ASSESSMENT · CRITICAL MINERALS · PUBLIC RELEASE

Critical Minerals Under Pressure

By Zacharias · Principal

China's Export Controls and the Race for Alternative Supply

ISSUED 26 MAY 2026 · MINERALS DESK · ZACHARIAS, PRINCIPAL · AUDITED AGAINST AEGEAN-OS

THE DOCUMENT

NumberAIG-MIN-26-001

FormerlyPMR-2026-0526-GLOBAL-001

ProductAssessment

Issued2026-05-26

Pages12

DistributionPublic release

TimelinessCURRENT

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Aegean Intelligence Group, “Critical Minerals Under Pressure,” AIG-MIN-26-001, The Aegean Register, 26 May 2026.

Abstract

An assessment of the export-licensing regime that has converted Chinese midstream dominance in critical minerals into an active, escalating, increasingly extraterritorial instrument of statecraft. Where the binding constraint actually sits, where Western supply chains break, and which decisions have windows closing.

Key judgments

KJ-1HIGH

The binding constraint is the midstream, not the mine: China refines roughly 70 percent of tracked minerals and processes about 90 percent of rare earths, so diversifying mine offtake alone leaves the real exposure untouched.

KJ-2HIGH

Export licensing is now a standing instrument of Chinese statecraft, widening from gallium and germanium in 2023 to rare earths in 2025 and, in October 2025, to technology and foreign-made products containing Chinese inputs.

KJ-3MODERATE

The November 2025 suspensions are tactical de-escalation, not structural relief: the licensing architecture, case-by-case discretion, and the prohibition on exports to military end-users all remain in place.

KJ-4HIGH

The disruption has already reached the production line: in 2025 automakers ran hand-to-mouth on rare-earth magnets and paid premiums of 10 to 30 percent for non-Chinese supply.

Key stats

Source registry25 entries

Judgments4

Confidence3 HIGH / 1 MOD

Pages12

Issued 2026-05-26Public releaseCURRENTAIG-MIN-26-001

Cover

FORWARD CLAIMS · DATED TO PUBLICATION · SCORED ON THE SCORECARD →

ID	Statement	p	Made on	Resolves by	Status
CLM-2026-024	The November 2025 suspensions are tactical de-escalation, not structural relief. The licensing architecture, the case-by-case discretion, and the prohibition on exports to military end-users all remain in place.	0.65	2026-05-26	2026-11-30	Locked
CLM-2026-030	Even the IEA's diversification case has China supplying a majority of refined output for key minerals into the mid-2030s.	0.65	2026-05-26	2035-12-31	Locked
CLM-2026-031	Across all three scenarios the structural chokepoint persists.	0.65	2026-05-26	2027-05-26	Locked

A claim is entered in the brief's own words and carries its publication date and the day it entered the ledger: the register's briefs on 8 September 2026, when the standard was first applied; the forward benchmark on the day it was locked. It resolves only against a dated public source. The scoring rule is on the Methodology page.

SOURCES & METHOD

Open-source intelligence only, verified against allowlisted Tier 1 to Tier 4 sources, drawing on IEA and USGS statistical series, think-tank and parliamentary analysis (CSIS, EPRS, Global Trade Alert), specialist price data (Fastmarkets), wire reporting (Reuters), and company disclosure explicitly flagged as claim source (MP Materials). Claims are structured as six key judgments with explicit confidence levels and superscript citations into a 25-entry source registry, with each section closing in an assessment that states confidence and rationale.

Limitations: Figures that could not be confirmed against primary or specialist sources were excluded rather than estimated, and the qualification-timeline point is identified as an analytic judgment rather than a single-source fact.

SOURCE REGISTRY: 25 ENTRIES12 PAGESTIMELINESS: CURRENT

Estimative language in this report follows the firm’s published standard: judgments carry HIGH, MODERATE, or LOW confidence, and each carries its rationale in the full report. The framework, source tiers, and anti-fabrication perimeter are public on the methodology page. Corrections issue as numbered addenda.