For decades, the global economy has quietly relied on a small group of metals that most people have never heard of ~ cerium, neodymium, praseodymium, and others that make up the 17 so-called rare earth elements.

These metals are essential to the functioning of technologies that define the modern age: electric vehicles, wind turbines, smartphones, medical scanners, and advanced defence systems. Yet, the world’s supply chains for them remain heavily concentrated in one country. China’s dominance ~ about 70 per cent of mining and 90 per cent of refining ~ did not happen by chance. It is the result of years of deliberate state policy, investment, and a willingness to bear the environmental costs of production that others have shunned. The outcome is a strategic dependence that has been largely invisible until geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions brought it into sharp focus. Europe’s late awakening to this vulnerability is now shaping an ambitious push for........

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