Securitising rare earth minerals

Chapter 8 provides a case study of a mineral resource at the heart of the ‘economic-security nexus’ in the Asia-Pacific: rare earth minerals. These are a group of metals essential for a range of applications in both the consumer electronics and aerospace/defence industries; and while not geologically rare China controls 98 percent of world production. Hitherto uncontroversial, rare earths shot to the top of the international agenda in 2010 when the Chinese government announced a series of policies which restricted supply to foreign customers. Justified by the Chinese government as an environmental protection initiative, many affected parties have alleged the policies are instead a Chinese attempt to economically blackmail the United States, Japan and European Union. The result has been an intense series of international disputes, including a frantic US rush to sponsor rare earths production ‘anywhere but China’, a series of Sino-Japanese diplomatic clashes, and a landmark dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) that has recast the principles of international trade law for natural resources. The rare earths dispute highlights how the securitisation of resources is multilayered, connecting domestic debates over sharing the benefits of resource exploitation to international concerns over geopolitics.