Rare earths and critical minerals have emerged as the newest front in great-power rivalry. China’s overwhelming dominance of global supply chains has pushed the United States into a hurried effort to catch up — striking resource deals with multiple countries and launching new initiatives to reduce its dependence on Beijing.
Over several decades, China patiently built a near-monopoly over the extraction and processing of rare earth minerals, which are essential to electronics, electric vehicles, radar systems and modern weaponry. The strategic value of this dominance became clear last year when China retaliated against President Donald Trump’s tariffs by restricting rare-earth exports, a move that rattled US industries and forced Washington to soften its stance. Since then, Trump has intensified efforts to diversify supply sources and invest in alternatives — a motivation that also underpins his controversial interest in Greenland.
As part of this push, Trump has announced a $12 billion strategic critical-minerals stockpile, dubbed Project Vault, aimed at shielding manufacturers from supply shocks while countering China’s grip on rare earths and other vital metals. Washington has also convened a critical minerals ministerial, inviting representatives from 50 countries to explore preferential trade arrangements and cooperation to diversify global supply chains.
These developments form the backdrop to an illuminating new book that explains how China secured its commanding position in the battery industry by making early, strategic investments while the US remained focused on oil and legacy technologies. The Elements of Power by journalist Nicolas Niarchos is a sweeping and engrossing account of the rise of the battery age — tracing the surge in demand for lithium and cobalt, the scientific breakthroughs that made modern batteries possible, and the winners and losers of this transformation.
Niarchos frames the “age of batteries” as both an innovation-driven success story and a troubling moral drama. While highlighting the companies and technologies that reshaped global power, he also exposes the darker side of this transition, describing it as a tragedy in which “some of the poorest people in the world” are exploited by wealthy nations and predatory corporations.
The competition for critical minerals is only set to intensify. Niarchos argues that just as oil powered the 20th century, lithium-ion batteries are the engines of the modern world — the “foot soldiers of the digital revolution”. From smartphones and laptops to medical equipment, electric vehicles, drones and jet engines, these batteries underpin almost every aspect of contemporary life. Yet between 70 and 90 per cent of them are manufactured in China, reinforcing the idea that, as with oil before it, battery power has become political power.
Several chapters delve into the colonial legacy of resource extraction and exploitation. Much of the narrative centres on the Democratic Republic of Congo, which holds roughly half of the world’s critical metal reserves. Despite this wealth, its people endure poverty, conflict, corruption and hazardous working conditions, while distant economies reap the benefits. The book underscores a central contradiction of the green energy transition: rich countries pursue cleaner technologies to cut emissions, but the environmental damage, labour abuses and even child labour linked to mining are borne by poorer societies. At the bottom of the supply chain, Niarchos writes, people “toil in squalid conditions, in poverty and human bondage” to fuel the world’s clean-energy ambitions.
The sections detailing China’s rise in the battery sector are particularly revealing. Niarchos shows how firms such as BYD mastered energy-storage technologies and drove explosive growth in electric vehicle production — reaching a milestone of one million cars produced in a single month by 2024. He also highlights China’s early and aggressive investment in Africa in the 2010s, filling a vacuum left by a disengaged US and Europe. By 2023, China’s CATL had become the world’s largest lithium-ion battery manufacturer.
By contrast, Washington’s engagement came late and with relatively modest investment, gaining momentum only after Trump’s return to power. His administration began paying closer attention to Africa, appointing Massad Boulos as a senior adviser, and launching initiatives such as Pax Silica to secure supply chains for AI-related technologies, including silicon and critical minerals. Alongside efforts to boost domestic production through state support, Trump has pursued bilateral agreements to access overseas resources.
Niarchos insists that the moral costs of this new energy revolution cannot be ignored. While acknowledging the lack of easy solutions, he calls for greater investment in environmentally responsible mining and, crucially, for listening to communities whose lands are being stripped of minerals — their concerns about pollution, health and their hopes for a better future. Too often, he argues, these voices are erased by high-stakes financial deals and ruthless geopolitical competition.
Whether this message will resonate in the corridors of power remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that the struggle for critical minerals — and the power they confer — is entering a more intense and consequential phase.
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and the UN.