China Set For Further Tech Fights With U.S.

 

 

How likely it is, reading next China's 5 year plan, that China will give rare earths for military industrial complex in the West?

 

 

Reading into recent developments and the expected 15th Five-Year Plan, it is extremely unlikely that China will provide rare earths for the military-industrial complex in the West. Beijing has been systematically tightening export controls on these critical minerals and related technologies to weaponize its market dominance and deny foreign militaries access.

 

China's tightening export controls

 

    Defense-specific bans: In October 2025, Beijing announced new regulations that specifically ban the export of rare-earth materials for foreign military use. This move targets defense contractors, denying them access to the specialized rare-earth magnets essential for manufacturing modern weaponry.

    Dual-use technology controls: China has expanded its export control lists beyond raw minerals to include processing technologies and equipment that can have both civilian and military applications. For foreign companies, any product containing even a minimal amount of Chinese-sourced rare earth now requires government approval for export.

    Weaponizing dependency: The West's military-industrial complex is highly dependent on rare earths for key weapon systems, such as F-35 fighter jets, Tomahawk missiles, and submarines. By cutting off this supply, China gains significant geopolitical leverage in its intensifying competition with the United States and its allies.

 

The 15th Five-Year Plan

The upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) is expected to formalize and accelerate this strategy of resource nationalism. Instead of easing restrictions, analysts predict the plan will:

 

    Reinforce state control: The plan will likely expand Beijing's "mine-to-magnet" vertical integration strategy, strengthening its control over all stages of the rare-earth supply chain.

    Align policy with strategy: It will use industrial policy to control supply-chain choke points and bolster China's "strategic endurance" in its rivalry with the West.

    Shift focus to domestic use: As China's domestic demand for rare earths increases for electric vehicles, renewable energy, and its own military, a shrinking share of its production will be available for export. What remains for export will likely be subject to political favoritism, not market forces.

 

Western efforts and challenges

In response to China's weaponization of its rare-earth dominance, Western nations are accelerating efforts to diversify their supply chains.

 

    Building processing capacity: The U.S. and its partners, including Australia, are investing in building domestic and allied rare-earth processing facilities.

    Mismatched timelines: These initiatives face significant challenges and will take years to bring online at scale. China, meanwhile, has been building its dominance for decades, leaving a major time gap that leaves the West vulnerable in the short-to-medium-to-long term.

    Technological expertise gap: China has a near-monopoly on the technological expertise for advanced rare-earth processing, which will be difficult and time-consuming for Western nations to replicate.

 

 

 

“BEIJING -- China will seek to become more self-sufficient technologically, the ruling Communist Party said in a new economic blueprint, signaling no respite in its rivalry with Washington.

 

In an outline of the next five-year plan, which will guide the world's second-largest economy through the rest of the decade, Communist leaders drew a connection between the complex challenges the country faces and their drive to fortify China through increased investments in technology and advanced manufacturing.

 

The blueprint signals how competition between Beijing and Washington is only likely to escalate, with China looking to further reduce its reliance on the U.S. while advancing its own technological ambitions.

 

The five-year plan, a distinct feature of China's Communist system, has drawn increasing interest from the capitalist world as Beijing's economic and technological advances cast industrial policy and central planning in a more favorable light.

 

The latest plan nods at priorities that Western economists, and U.S. officials, have long called for -- notably, boosting consumption in an attempt to lessen its reliance on export-driven growth. The outline was released following a four-day meeting of hundreds of senior Communist Party officials in Beijing, overseen by leader Xi Jinping. Nearly one-sixth of officials eligible to attend were absent, many targeted in Xi's continuing anticorruption purges.

 

The U.S. and China are locked in a battle to dominate industries of the future, most notably in artificial intelligence and in a bitter trade war. President Trump has imposed stiff tariffs on Chinese imports, while Beijing has retaliated with restrictions on rare earths, essential for various high-tech products.

 

Trump and Xi might meet next week at a summit in South Korea in a bid to de-escalate trade tensions. But the new five-year plan indicates leaders in Beijing see little likelihood that the confrontation will ease.

 

China uses its five-year plans to signal priorities, driving investment and policy support to achieve key goals.

 

Beijing's "Made in China 2025," an industry policy released in 2015, set goals for the country to dominate cutting-edge technologies such as electric vehicles, aerospace and semiconductors. Its success in meeting many of its goals has produced some global winners, but has disrupted those industries worldwide.

 

"When Xi Jinping came to power, these plans were still viewed as . . . party language that doesn't necessarily carry a lot of weight," said Katja Drinhausen of the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a research institute based in Germany. "But the past decade and a half have shown that there is power in these plans, especially if they are coupled with investment, resources and incentives -- and that this formula has paid off."” [1]

 

1. World News: China Set For Further Tech Fights With U.S. Kubota, Yoko.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 24 Oct 2025: A16.