Beijing Expands Overseas Mining Footprint to Secure Critical Metal Supplies

Beijing is scaling up its control over foreign mining assets to secure the raw materials needed for electric vehicles, semiconductors, and aviation. The move represents a shift from isolated corporate decisions to a unified government strategy aimed at securing supply lines for critical metals.

According to industry analysts, this coordinated approach is designed to give China greater influence over global resource availability. Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia, described the model as a state-aligned framework intended to support larger, strategically focused investments. To facilitate this, the government created a dedicated overseas bureau in April to supervise central state-owned enterprise spending. By July, a specialized investment vehicle was added to guide companies on compliance and risk management amid rising geopolitical tensions.

The centralization effort aims to curb disorderly competition among Chinese firms and strengthen their position against rivals in the West, India, and Saudi Arabia. However, longer approval processes may increase corruption risks and reduce investment returns. Chinese companies have targeted overseas mines for two decades, often focusing on regions like Tajikistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo that Western miners have largely ignored.

New data illustrates the scale of this push. A report from the Rhodium Group released in November 2026 showed that Chinese mineral acquisitions abroad totaled $8.8 billion in the first three quarters of the year. This marks the highest annual total since at least 2018. Armand Meyer, a senior research analyst at Rhodium, noted that these purchases focus on minerals where China faces domestic shortages, such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, as well as gold.

Eurasia projects that outbound investment in upstream critical minerals will roughly double from the 2021 to 2025 period. Wang explained that Beijing treats a 70% import dependence as a critical security threshold. This places copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, bauxite, and iron ore under strict national security constraints. Even for gold, where reliance stays within a safer 50% range, the government continues to seek access to high-grade resources, often prioritizing geopolitical strength over immediate profit.

Host nations are pushing back, demanding more local processing of raw materials. China has long dominated the refining stage, a position that serves as a supply chain chokepoint. The United States holds abundant rare earth supplies but relies heavily on China for refinement. The International Energy Agency reports that China currently produces approximately 92% of the world's refined rare earths.

This dominance allows Beijing to influence prices by adjusting supply levels. Brad Handler, director of the Energy Finance Lab at the Payne Institute, noted that China can oversupply the market to push prices below economic levels if a rival builds new refining capacity. To maintain this edge, China has required export licenses for seven medium and heavy rare earths since last year. Japan has been particularly affected, with reports suggesting it nearly ran out of yttrium, an element vital for displays and semiconductors. Customs data shows that Chinese exports of yttrium oxide to Japan dropped to 4,000 kilograms in September, down from 51,000 kilograms a year earlier. Outside of China, the price of the oxide surged to about $1,150 per kilogram, a level roughly 179 times higher than two years prior, compared to about $9 per kilogram domestically. Despite Japan spending 16 years building stockpiles, very little separation capacity for yttrium and lutetium exists outside of China.

Chinese firms are adapting their strategies in response. Rather than relying solely on outright acquisitions, they are increasingly engaging in greenfield investment and establishing processing facilities near mining sites. Meyer highlighted that this approach is most evident in countries like Indonesia, where Chinese firms have built smelting and refining capacity to comply with nickel ore export bans.