The China rare earths problem isn’t as bad as we think. It’s MUCH WORSE: a look at gallium

by Inside China Business [12-2-2025].

(RAD: This is just another in a LONG list of reasons why it has been very stupid on the part of America to pick a fight with China. They are the dominate supplier of many critical elements needed in advanced technology manufacturing. There are no alternate suppliers for many of these products and it could take many years to even build the technology & capacity to extract these elements. — RAD)

It's now understood that China has deep and durable monopolies on nearly all the Rare Earth metals and critical minerals.

But each of those minerals poses unique challenges to Western countries who hope to build supply chains for them.

Gallium is instructive. It is a crucial component for the most advanced electronics used in defense, and in civilian sectors.

But gallium is produced as a byproduct of aluminum smelting, from bauxite. Only while smelting hundreds of millions of tons of bauxite ores to extract aluminum, can engineers extract a few hundred tons of gallium.

Most smelters in Western countries have closed, and bauxite mining and aluminum smelting today are dominated by China, Russia, and India.

Initiatives to “re-shore” gallium production in the United States suffer from two defects. Western smelters never bothered to extract gallium in the first place. And in order to produce trace amounts of gallium, the bauxite and aluminum smelting industries need to be rebuilt.

Closing scene, Beijing

The Critical Minerals to China, EU, and U.S. National Security [11-30-2023]

How Much Control China Has Over the World’s Critical Minerals [10-30-2025]