Beijing sees its battery dominance as an emerging instrument of statecraft. By controlling key stages of the value chain, it can impose delay, uncertainty, and selective denial costs on foreign clean-tech and defense-adjacent industries. Beijing frames “new energy” supply chains as strategic infrastructure, linking industrial policy to economic security and national defense mobilization. This approach treats exports as leverage and domestic capacity as a hedge against sanctions, embargoes, and wartime disruption. The most consequential chokepoints are upstream and midstream inputs such as graphite processing, cathode and electrolyte materials, specialized equipment, and select high-performance chemistries where domestic scale and integration can outmatch alternative suppliers even when cell assembly is diversified. For the United States and allies, the core vulnerability is not finished-cell shortages but dependence on Chinese-controlled processing and materials that shape cost, availability, and timelines for electric vehicles, grid storage, and clean-tech manufacturing, especially during trade disputes.
Battery Statecraft: Green Tech Minerals are a Military Asset – Jamestown
