US–Australia Rare Earths Accord Disheartens the CCP
Udumbara
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 20 acted to disrupt the Fourth Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by announcing a U.S. way around the CCP’s ace negotiating position: the control of the export of rare earths and critical minerals to the United States and the West.
Australia has these in abundance, including some of the world’s largest lithium reserves, but has lacked a stable commercial base for their exploitation. The U.S.–Australia accord now guarantees this.
Whether Albanese understood that this was staged at a critical time for Beijing is debatable. Still, Trump clearly seduced the Australian prime minister with recognition—a political victory—at a level Albanese has lacked from other quarters. This delivered a disturbing blow to the CCP during its plenum, underway in Beijing from Oct. 20 to 23.
Both sides in the CCP power struggle—Xi Jinping on the one hand, and the Party elders and People’s Liberation Army leader Gen. Zhang Youxia on the other—had been aware that mainland China’s control of the rare earth exploitation was their key negotiating asset with the United States.
That leverage has now been dramatically reduced.
Moreover, Trump removed any doubts about the AUKUS alliance (between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) proceeding, with the United States promising that the delivery of U.S. nuclear attack submarines would go ahead. Whether that is, in fact, feasible for Australia to do in the longer term is another question, but at least the body of the Alliance was reinforced.
The U.S.–Australia accord on critical minerals and rare earths still needs to be proven feasible, but the framework for their exploitation has now been put in place. One of the keys to the often health-hazardous extraction and basic processing of some of the rare earths—used in the manufacture of key defense, communications, and transportation objectives—lies in mining automation: robotics.
Australia has proven to be the world leader in robotically-controlled mining. It has been the key to Australia’s rising profitability in iron ore and other mineral exports amid flattening or declining market demand.
Robotic mining is key to mitigating some of the health hazards of mining, problems that have plagued rare earth mining in China. There, in just one mining township in Inner Mongolia, cancer rates among workers have been described as off the charts compared with the rest of mainland China. The health hazards, intolerable in Western societies, have been the main impediment to the exploitation of rare earths by the United States, Australia, and Europe. Thus, the historical dependence on China.
Meanwhile, Washington is poised to increase its quiet buildup of military support activities in Australia, clearly aimed at giving the United States additional power in the Indo-Pacific region. That includes not only the servicing of U.S. nuclear submarines, but also the basing of U.S. strategic manned bombers and other assets. Australia, too, has been increasing its construction of forward-placed assets to support Australian military capability in Asia through agreements with the Philippines.
And now the U.S.–Australia resources accord has delivered an important new message to the CCP, at a critical time in its fight to retain control of China.
