Why China’s growing demand for rare-earth steel is bad news for US F-35

At a sprawling industrial complex in the Inner Mongolian city of Baotou, workers feed bag after bag of rare-earth additives into roaring furnaces, turning ordinary steel into a high-performance alloy worth twice as much.

This is the front line of a technological leap being powered by China's dominance in critical minerals and its strategic industrial policy.

The advanced rare-earth steel being produced is used in the country's most ambitious engineering projects – from high-speed railways to wind turbines and the world's largest hydropower dam being built in Tibet, according to a report in the official Sc ience and Technology Daily.

But growing demand for rare earths in China's steel industry – in addition to Beijing's export controls – has reduced the supply to overseas buyers even further.

China has a stranglehold on rare earths, which are needed for everything from electric cars to electronics and defence technologies. China accounts for about 70 per cent of the world's rare-earth mining and 90 per cent of processing.

In the United States, the defence sector – including the F-35 fighter jet programme, nuclear submarines, missiles and drones – has been grappling with supply chain anxieties fuelled by the shortage of rare earths.