China’s mineral processing dominance exposes naval supply chain vulnerabilities
A Los Angeles-class submarine. Submarines depend on a range of critical minerals and rare earth elements. (Photo: US Navy)
Competition for critical minerals, and China’s dominance of their processing, is emerging as a decisive factor in future naval procurement programmes.
While competition for critical minerals has long since been a factor in naval and wider defence procurement, China’s continued dominance of the processing stage of these supply chains has created a risk for Western fleets in the event of a confrontation with Beijing.
From missile guidance systems to submarine hulls, naval capabilities are reliant on a set of minerals that China can refine at scale.
At the Thales Tech Summit in London on 14 September 2026, Rupert Pearce, the UK’s National Armaments Director, set out how the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) was using digital modelling to understand where its
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