Rare-earth realpolitik: How India turned scarcity to leverage

China’s dominance in rare earths, vital for electric vehicles (EVs), electronics, turbines, and defense, has long been a structural vulnerability for India. But New Delhi has arguably now turned that vulnerability into a strategic advantage.

During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to India, Beijing pledged to address India’s rare-earth needs, just weeks before Prime Minister Modi heads to China for the August 31-September 1 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, and ahead of India hosting a Quad leaders’ summit later this year.

This rare convergence of rival bloc diplomacy shows how India is leveraging dual platforms to manage supply-chain risk without compromising strategic autonomy. This was likely driven as much by Beijing’s need to ease tensions before the SCO summit as by Indian diplomacy, suggesting China’s calculus was tactical, not structural.

Earlier in 2025, China introduced tighter export licensing on seven rare earth elements and associated magnets, triggering alarm across Indian industry. Manufacturers, including Bajaj Auto, warned of production bottlenecks for EVs and electronics. Maruti Suzuki similarly flagged delays in new electric models, underscoring how critical rare earths are to India’s industrial surge and green-tech ambitions.

By engaging Beijing diplomatically and framing access as a cooperative gesture rather than coercion, India retained bargaining space and prompted Beijing to soften its posture, though observers caution that such pledges need to be matched by concrete export license data.

Meanwhile, India is accelerating domestic capacity building. In June, the Ministry of Heavy Industries announced plans to offer fiscal support for domestic rare-earth magnet production and incentivize stockpiling, aiming to narrow the price gap with Chinese imports.

The newer National Critical Minerals Mission is also mobilizing investments in mining, processing, refining and R&D, all aligned with India’s long-held “Atmanirbhar Bharat” ambition to reduce strategic dependencies.

New rare-earth exploration projects in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha are being fast-tracked, with partnerships involving both public sector undertakings like IREL and private firms eager to secure stakes in this strategic value chain.

The government is also mulling a sovereign rare-earth reserve, modelled loosely on strategic petroleum reserves, to provide a buffer against external shocks. These steps suggest that New Delhi wants to signal seriousness not just to Beijing, but also to potential Quad and BRICS+ partners watching India’s self-reliance agenda.

India’s position is strengthened by its membership in two major strategic groupings. Within the Quad, comprised of the US, Japan, Australia and India, New Delhi has explicitly pursued supply-chain security and advanced-tech cooperation.

At the July 2025 Quad foreign ministers’ meeting, participants reaffirmed commitments to these goals, setting the stage for deepening collaboration under a Quad leaders’ summit planned in India later this year.

By contrast, India’s presence in the SCO allows it to sustain engagement with China and Russia even amid broader tensions. Modi’s planned visit to China for the SCO summit, to be held in Tianjin, signals a willingness to resolve pragmatic issues through existing multilateral channels.

The symbolism of India engaging Beijing within the SCO, while simultaneously strengthening Quad-led technology partnerships, demonstrates an agile diplomacy that few other middle powers have replicated.

It also reassures domestic audiences that New Delhi is not dependent on Western goodwill alone while also reminding Beijing that India can leverage multiple partnerships.

This dual-track approach is not contradictory; it is deliberate. India utilizes the Quad to signal alternatives to Chinese supply chains, while relying on the SCO to secure short-term deliverables, such as rare-earth concessions.

If supply disruptions worsen, India can lean further on Quad partners and domestic capacity; if Quad momentum stalls, SCO diplomacy offers continuity. Yet skeptics warn it risks overextending Indian diplomacy if Beijing re-tightens controls while Quad partners are slow to deliver. This hedging reflects India’s pursuit of strategic autonomy: cooperation without alignment.

It also mirrors a broader Indian foreign policy pattern—participating in I2U2, BRICS+ and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework while never over-relying on one forum. In this sense, rare earths become not just a commodity challenge but also a litmus test of India’s multi-vector diplomacy.

India’s rare-earth strategy also reflects its leadership in the Global South. By securing concessions from China while building partnerships with Western and regional powers, New Delhi demonstrates an ability to balance competing imperatives.

This approach offers a playbook to other emerging economies facing structural dependencies on major powers, whether for minerals, technology or trade. India’s emphasis on resource sovereignty, supply-chain diversification and industrialization resonates across forums such as BRICS, the G20 and the Global South Summit.

Already, African and Latin American nations are closely observing India’s policy mix of hedging and capacity-building, seeing it as a possible alternative to overdependence on either Beijing’s Belt and Road or Washington’s fragmented supply-chain push. If India succeeds, it could shape norms for how resource-rich but vulnerable economies negotiate with great powers.

By contrast, the US–China rare-earth tussle earlier this year illustrates a different dynamic. Amid escalating tariffs, Beijing suspended certain rare-earth exports to US firms, prompting disruptions across various industries.

By June, US negotiators claimed Beijing had agreed to resume shipments as part of a broader truce, an outcome framed as a quick fix in a combative context. The volatility of this engagement highlights the limitations of adversarial supply-chain management.

It also reflects Washington’s deeper structural gap: despite abundant reserves, US rare-earth refining capacity is minimal, leaving it vulnerable to Beijing’s licensing grip. For India, the lesson is clear: source cooperation, not confrontation.

This contrast allows India to project itself not as anti-China or anti-US, but as an innovator in building resilience through engagement. It bolsters India’s credibility as a neutral but capable actor, able to draw lessons from both Western missteps and Beijing’s shifting calculations.

Ultimately, India has turned a potential chokepoint into diplomatic leverage. With its recent SCO-engineered concession from China, combined with nascent domestic production and Quad supply options, India is positioning to manage its rare-earth vulnerabilities more proactively.

This is more than a policy pivot; it is a statement of geopolitical intent: India seeks to dictate the terms of its industrial destiny without being beholden to any single power, Western, Chinese or otherwise. The test will be whether India’s domestic rare-earth ecosystem matures quickly enough to reduce reliance on Chinese goodwill.

In the contest for critical minerals dominance, India is no longer a passive consumer. It is a strategic actor, playing multi-vector diplomacy to preserve autonomy and industrial momentum. This rare-earth moment may well define India’s place in the emerging multipolar world order.

If India can sustain momentum on both its domestic mission and international coalitions, it will not only secure its own industrial rise but also carve out a leadership role in shaping how emerging economies manage strategic resources in the decades ahead.

Manish Vaid is a junior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, where his research explores strategic energy, critical minerals and the geopolitics of the green transition. The views expressed here are his own.