China Dominating Key Resources America Needs To Defend Itself, Report Finds

China’s commanding grip on the world’s market for battery materials could have potentially disastrous consequences for America’s defense industry, according to a new report.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls more than 80% of the world’s supply of lithium-ion batteries, and it also maintains a near-monopoly on the components needed to manufacture them, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) found in its report on the subject. Advanced batteries are used extensively in high-tech American weapon systems like drones and missile guidance systems, and China’s willingness to weaponize its supply chain dominance is sounding alarms among defense experts.

“As the use of drones, robots, and other unmanned weapons platforms increases in importance, better batteries will mean a better fighting force,” the FDD report states. “The Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates the ways in which drone warfare can transform a battlefield, with an estimated 50,000 battery-reliant attack drones used per month. Securing powerful and reliable American-made advanced batteries represents a critical national security priority. Many of the American military’s small drones and similar devices have dependencies upon China, with batteries being an area of particular weakness.”

China also dominates markets for other battery components, including 70% of the cathode market share and a whopping 97% of anode materials, according to the FDD report. The communist regime also has a stranglehold on markets for graphite and cobalt, which are key inputs for chip manufacturing in addition to batteries.

In contrast to Western competitors, the Chinese government often steps in to interfere heavily with market forces in order to keep their corporations on top.

“While most nations respect a basic set of rules that promotes fair competition, Beijing leverages a wide range of non-market practices to dominate supply chains, create resource dependencies, undermine foreign rivals, concentrate economic power, and destabilize emerging economies,” the report reads.