India plans to secure stakes in 50 overseas mines, but ownership of ore will not guarantee supply security while China dominates the processing stages vital to batteries, magnets and advanced manufacturing.
China’s grip on critical minerals reaches far beyond the mines themselves. The real leverage lies in what happens after ore is dug out of the ground: turning raw material into battery-grade chemicals, refined metals, permanent magnets and other inputs that modern industry depends on. According to the International Energy Agency, China accounts for roughly 90% of rare earth refining and processing, while also dominating parts of the lithium and cobalt supply chains. That concentration gives Beijing outsized influence over the cost and availability of materials used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and advanced electronics.
The distinction matters because extraction alone does not make a supply chain secure. Lithium from an overseas mine still has to be processed before it can be used in batteries, cobalt ore must be refined, and rare earths require complex separation before they can be made into high-performance magnets. As Visual Capitalist has noted in a recent charting of the market, China’s position is not simply a matter of mining output, but of control over the industrial stages that add the most value and create the greatest dependency.
That is why India’s push to secure overseas mineral assets is only a partial answer to a much larger problem. The country has launched a ₹34,300-crore National Critical Mineral Mission and aims to secure stakes in 50 overseas mines by 2031, hoping to reduce reliance on concentrated suppliers. But ownership abroad does not necessarily mean cheaper raw materials, guaranteed shipments or freedom from host-country restrictions. Reuters-style analysis of the issue would call this a claim on output rather than command over the entire chain.
The risks are already visible. Host governments can impose export bans, tighten licensing rules or insist on more local processing to keep more value at home. Operational delays, financing problems, weak infrastructure and geopolitical friction can also disrupt deliveries. The concern is not hypothetical: recent disputes involving Tata Chemicals’ soda ash mine in Kenya and bottlenecks in Mozambique underline how foreign mine ownership can still leave companies exposed to policy shifts and practical setbacks.
The broader lesson is that resource security increasingly depends on processing as much as extraction. The IEA has tracked a growing number of export controls announced or tightened in 2025 and 2026, a sign that governments are treating refining capacity and mineral technologies as strategic assets. For India, that means overseas investments will need to be backed by enforceable supply contracts, diversified sourcing, transport arrangements and, crucially, domestic or allied processing capacity. Without that, the country may own ore in the ground, but still remain dependent on someone else’s refineries.
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