China controls an estimated 60% of global rare earth mining and over 85% of rare earth processing capacity. That concentration is not new. What is new is that behavioral demand signals are now running at levels not seen in the prior twelve months, while multiple independent early-signal alert streams have begun converging on the same structural story simultaneously. The market has not fully repriced the exposure.
Why This Is Structural, Not Cyclical
Rare earth supply chains have three layers of concentration risk, each with a different time horizon to resolve:
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Mining concentration. China pro