Why you should worry about gallium

You will be forgiven for not having heard of, let alone given much thought to, a raw material called gallium. So, to explain: it’s a by-product of the bauxite-to-aluminium smelting process, it’s used in semiconductors and it is vital for the latest missile defence and radar technologies. Israel’s Iron Dome and the US Patriot Missile system rely on materials such as gallium to guard the skies against Iranian drones and Russian cruise missiles. The only problem is that 98 per cent of the world’s gallium comes from China. 

‘Mineral diplomacy’ can now be added to the long list of ‘diplomacies’ governing relations between China and the West. (See ‘vaccine diplomacy’, ‘climate diplomacy’ etc.) China’s monopoly of the mineral market has become very important to Beijing’s foreign policy, and something of a sticking point in US-China relations – the US is trying to ‘de-couple’ its supply chains from China. This week, Indian trade minister Piyush Goyal visited Washington