This has actually been the case for quite some time, and the west just kind of walked right into it because no central planning. I posted about it a while ago when China declared all rare earth minerals belonged to the state. The situation is not at all akin to the fossil fuel industry where Russia or Saudi Arabia or Venezuela control massive reserves, but are still just one of many major producers. China wields an effective monopolistic share over several critical rare earth mineral resources to the point that ramping up production anywhere else in the world is not even feasible without direct state intervention to subsidize the industry in order to circumvent long long LONG term unprofitability, and even then China also has a monopoly on actually processing these materials.
This has actually been the case for quite some time, and the west just kind of walked right into it because no central planning. I posted about it a while ago when China declared all rare earth minerals belonged to the state. The situation is not at all akin to the fossil fuel industry where Russia or Saudi Arabia or Venezuela control massive reserves, but are still just one of many major producers. China wields an effective monopolistic share over several critical rare earth mineral resources to the point that ramping up production anywhere else in the world is not even feasible without direct state intervention to subsidize the industry in order to circumvent long long LONG term unprofitability, and even then China also has a monopoly on actually processing these materials.