Japan-Australia rare earths talks highlight neocolonial supply chains and energy transition geopolitics amid global critical mineral scarcity

Indigenous Australian communities, particularly the Larrakia and Yindjibarndi peoples, have resisted rare earth mining projects like Lynas’s operations in Western Australia, citing violations of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) under UNDRIP. These communities frame extraction as a continuation of colonial resource plunder, where land is treated as a sacrifice zone for industrial progress. Their resistance highlights the incompatibility of neoliberal mineral governance with traditional ecological knowledge, which views minerals as part of sacred landscapes rather than commodities. The lack of indigenous representation in Japan-Australia talks reflects systemic exclusion from decision-making on resource governance.

The current rare earths geopolitics echoes 19th-century colonial mineral rushes, where industrial powers extracted resources from colonized territories to fuel their economies, often leaving environmental and social devastation in their wake. Japan’s wartime occupation of Southeast Asia during WWII was driven by resource extraction, including rare earths from China and Indonesia, setting a precedent for today’s supply chain securitization. Australia’s mining sector was built on British colonial land grabs and Indigenous dispossession, a history that continues to shape its role as a primary supplier of critical minerals. The post-war era saw the rise of resource nationalism in the Global South, now countered by neoliberal supply chain strategies in the Global North.

In China, rare earths are treated as a 'tool of the state,' with the government tightly controlling exports to leverage geopolitical influence, reflecting a Confucian-influenced view of resources as communal rather than private property. African nations like the DRC, home to 70% of global cobalt, are increasingly asserting sovereignty over their mineral wealth, challenging Western-dominated supply chains. Japan’s approach, rooted in post-war resource scarcity trauma, prioritizes stockpiling and alliances over sustainable extraction, contrasting with Indigenous Australian views of land as kin rather than inventory. These cross-cultural perspectives reveal a fundamental divide between extractive capitalism and relational resource ethics.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are essential for high-tech industries, including wind turbines, electric vehicles, and military applications, but their extraction is environmentally destructive, involving toxic chemical leaching and radioactive waste. The global REE supply chain is dominated by China (60% of production), with Australia as the second-largest supplier, but recycling rates remain below 1% due to technical and economic barriers. Scientific studies highlight the need for circular economy models, such as urban mining and hydrometallurgical recycling, to reduce reliance on virgin extraction. However, these solutions are underfunded compared to exploration and mining subsidies.

In Aboriginal Australian cosmology, minerals are not inert resources but living entities embedded in Dreamtime narratives, where mining disrupts sacred relationships between land, ancestors, and people. Japanese Shinto traditions view natural resources as imbued with kami (spirits), framing extraction as a desecration of the sacred, a perspective often ignored in industrial planning. Artistic movements like the 'Land Rights' paintings of the 1980s in Australia visually articulated the spiritual cost of mining, yet these voices are excluded from policy discussions. The spiritual dimension of resource governance calls for rituals of reciprocity and limits to extraction, challenging the extractive paradigm.

Scenario modeling by the IEA projects a 400% increase in demand for critical minerals by 2040, with rare earths as a bottleneck, risking supply chain collapses and geopolitical conflicts if current trends persist. Alternative futures include localized circular economies, where communities control mineral recycling and repurposing, reducing reliance on multinational mining firms. Technological futures like bioleaching (using microbes to extract metals) could revolutionize REE recovery but require massive R&D investment and regulatory support. The most plausible near-term scenario is continued geopolitical competition, with Japan and Australia deepening alliances to secure supply, exacerbating global inequalities.

Women in mining-affected communities in Australia and the DRC face disproportionate health risks from toxic exposure, yet their testimonies are rarely included in policy dialogues on rare earths. Indigenous leaders like Yindjibarndi elder Michael Woodley have warned that rare earth mining will poison the Fortescue River, a vital water source, but their concerns are dismissed as 'anti-progress.' In Japan, marginalized groups like the Burakumin and Korean-Japanese communities, historically excluded from resource industries, are now advocating for equitable access to green tech benefits. The absence of these voices in Japan-Australia talks reflects a systemic erasure of those most affected by mineral extraction.