WASHINGTON—The Chinese communist regime has recently signaled that it could leverage its dominance in rare earth minerals, a threat that has prompted the Biden administration to take action to reduce U.S. reliance on China for rare earths that are used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles to fighter jets.
In 1992, Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping predicted the importance of rare earths to China’s future when he famously said: “The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths.”
