Enable breadcrumbs token at /includes/pageheader.html.twig

Keeping Your Frenemies Closer

Australia boasts large-scale metals mining infrastructure. Alf Manciagli/Shutterstock

Australia is a strong contender to challenge China’s dominance in the global supply of strategic minerals and rare-earth elements (REEs).

Nevertheless, its production is far from a challenge to Beijing’s supremacy. In 2022, it exported 18,000 metric tons of rare-earth elements, while China supplied 210,000 metric tons. The United States, the second supplier in the world, had a 43,000 metric ton output, according to the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

This means that Beijing controls a supply that is more than three times that of the United States and Australia combined.

Nevertheless, the country possesses the sixth largest reserves of REEs and has significant deposits and production of critical minerals like lithium and cobalt. But the country’s open economy and democracy were weaponized against its interests.

“Since 2018, China has become more cautious about interfering in Australia’s electoral process. This is in part because of the foreign interference law, which imposes harsh penalties, but more so because of the sharp shift in public sentiment against China,” said Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics, Charles Sturt University.

Hamilton’s work has consistently called on authorities in Australia’s capital of Canberra to limit their openness to Beijing’s overtures.

As Australia gravitated away from the dragon’s embrace, it joined the United Kingdom and the United States in AUKUS, a trilateral military alliance. This has created opportunities and renewed risks in the country.

“AUKUS appears to be in a state of flux at present, with the various parties trying to nail down the details of the agreement. Most of the attention in Australia has been on the commitment by the USA and UK to supply Australia with new, nuclear-powered submarines. While that commitment is proving very complex in practice, involving many uncertainties, the other elements of the AUKUS agreement, technology sharing and other kinds of military assistance, are more likely to become prominent in future years,” Hamilton told SIGNAL Media.