China’s MIIT Seeks Comments on Power Battery Recycling Standards Guide

This is a standards play, not a subsidy or a ban, and standards are where China has historically converted scale into pricing power. A full-lifecycle framework touching nickel, cobalt and lithium matters most to recyclers and to battery makers whose feedstock economics depend on recovered material, and the explicit domestic-international coordination language signals an intent to shape rules beyond its own market. The open question is whether the draft's 2030 horizon keeps pace with the retirement wave of packs already entering the waste stream.