China Holds World’s Largest Reserves of 14 Minerals, Geological Survey Report Says

The report frames China's advantage as extending beyond raw reserves into smelting and processing, where a handful of mineral products already supply roughly half the global market. That midstream concentration matters more for supply-chain risk than headline reserve rankings, because processing capacity is harder to replicate quickly than a mine. The open question is whether other economies treat this dominance as a diversification problem or simply a cost advantage to keep relying on.