Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Namibia had a definite purpose. Namibia is a country with a ton of critical rare earth mineral deposits, including uranium. That uranium is key to ensuring India’s energy security.

The other move at play is to break Chinese dominance of the rare earth minerals, which has been hurting Indian industries. China has been spooked by a plethora of corporations leaving its soil and settling in India under pressure from Washington, and especially Donald Trump’s policies. As a result, China has been playing spoilsport and has restricted exports and controlled the supply of rare earth minerals to throttle Indian industries catering to the growing demand for production and manufacturing.

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, India’s High Commissioner to Namibia, Rahul Shrivastava, said that India is looking to import uranium from the African country and mentioned that the recent oil and gas discoveries in Namibia are also an area of interest for New Delhi. The PM’s visit to Namibia was part of his first five-nation visit, which also included a triumph of India’s agenda at BRICS, where Modi’s call for collective action to prevent the “monopolisation or weaponisation" of critical minerals set the tone for the visit to the African nation.

The necessity of this pushback cannot be overstated. China’s dominance in the critical minerals sector is the outcome of a deliberate, long-term state strategy designed to create global dependency. The statistics show the nature of control. Beijing controls between 90 and 95% of the world’s rare earth processing capacity and a staggering 90% of the global........

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