China "controls" the German military - Dependence on critical Chinese minerals threatens the development of the industry
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has expressed his intention to turn Germany into Europe's leading military power. However, his and his government's ambitions could face a serious obstacle: the European defense industry's heavy dependence on China's critical minerals.
These materials, such as neodymium, dysprosium, tungsten, graphite, titanium, and pure magnesium, are essential components in modern military equipment. They are used for radars, electric motors, missile guidance systems, drones, and many other devices.
But the vast majority of these materials come from China. The EU imports about 95% of all strategic raw materials, and for 90% of them it depends on countries outside the bloc. Moreover, Germany has almost no capacity to process these minerals. Meanwhile, Beijing controls over 50% of global processing for most of these elements, and in some cases, such as gallium and germanium, which are particularly important for defense, its control goes up to 86%.
European researchers and rare earth experts warn that the lack of access to these resources could lead to an immediate halt to plans to strengthen the defense industry. Beijing has begun to limit exports of raw materials to Western defense companies, causing production delays and significant cost increases. This is happening at a time when Germany has undertaken the most ambitious plan in recent decades to strengthen the armed forces. Berlin has promised to spend hundreds of billions of euros on defense by 2029. But if the basic materials are missing, none of these investments will have a concrete result.
Meanwhile, the US has long built a legal framework to guarantee the supply of strategic materials, such as the Defense Production Act, which allows the government to fund domestic mining, direct supply chains, and support defense needs. There is also a national strategic reserve for emergencies, maintained by the Defense Logistics Agency.
In contrast, Brussels has chosen a softer approach. The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act sets general targets, but practical implementation is left to member states, through voluntary coordination. There is no central authority to guarantee supply. "We don't have state reserves, like for gas or oil," experts point out.
This dependence poses a direct threat to national security. “Without secure supply chains, there is no reliable defense,” they explain. To build a sustainable defense industry, Berlin must undertake structural reforms and activate domestic resources. Germany has reserves of lithium and other important minerals, but projects to extract them face political and bureaucratic opposition.
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