China’s rare – Heavy rare earths—vital to EV motors and modern weapons—have been largely supplied by China for more than a decade. The article argues Beijing has moved to shut exports for Western defense needs and instead build a full “mine-to-magnet-to-manufacturer” chain i
When a Western defense company faces a new Chinese export restriction, it often gets framed as something negotiable—something that could be traded for a concession at the next summit. But the harder truth inside the rare-earth supply chain is that China is not negotiating.
For more than a decade, China has been the world’s near-sole supplier of heavy rare earths. The article says that last year Beijing shut the door to Western defense companies and predicts it will not reopen “for any industry in the West.”
The warning is not abstract. Heavy rare earths are the small set of elements the piece links to the functioning of electric vehicles. modern jets. and American weapons. The argument is that Beijing’s tighter control is aimed at stopping the export of the materials themselves—not just the powders. but the deeper capacity to convert them into working magnets and finished technology.
Beijing, in this telling, is methodically executing what amounts to a long-term economic and military plan. It is not only restricting shipments of rare-earth “oxides,” the article says. The focus is on where those atoms end up in the real world—inside Chinese-made EVs. wind turbines. and robots built with dysprosium and terbium.
The logic offered is economic and political at once. Keeping the entire mine-to-magnet-to-manufacturer chain inside China preserves jobs and stability at every link. the article says—and for the Chinese Communist Party. maximizing employment and minimizing internal dissent is “Job No. 1.” It also adds that denying Western militaries the inputs they would need in a fight over Taiwan is an added bonus to Beijing.
A central claim is that Western policymakers are not absorbing how the incentives change when the supply chain is tightened. A kilogram of dysprosium shipped abroad as a powder earns China only a few hundred dollars and employs a handful of miners. The same kilogram. when built into the motor of an electric car. helps produce a vehicle priced around $40. 000 and is tied to employment across the full production chain. The article lists those steps: mines, smelters, magnet plants, and auto factories.
It then projects scale through export volume. The piece points to “seven million vehicles” China will export this year. alongside wind turbines. drones. MRI machines. and industrial robots—linking that output to how the economic equation favors moving dysprosium and terbium through China’s own factories.
Beijing’s blueprint, the article says, has been explicit. It cites “Made in China 2025” and says it calls for capturing the full chain—from rock to robot.
Markets, in the article’s view, have been moving along that same logic. It says earlier this month dysprosium oxide sold in China for about $270 a kilogram. while in Europe the same material fetched $1. 100 per kilogram—more than four times as much. For terbium, it says the pattern repeated: $1,145 per kilogram in China versus $4,250 in Europe.
The article also describes a specific cut-off. It says that last fall Beijing “quietly cut off terbium sales to private investors,” so its own factories could get first call, adding that this is not how an exporter behaves. Instead, it frames the move as hoarding a scarce resource for itself.
Then comes the supply constraint the piece ties everything to: China is running short of the heavy rare earths it once had in abundance. Despite holding roughly a third of the world’s total rare earth reserves. it says China’s deposits of the heavy varieties have been thinning for more than a decade.
To cover the gap, the article says China has relied on imports from war-torn Myanmar, and even those mines are starting to fade. The claim is that every kilogram of dysprosium Beijing ships overseas comes from a shrinking pile.
The military stakes are explained through chemistry and function. Dysprosium and terbium are described as often less than 1% by weight in permanent magnets used in electric motors. That small amount, the piece says, allows magnets to withstand engine heat without losing strength. It also links the same magnets to cruise missiles. fighter-jet radars. and America’s submarines. arguing that without dysprosium and terbium modern weapons and nearly every EV on the road either degrade or stop working.
The article insists the strategy is not about punishing the West with weaponized resources. It calls the approach “colder and more durable”: deciding that selling raw materials is bad business. It points to licensing rules. the extraterritorial reach. and on-again. off-again suspensions—describing them as dials Beijing is turning down on raw exports while turning up on finished goods made from the same atoms.
It returns to an industrial reality with a blunt conclusion: any plan that assumes the West will continue to receive Chinese heavy rare earths—even with a permit stamp—rests on a supply that basic economics says will shrink until it disappears.
The piece points to U.S. policy as evidence. It says the Pentagon’s 2027 ban on Chinese magnets in American weapons systems. and the surge of new mine-and-magnet projects on both sides of the Atlantic. are framed as “a late but necessary admission” that the world’s most important supply chain is being deliberately pulled out from under the West.
In the final stretch, it shifts to what happens next. The author argues the only real question is whether the West will build its own supply chains in time—or keep waiting for an opening Beijing has every reason to keep shut.
President Donald Trump. the article says. “clearly sees where this is headed.” It adds that Trump’s administration is working to develop mine-to-manufacturer supply chains in the U.S. including early investments in the Pentagon’s domestic scandium supply chain. It also says Europe must accelerate its efforts along the same lines.
The author of the piece is Mark A. Smith. He is described as CEO and Executive Chairman of NioCorp Developments Ltd. which is developing the Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in southeast Nebraska designed to produce niobium. scandium. titanium. and magnetic rare earths. The article also identifies him as the former CEO of Molycorp, Inc.
China rare earths heavy rare earths dysprosium terbium EV magnets mine-to-magnet chain Made in China 2025 Pentagon 2027 ban supply chain security Mark A. Smith NioCorp Elk Creek