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China is boosting state support for domestic minerals exploration as policymakers increase efforts to achieve President Xi Jinping’s ambition for resource self-sufficiency amid intensifying competition with the US.
Over the past year, at least half of China’s 34 provincial-level governments, including those of top resource-producing regions such as Xinjiang, have announced increased subsidies or expanded access for mineral exploration, according to a Financial Times analysis of official announcements.
The funding boost comes as control over the world’s strategic minerals has emerged as a flashpoint between the US and China, as the superpowers compete over the resources needed for advanced technologies such as semiconductors, electric vehicles, robotics and missiles.
“A series of major breakthroughs in mineral exploration have been achieved, significantly enhancing the ability to ensure the safety of important industrial chains and supply chains and to respond to external environmental uncertainties,” Xiong Zili, director of the natural resources ministry’s department of geological exploration and management, told reporters this year.
He added that the new mineral exploration plan was closely focused on boosting domestic energy resources and “strategic” minerals
China is the world’s biggest producer of 30 of 44 critical minerals tracked by the US Geological Survey.
In an effort to loosen Beijing’s dominance over the sector, US President Donald Trump has prioritised domestic mining since his return to the White House in January, as well as access to critical minerals abroad, including in Greenland, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Xi has focused on China’s self-reliance in science and technology since becoming leader of the ruling Chinese Communist party in 2012.
That drive has become more imperative amid escalating tensions with the US, and Xi has turned to shoring up supply chains and prioritising advanced manufacturing and emerging high tech.
Beijing’s mineral supply chains are a critical point of geopolitical leverage in its trade and tech war with the US. The government has devoted more than Rmb100bn ($13.8bn) to investment in geological exploration annually since 2022, the highest three-year period in a decade.
China has also in the past year tightened control over exports of strategic minerals, many of which are crucial to chip manufacturing, including gallium, germanium, antimony, graphite and tungsten, in response to US curbs on tech exports to China.
Cory Combs, associate director of Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said China provided subsidies, tax incentives and other kinds of support for the domestic mining sector “regardless” of commodities market cycles.
“In a strict market sense, it is wasteful. But in a political and economic security sense, it is not wasteful at all, it is worth the cost,” Combs said. “In Beijing’s view money is not the sole point.”
Xinjiang — the research-rich but poor western region where Beijing has repressed Uyghur and other Muslim minorities — increased support for geological exploration to Rmb650mn in 2025, from Rmb150mn in 2023. It has also sharply stepped up issuance of mining exploration rights to record levels.
The National Development and Reform Commission, which has oversight over resources, did not respond to questions.
China has also made long-standing efforts to lock up control of critical resources overseas. The FT reported in January that China had over the course of two decades issued $57bn in loans via at least 26 state-backed financial institutions for mining and processing copper, cobalt, nickel, lithium and rare earths across the developing world.
Under Xi, Beijing has also enacted policies aimed at protecting strategic resources. These included a move in 2021 to block foreign companies from investing, even indirectly, in mining tungsten, rare earths and uranium. It also required approval from the state council, China’s cabinet, for any foreigner to enter a rare earth mining area.
Last year, a committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber stamp parliament, established a legal mechanism to make it easier for companies to exploit farmland for mineral resource exploration and obtain mining rights.
Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding in Beijing. Data visualisation by Haohsiang Ko
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