European Commission chief warns against over-reliance on China for rare earth elements

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, on February 23, said that the European Union (EU) must end it’s over-reliance on imports from abroad to drive its technological development. Highlighting China’s monopoly in providing rare earth elements, she said that it was not “sustainable”. Her remarks came days after US President Joe Biden pointed out at Beijing’s rising infrastructure development urging Congress to “step up”.

Virtually addressing leaders of member states on the occasion of EU Industry Day 2021, she said that green and digital technologies which are used to produce electric vehicles, laptops amongst other things depended on a number of scarce raw materials, all of which EU imports from abroad. She then revealed that 98 per cent of all the raw materials were supplied by China alone and it was “not sustainable”.

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Chinese monopoly

China enjoys complete monopoly when it comes to processing of the 17 “strategic” raw materials that are vital for the production of anything ranging from mobile phones to missile systems. While, these raw materials are scarcely available in Myanmar and US also, China accounts for over two-thirds of the world’s rare elements supply. Meanwhile, the rest of the countries only have trace amounts.

China is the only country that experienced positive economic growth in 2020 with data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics putting the overall GDP growth in the December quarter at 6.5%. Recently, American president Joe Biden warned lawmakers that China was aggressively outpacing the US on infrastructure. Addressing members of the Environmental and Public Works Committee in the Oval Office, Biden asserted that China was investing colossal amounts of money into upgrading their transportation and infrastructure. His remarks came shortly after the newly minted President held his first call with Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping.  

“They’re investing a lot of money, they’re investing billions of dollars and dealing with a whole range of issues that relate to transportation, the environment and a whole range of other things,” Biden told a bipartisan group of senators whom he met within the Oval Office.

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