Taiwan wants to reduce reliance on mainland China for rare earth minerals. It won’t be easy
- The Taiwanese government and private sector are looking for ways to diversify rare earth imports away from China, which holds the world’s largest reserves
- But analysts say it will be an uphill battle because the mainland has an advanced processing system, economy of scale and the only known stocks of key minerals
Taiwan faces a difficult task avoiding mainland China as a source of rare earth minerals – a building block for consumer electronics – because the world’s second largest economy has an outsize share of global reserves and advanced mining, experts say.
The Taiwanese government has for the past six years urged businesses to reshore production from the mainland or consider alternative bases like Southeast Asia.
It also wants companies to reduce reliance on Chinese rare earth minerals, said Lo Chih-cheng, a legislator from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
Researchers on the island, where electronics manufacturing is a bedrock of the US$765 billion economy, are looking into ways to find alternative sources, according to Taiwanese media.
“They’ve been trying to diversify, both the government and private sector, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve been successful,” Lo said.
