China's rare earth paradox, supply Giant but also consumption King

This is accurate data of countries with rare earth resources and the quantity but there's an interesting paradox you should know of.

Screenshot attributed to Visual Capitalist on X

You could tell that China's grip on the rare earths market seems pretty solid at face value and on paper. They have about 44 million metric tons of rare earths to their name or at least what is known to exist. They also produce the largest share of the world's total amount of rare earths, having extracted over 60% of total global supply. This leads me to believe something is wrong with all these numbers, it's clear they're all too high and too close together, which made me even think I've miscalculated until I did the research and realized the condition the country is actually in with regards to their rare earth mineral reserves.

For the math to work, the rare earth metals must not be used directly in the manufacturing of products. Instead, they act as fuel for the manufacturer and the products produced with that fuel will be able to use the fuel again later down the line. The world wants a supply of green energy, weapons systems and very fast moving parts for the cars we drive. All of these pass through a Chinese made magnet at some point in time, which is not a coincidence, it's intentional by China, I could even call it an agenda.

As I am stuck waiting on my delayed power bank that I ordered online, I think about how I had to replace my old pair of earphones last week because the magnetic part failed too quickly to be very useful. But just so you know, all made from China.

China is extracting from their current easy deposits much faster than the rest of the world can extract from theirs. They will continue to extract the highest critical ore deposits first until they have no more useable deposits left. That may look a little irresponsible to someone who's not looking at it from their vision and perspective, it is important to remember that control trumps abundance, and that some abundance can lead to a temporary gap in the flow of goods.

And this is how I understood their objective. I discovered that I had miscalculated one figure at some point while looking back through an old report, but I'm sure you also get why they're doing it now.