In the chaos of war, there’s nothing to stop Chinese firms from ravaging the landscape and extracting the minerals, which end up in China.

A recent assessment by Australian firm Earth Rarest estimated that Australia could supply up to 20 per cent of global demand for neodymium and praseodymium, but warned that a full replacement of Chinese supply across all 17 rare earth elements remains unlikely in the near term.

Union Minister for Coal and Mines G Kishan Reddy acknowledged India’s past reliance on China for critical rare earth supplies.

America has a real shot at ending its dangerous reliance on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for rare earth

As Donald Trump brandishes US export controls on technology as a bargaining chip to wrest supplies of rare earth magnets from Beijing, China is showcasing what it can do without the most advanced American semiconductors.

Companies linked to rare earth minerals surged after the US government announced plans to take a large stake in MP Materials, the operator of the only rare earths mine in the US.