The global economy increasingly depends on critical minerals—including nickel, graphite, manganese, cobalt, copper, lithium, and rare earth minerals—which are essential components in defense systems, aerospace applications, electric vehicles, semiconductors, artificial intelligence platforms, and medical devices. International demand for these materials continues to expand rapidly. China’s dominance in this sector is substantial: the country controls more than half of worldwide critical minerals production and approximately 87 percent of global processing and refining capacity. Additionally, China produces nearly 70 percent of rare earth minerals globally, manufactures 93 percent of high-strength rare earth permanent magnets, and handles 95 percent of the specialized heavy processing required for critical minerals.
Beijing’s approach to securing critical minerals combines two complementary strategies. First, the nation has leveraged its advanced processing and refining capabilities. Second, it has diversified by acquiring upstream mining assets across Africa, including the Khoemacau copper mine in Botswana (acquired in 2023), the Goulamina lithium mine in Mali (2024), and the Ngualla rare earth mine in Tanzania (2025). The Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD exemplifies this vertical integration, having secured six African lithium mines to guarantee adequate raw material supply through 2032.
China exercises its market dominance through restrictive export practices. The country limits exports of refined minerals to competitors, requires licensing for products containing even minimal Chinese material, and prohibits exports of minerals with potential military applications. These practices have prompted other nations to develop alternative supply chains independent of Chinese materials.
Critical minerals represent a broad category of materials vital to modern technology and national security. Their specific composition varies by country, but they are universally recognized for their economic significance. Rare earth elements constitute a specialized subset comprising 17 elements—the 15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium—primarily used in permanent magnets for electric motors, wind turbines, lasers, and advanced electronics. Despite their name, these elements are not necessarily rare; rather, they occur in low concentrations and present significant environmental, technological, and financial challenges to extract and process.
China’s infrastructure influence extends throughout Africa. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (also called One Belt One Road), China maintains stakes in rail networks, port facilities, and electrical grids that transport African critical minerals to international shipping routes. China manufactures 90 percent of global solar panels and is projected to provide 60 percent of worldwide renewable energy capacity by 2030. Chinese policy banks distributed $24.9 billion in BRI-related mining loans during the first half of 2025 alone, surpassing 2024’s record financing levels. Reducing China’s influence over Africa’s critical minerals sector will require substantially counterbalancing its advantages across mining, refining, production, and financial services.
Africa possesses substantial mineral reserves—including cobalt, coltan, lithium, nickel, manganese, platinum, and rare earths—making the continent central to global mineral competition. However, African nations remain positioned at the lower end of the value chain and capture minimal benefits from their mineral wealth. The Democratic Republic of the Congo demonstrates this paradox acutely: despite mineral richness, the nation faces poverty, conflict, and dependence on unprocessed raw material exports.
China’s mineral sector dominance developed systematically over decades. Investment in rare earth processing began in the late 1950s, and by the 1970s, China produced advanced rare earth materials. By 2000, Chinese companies—predominantly state-owned enterprises—controlled over half of global mineral output through integrated vertical supply chains. Western corporations initially facilitated this rise by establishing Chinese operations during the 1990s, attracted by abundant labor and profit opportunities, though they were obligated to transfer technology and expertise. Once China achieved comprehensive manufacturing capabilities, foreign participation in separation and refining became restricted, sectors now dominated entirely by Chinese entities.
Major Chinese SOEs expanded internationally following the 1999 “Go Out” strategy, benefiting from substantial subsidies and tax incentives targeting Global South markets. This expansion accelerated significantly under the BRI framework. Chinese overseas mine ownership grew from 40 operations in 1999 to 1,250 by 2022. Between 2000 and 2021, China provided $57 billion in aid and credit for transition minerals in developing nations, with approximately $24 billion directed toward Africa, establishing China as Africa’s primary mineral project financier while simultaneously increasing continental debt obligations and securing resource access and political leverage.
Chinese SOEs receive preferential treatment enabling them to outbid competitors and secure long-term supply agreements. This arrangement simultaneously discourages African regulatory enforcement, exposing nations to environmental, labor, and health risks. In 2025, Zambian civic organizations accused their government of minimizing a toxic spill in the Kafue River caused by Sino Metals Leach Zambia, one of Zambia’s largest taxpayers, illustrating these enforcement challenges.
Beijing’s Africa-Focused Playbook Puts 87% of Global Mineral Refining Under Chinese Control
On 10 December 2025, China’s systematic push to dominate critical-mineral supply chains reached a new milestone, with an industry report showing Beijing now oversees 87 percent of worldwide mineral refining and 70 percent of rare-earth mining while U.S. lawmakers warned that forthcoming rail lines in West Africa could tighten that grip even further, according to the trade monitor Rare Earth Exchanges and congressional testimony published the same day.
While the headline numbers confirm what many commodity analysts have long suspected, the simultaneity of fresh data and congressional alarm crystallizes the stakes: with the mineral-hungry transition to electric vehicles, renewable power and advanced electronics accelerating, Beijing’s control of extraction sites, processing plants and transport corridors positions it to influence pricing, availability and—ultimately—the industrial policies of other nations.
A December white paper from Rare Earth Exchanges describes a “value-chain fortress” built through decades of strategic acquisitions, export rules and infrastructure investments, concluding that Chinese firms now command “unassailable leverage” over key inputs such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and the 17 rare-earth elements Rare Earth Exchanges. In parallel, Rep. John James of Michigan told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that a planned Ivanhoe-Atlantic rail upgrade linking Guinea’s Simandou iron belt to the Liberian port of Buchanan “could expand China’s grip on critical minerals moving out of the region,” citing finance and engineering terms that reportedly favor state-backed Chinese contractors FrontPage Africa.
China’s edge rests on a two-track strategy. First, it invested heavily in domestic processing capacity, eventually capturing roughly 95 percent of the complex, high-temperature separation steps that transform ore into battery-grade chemicals or high-strength permanent magnets. Second, it ventured abroad. Starting with the 1999 “Go Out” directive and accelerating under the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese state-owned enterprises moved from 40 overseas mines in 1999 to more than 1,200 by 2022, many in Africa.
Critical minerals—ranging from copper and manganese to lithium and rare earths—are essential for jet engines, smartphones, wind turbines and guided missiles. Demand has surged as governments set decarbonization targets: the International Energy Agency estimates that electric vehicles require six times the mineral input of conventional cars. Against that backdrop, Beijing’s 70 percent share of rare-earth production and near-monopoly over the magnets they feed into underscores the strategic dimension of what might otherwise appear a niche commodities trade.
Africa sits at the center of this competition. The continent hosts vast reserves of cobalt, coltan, graphite and platinum, yet most material exits unprocessed, supplying smelters and refineries in China. Beijing has locked in supply security by acquiring upstream assets such as Botswana’s Khoemacau copper mine (2023), Mali’s Goulamina lithium project (2024) and Tanzania’s Ngualla rare-earth deposit (2025). Electric-vehicle giant BYD, for instance, now holds stakes in six African lithium mines, ensuring feedstock through at least 2032.
Securing raw ore is only half the equation; moving it to smelters and ports completes the loop. Through the BRI, Chinese firms have financed and built rail spurs, highways and deep-water terminals from Angola to Tanzania, alongside power grids that keep the mines running. Policy banks extended $24.9 billion in mining-linked loans during the first half of 2025—already eclipsing the record total for all of 2024—according to project-finance databases. The Ivanhoe-Atlantic rail modernization highlighted by Rep. James would connect copper and iron deposits deep inside Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to Atlantic export points, effectively creating a Chinese-controlled corridor along the mineral-rich Mano River basin.
Once material reaches Chinese territory, a sophisticated array of export controls helps Beijing manage global supply. Licenses are required for any product containing even trace Chinese content, while certain alloys with potential military applications are outright banned from export. Last year’s abrupt halt in gallium and germanium shipments—critical for semiconductors—sent reminders through Western capitals, prompting renewed calls for “friend-shored” supply chains and domestic refining incentives.
Replicating China’s vertically integrated model will be arduous. Decades of technology transfer agreements, low-interest loans and state subsidies allowed Chinese SOEs to cut costs that rivals struggle to match. In many African jurisdictions, these same companies enjoy preferential tax regimes, light-touch environmental oversight and long-term offtake guarantees. Civic organizations in Zambia, for example, accused authorities in 2025 of downplaying a toxic spill on the Kafue River involving Sino Metals Leach Zambia, one of the country’s biggest taxpayers.
For African governments, the dilemma is acute. Mineral exports are a vital source of revenue, but limited local refining means the lion’s share of value addition—and job creation—occurs abroad. The Democratic Republic of the Congo illustrates the paradox: home to more than half of global cobalt reserves, it remains one of the world’s poorest nations. Analysts say that without processing plants and technology transfer, Africa will stay anchored at the bottom of the value chain.
Western policy responses are gathering momentum. The United States invoked the Defense Production Act to channel funds into domestic cobalt and lithium projects, while the European Union launched the Critical Raw Materials Act to streamline permits and pool member-state demand. Japan and Australia, longtime rare-earth collaborators, are backing a heavy-rare-earth refinery in Vietnam. But even a mosaic of regional efforts faces an uphill climb against China’s scale: its companies manufacture 90 percent of solar panels today and are projected to supply 60 percent of global renewable-energy capacity by 2030, tethering green-tech growth to the same mineral pipelines now under scrutiny.
The immediate risk for import-dependent economies is supply disruption—intentional or accidental—that could stall electric-vehicle rollouts, defense production or grid upgrades. Longer-term, countries that lack refining capacity may confront a “technological glass ceiling,” forced to choose between accepting Chinese input or paying steep premiums for alternative sources. Africa, meanwhile, must weigh the short-term benefits of infrastructure finance against indebtedness and environmental costs. Some policy experts advocate joint-venture refineries located in mineral-producing states, pairing Western capital and African resources to erode China’s downstream advantage.
Still, replicating China’s vertically integrated lattice will require more than money. It will demand coordinated industrial strategy, patient capital and stringent environmental standards that do not push costs so high as to render projects uncompetitive. Until such efforts scale, Beijing’s blueprint—backed by 87 percent of world refining and the rail lines to feed it—remains the defining architecture of the global critical-minerals trade.
Sources
- https://rareearthexchanges.com/news/chinas-critical-minerals-playbook-in-africa-a-value-chain-fortress-the-west-still-struggles-to-breach/
- https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/us-lawmaker-warns-ivanhoe-atlantic-liberia-rail-project-could-expand-chinas-grip-on-critical-minerals/
