It has become fashionable for many European policymakers to warn that Europe’s drive toward decarbonization should not lead to a new dependence on China for critical raw materials worse than its dependence on Russian natural gas that was exposed after the invasion of Ukraine.[1] Fortunately, however, a sudden loss of “critical raw materials” from China is in fact not economically critical. The real economic risk for Europe is to waste taxpayer resources in alarmist and unnecessary attempts to follow the United States in decoupling from China. Instead, the European Union should pursue gradual… …read more
