A review of research on the geopolitical risks and security of China’s critical mineral supply

Abstract

At present, geopolitics has become a significant force affecting the global resource market. China has a high dependence on importing strategic mineral resources. It is crucial to prevent the threatening impact of geopolitical risks on resource import security, and to deepen the implementation of the national resource security strategy. This article reviewed relevant literature both in China and internationally from the perspective of resource geopolitics theory, systematically analyzing the development process, key issues, and current geopolitical risks faced by China’s critical mineral resource supply security. Further literature analysis identified that there are three paths that geopolitical risks affect China’s resource import. The first path is “risk-demand and supply imbalance-price uncertainty”, where the geopolitical risks would make the resource price fluctuate by affecting the market demand-supply network; The second path is “risk-source crisis-supply uncertainty”, which refers to the threat to the stability of resource supply posed by geopolitical risks through triggering import source crises; The third path is “risk-channel vulnerability-transportation uncertainty”, which means that geopolitical risks exacerbate the vulnerability of import transportation channels and further cause disruption to resource transportation. A systematic review of main empirical studies found that relevant studies generally support the negative impact of geopolitical risks on China’s resource import, but also suggest that this impact is nonlinear and there is an interactive relationship between the impact paths. This article also summarized the resource geo-security strategies in the literature. On this basis, future research directions are proposed, including improving the assessment of resource geopolitical risk,exploring the pattern of price changes under geopolitical risk, strengthening the dynamic identification of geopolitical risk in resource transportation process.

Keywords

• strategic mineral resources|geopolitical risk|supply security|impact mechanism|research review