For nearly a decade, the West has tried to free itself from Chinese resource dominance. The result has been the opposite. Every time the West launches a new mining project, China slashes prices overnight, making the investment unprofitable. When the Western initiative collapses, Beijing raises prices again and recoups its losses. Today, China holds the world’s largest reserves of 14 critical minerals, and its mining sector generates 23 percent of GDP. In Poland, the resource sector accounts for less than 2 percent. To catch up with China, the West would have to accept prolonged austerity and a lower standard of living – something democracies are not ready to do.

China’s mining and raw materials sector had already been consolidating its position for decades, which made it relatively easy to neutralize Western efforts aimed at weakening its dominance. This was not especially difficult, as classical Western economists had already warned about similar dynamics in the early twentieth century. They were not speaking of China at the time, but of the economic mechanism through which weaker market participants attempt to challenge stronger ones. They warned against cartels capable of dominating markets and imposing their own trade conditions. In their view, attempts to break such dominance under free-market conditions were doomed to fail, because large producers could afford predatory pricing that would ruin smaller competitors.

This pattern has become a model for China. Whenever the West launches a new mining initiative, China lowers prices for the relevant commodity to such an extent that the new Western investments become entirely unprofitable. As a result, efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese supplies collapse under the weight of their own market rules. Recent developments in the global commodities market confirm this pattern. Once Western initiatives fail, China raises prices again, compensating for its earlier losses.

A Global Leader

As reported by the Indonesian business portal Antara at the end of April this year, China announced that it holds the world’s largest reserves of 14 categories of mineral resources, including rare earth elements, tungsten, tin, molybdenum, antimony, gallium, germanium, indium, fluorite, and graphite.

The portal estimates that in 2025 the output of China’s mining industry reached approximately 32.7 trillion yuan (around 4.77 trillion U.S. dollars). This represents more than 23 percent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), confirming the country’s position as the global leader in the extraction, smelting, and processing of mineral resources.

China’s Ministry of Natural Resources reported that the country ranks first globally in the production of 17 mineral commodities, including coal, vanadium, titanium, zinc, rare earth elements, tungsten, tin, molybdenum, antimony, gallium, indium, gold, and tellurium. China is also the dominant supplier for the world’s metallurgical and processing industries.

Chinese officials added that the country’s resource base helps maintain the stability of its industrial supply chains, supports the development of new sectors, and contributes to global prosperity. This position appears stable—and is likely to remain so unless meaningful action is taken elsewhere.

A Harsh Example

The challenge is that in order to match—or surpass—today’s leaders, one must undertake extremely demanding work. China itself is a stark example of this. At the turn of the last two centuries, Chinese workers embraced what was effectively near-servitude labor for meager pay. Their cheap, low-quality, and widely available goods began competing with far superior Western products.

They saved every possible penny. Many slept in factories to avoid commuting. The factory became their home, or they crowded by the dozen into tiny rooms furnished only with stacked sleeping bunks. Half of their modest wages were sent back to rural families to finance the education of their children—children who would later come to dominate top American universities. This model, for obvious reasons, is unacceptable in the West.

Long-Term Sacrifice

If the West wants to win this competition with China, it must be prepared for long-term sacrifice and a decline in current living standards. This is politically difficult to accept and has already contributed to major political shifts, with the United States and Germany—the two leading economies of the West—offering the clearest examples.

Western strategy cannot remain merely rhetorical. It must reach young people and mobilize society in support of a long-term industrial effort. China’s example is not impossible to replicate in strategic terms. Since the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, China has conducted a broad educational campaign aimed at youth, covering everything from basic industrial skills to advanced mining and resource extraction technologies.

At the same time China was building a resource-based industrial strategy, the West was moving in the opposite direction. One attempt to address this imbalance has been the United States’ tariff policy, which seeks to protect American industry from cheaper Chinese imports. This is a rational approach, but it comes at a cost: domestic prices rise. That is the price that must be paid until domestic industries—including mining and extraction—reach a scale and level of productivity comparable to their Chinese competitors.

Western Solidarity

Such action must be undertaken collectively across the West, not by the United States alone. This also applies to Poland, which—proportionally in terms of natural resources—is not necessarily poorer than China. Yet China’s mining sector accounts for 23 percent of GDP, while Poland’s raw materials sector contributes less than 2 percent.

That gap illustrates the scale of the challenge facing Poland and Europe if they wish to reduce strategic dependence on China. Resolutions, declarations, criteria, and policy targets will change nothing unless they are followed by concrete investments in modern mining and resource extraction.

This will undoubtedly challenge current assumptions about the green economy. But for now, no clear alternative exists if the West intends to escape China’s dominance over strategic raw materials.