In the 21st century, global power is no longer determined only by oil fields, shipping lanes, or military alliances. It increasingly rests on something less visible but more decisive: control over supply chains and critical minerals. From semiconductors and electric vehicles to missiles and satellites, modern economies depend on a narrow set of materials whose extraction and processing have become deeply geopolitical.
This marks the rise of geoeconomics beneath the ground, where lithium, cobalt, rare earths, and gallium matter as much as capital flows or military strength.
From Efficiency to Strategic Leverage
For decades, supply chains were optimised for cost and efficiency. Concentration was considered rational. China capitalised early—building scale, subsidising processing, and integrating mining with manufacturing. Today, it dominates the refining and processing stages of rare earths, lithium, battery materials, and several semiconductor-related inputs.
This dominance is more powerful than control over mines. Processing is the true chokepoint—and China controls it.
Export licensing regimes, informal trade barriers, and regulatory delays give Beijing the ability to signal pressure without overt coercion. The weaponisation of gallium, germanium, and rare-earth exports in recent years demonstrates how supply chains have become instruments of statecraft.
China’s Leverage—and Its Limits
China’s mineral leverage offers three advantages: price-setting power, industrial predictability, and geopolitical influence. Countries dependent on Chinese processing must factor Beijing’s preferences into economic and strategic decisions.
Yet this leverage is not cost-free. Aggressive export controls accelerate diversification efforts elsewhere. They encourage investment in alternative processing hubs, recycling technologies, and substitution research. Over time, excessive coercion risks eroding China’s market dominance and pushing customers toward long-term decoupling.
Geoeconomic power, once overused, invites resistance.
The Defence–Industrial Dimension
Critical minerals are not only economic inputs; they are strategic enablers of military power. Precision-guided munitions, radars, jet engines, space assets, and secure communications all depend on rare earths, specialty alloys, and advanced electronics.
For India, this creates a direct national security imperative. Defence indigenisation under Atmanirbhar Bharat cannot succeed without assured access to these materials. Dependence on external suppliers—especially those aligned with strategic competitors—creates vulnerabilities in wartime sustainment, upgrades, and spares.
Control over mineral supply chains therefore becomes as important as platform acquisition. In future conflicts, the ability to replenish missiles may matter more than the number deployed on day one.
India’s Strategic Challenge—and Opportunity
India remains heavily import-dependent for critical minerals and processing. This mirrors past energy vulnerabilities—and carries similar risks. But India also possesses advantages: geological potential, a large market, diplomatic credibility in the Global South, and expanding partnerships with mineral-rich regions in Africa, Latin America, and Australia.
The strategic task is to move beyond raw-material access toward end-to-end participation—mining, refining, manufacturing, and recycling. Overseas asset acquisition must be paired with domestic processing capacity and predictable policy frameworks. Supply-chain resilience cannot be built on memoranda alone.
India’s non-bloc positioning allows it to act as a bridge player, supporting diversified, rules-based mineral supply chains rather than exclusive economic camps.
The Risk of Mineral Nationalism
However, there is a countervailing risk. As countries securitise critical minerals, resource nationalism is rising. Export bans, local-content mandates, and excessive regulation may slow investment, inflate costs, and delay the clean energy transition.
Minerals are capital-intensive, environmentally sensitive, and politically contested. Over-securitisation can deter private capital and burden developing producers with unrealistic expectations. In trying to reduce dependence, countries may inadvertently create new bottlenecks.
The challenge is not self-sufficiency at any cost, but resilience through diversification.
The geoeconomics of critical minerals reflects a fundamental shift in global power. Control over supply chains now shapes industrial competitiveness, military readiness, and diplomatic leverage. What oil was to the 20th century, lithium and rare earths are to the 21st.
For India, strategic autonomy will not be secured by diplomacy or defense procurement alone. It will depend on material security—the ability to access, process, and deploy the resources modern power is built upon.
In the emerging global order, influence will belong not just to those who command markets, but to those who control what markets are made of.
