On May 29, 2026, China’s Ministry of Commerce officially responded to the export control of key strategic metals to Japan, clarifying that the relevant regulatory measures are completely legal, compliant and reasonable. The core purpose of the policy is to protect domestic scarce strategic resources and maintain the security and stability of global industrial and supply chains.

The export control targets rare strategic metals including gallium, germanium and antimony, which are core raw materials for new energy, semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace and military industries. The new regulation strictly standardizes the export approval process, eliminates disorderly and low-price export behaviors, and avoids excessive consumption of non-renewable strategic resources.

The Ministry of Commerce emphasized that the export control measure is not a targeted trade barrier against any country, but a common international practice for resource protection and industrial security management. Many major economies have adopted similar regulatory policies for strategic scarce resources to safeguard their own industrial development and national security interests.

The implementation of the control policy will effectively standardize the development of the domestic rare metal industry, curb blind low-end export competition, and promote the industry to shift from quantitative export growth to high-value-added development. Meanwhile, it can fully guarantee the stable supply of high-quality raw materials for China’s high-end manufacturing, semiconductor and new energy industries.

Industry institutions predict that the standardized management of strategic metals will optimize the global resource allocation pattern, promote the healthy and sustainable development of related industrial chains, and help China maintain core advantages in the global high-end manufacturing and new energy tracks.