With a total surface area of approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China has abundant land resources and possesses strategic shares in various mineral resources. Due to its geologic preconditions, China has proved reserves of nearly all major minerals. As of 2018, proven reserves of iron ore in China had amounted to about 85 billion tons. But due to the low quality of its iron ore reserves, the demand of iron ore in China still heavily relies on iron ore imports.

The domestic economy in China is largely based on energy-intensive heavy industrial production. In order to maintain its growth momentum, the country has subsequently increased its primary energy production to over 3.7 billion tons of coal equivalent as of 2018. China’s north-western regions such as Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, the so-called Chinese coal belt, not only produce huge amount of coal but also petroleum and natural gas. China invests billions yuan in geological exploration of resources every year, predominantly oil and gas. Among non-fossil resources, gold and lead-zinc received the highest investment for geological exploration, around a billion yuan annually.

China has the biggest reserve of rare earths in the world. Rare earths have received heightened attention from international industries due to their applicability in different industries, among them the production of LED monitors, batteries and illuminants. In order to avoid over-exploitation, Chinese government had set strict export limits for rare earths exports since 2009, which led to a significant decrease in rare earths exports from over 50,000 tons in 2009 to about 30,000 tons right after. However, export quotas were scrapped after China lost a World Trade Organization case brought by its trading partners over controls that alarmed global technology producers. In the last few years, the rare earths exports of China showed a declining trend again, falling from a height of over 53,000 tons in 2018 to a recent low of around 35,000 tons in 2020.

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