Chinese-origin technology.
The timing appeared linked to Washington’s lengthening of an entity list that targets Chinese semiconductor firms – a move that Beijing saw as violating bilateral understandings reached in Madrid last month that neither side would impose new controls during trade talks.
The controls may serve as negotiating leverage ahead of expected discussions between Mr Xi and President Donald Trump later this month. Analysts said that the announcement set up a negotiation for China to relax its rare earths export controls in exchange for matching US concessions on semiconductor export controls.
No matter the outcome of those talks, a full reversal appears unlikely, according to Mr Oliver Melton, until recently the US Treasury attache in Beijing and now director of Rhodium Group’s China practice.
“This is a strategic decision to ensure that they have sustained and persistent leverage over the US and other countries to deter future export controls against China,” he said. “Chinese policymakers are keenly aware that they have the ability to disrupt production for major US companies in ways that maximise the impact on US markets – for example by targeting firms like Apple and Tesla.”
China’s Ministry of Commerce signaled openness to dialogue while defending its actions, saying in an Oct 14 statement that
Beijing would “fight to the end if necessary,
” while the door remains open for talks.
Beyond retaliation and negotiation tactics, the measures advance Beijing’s broader industrial strategy. By controlling access to processing technologies and manufacturing equipment, China aims to keep competitors behind while incentivising partnerships with Chinese firms.
The rules on overseas manufacturers using Chinese rare earths or related equipment take effect on December 1. The 0.1 per cent value threshold could affect large swaths of intermediate goods and will likely cause major administrative delays. BLOOMBERG
