Provider of in-depth & balanced analysis on hot issues around the world

Australia plays a pivotal role in global Lithium supply chains. While joining initiatives like the Minerals Security Partnership may in the short term provide strategic security, this must be weighed against the broader interests of global development and climate change mitigation.  Lithium is both a critical element and strategic resource as nations strive to achieve their decarbonisation goals. Amid increasing geopolitical tensions, nationalism, and protectionism, investments in strategic resources are subject to security reviews to assess potential political risks and safeguard national security interests. Such scrutiny reflects the growing importance of protecting critical resources and assets as countries strive to maintain their sovereignty in an uncertain global environment where trust and adherence to a rules-based order are diminishing. China currently dominates the global lithium supply chain with over 60 percent of processing capacity, 65 percent of lithium-ion battery component manufacturing, and 77 percent of battery manufacturing. The concentration of the lithium supply chain in China has raised concerns in the United States (US) and the European Union, resulting in a shared priority of reducing dependence on China in their respective industrial and trade policies. Accounting for 55 percent of global lithium production – with 96 percent of it exported to China in 2022 – Australia holds a significant position in the “de-risking” effort of the US-led Minerals Security Partnership, which aims to strengthen commercial ties between strategically aligned nations. Australian Resources Minister Madeleine King has emphasised the importance that Australia participate in this alliance. Jim Chalmers, Australia’s Treasurer, has called for caution and selectivity in foreign investments in critical minerals. While not explicitly stated, it is evident that Australia intends to impose restrictions on investments from China in critical minerals. At the recent G7 Summit in Japan, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reached an agreement to build an independent supply chain for critical minerals. As part of this agreement, Australian companies will have the opportunity to benefit from US subsidies if they establish value-adding facilities within Australia. Building onshore lithium processing facilities in Australia can provide benefits such as reduced shipping costs and job creation. However, it requires significant investment in building processing technology and waste management facilities. Meanwhile, aligning with the US-led alliance could risk escalating tensions with the potential for retaliation from China. But, accepting China’s investment and technology for onshore lithium processing may raise concerns about aligning with China’s political identity. The definition of “likemindedness” and the alignment of interests in foreign investment have become subject to debate. Tianqi Lithium, a Chinese company, portrayed itself as a “likeminded” foreign investor during its attempt to acquire equity in ASX-listed Essential Metals (ESS), emphasising its potential contribution to Australia’s moving up the value chain. However, this interpretation contradicts the evolving understanding of the term held by Australian politicians and the public, which is more narrowly focused on political identity. Benefits and costs Within this competition, a primary concern is that China will leverage its dominant position as a geopolitical  “chokepoint,” similar to the way Russia did over energy resources during its invasion of Ukraine. However, reciprocity is also true in a chokepoint strategy due to interdependence. Possessing eight percent of known global lithium reserves, China relies on imports for about 65 percent of its lithium production. This dependence exposes China to its own potential chokepoint. In this respect, Australia plays a pivotal role in China’s supply chain security. The fear of being “strangled” in the supply of lithium has led to a growing  security dilemma – nations strive to secure a stable and uninterrupted supply for decarbonisation efforts; however, this pursuit  could trigger a cycle of competition for production and processing capacity, potentially resulting in redundancy in the supply chain and, more importantly, increased pollution. The US, despite being a major consumer of lithium batteries, has limited control over the global lithium supply, with only one percent of known lithium reserves. To ensure energy security during the clean energy transition, the United States is actively pursuing strategies to strengthen its position in the lithium supply chain. This may involve decoupling or de-risking strategies that come with economic, social, and environmental costs but can provide advantages in terms of global influence, political leadership, and technology sovereignty compared to China. While clean energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles offer carbon-neutral benefits during use, their production processes can have a substantial environmental impact – lithium extraction and processing, for example, is energy-intensive and can contribute to carbon emissions. A recent opinion article in Nature highlights the importance of considering the entire life cycle of clean energy technologies, from production to application, to effectively mitigate their environmental impact. Driven by the need for energy security and its commitment to achieving its carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, China has made remarkable strides in developing clean energy technologies over the past decade. Notably, China has gained a significant advantage across the supply chain. This competitive edge has been achieved through substantial investment in research and development, but also significant environmental costs. In 2022, China’s investment in clean energy technology exceeded – by more than 50 percent – that of all of the G7 nations, plus South Korea, and India, combined. China is strategically investing in future technologies, including the full cycle of lithium production. Chinese lithium giants are constructing solar power stations for clean lithium extraction in South America, and Chinese researchers are working on battery recycling technologies and exploring new materials and innovative processes in battery making. Riding on an established wheel or inventing a new one? When it comes to fighting climate change and the urgent need for action, nations have the choice to build upon established technologies or explore new ones. Countries need to adopt an open-minded approach and avoid repeating past mistakes that have harmed the environment in the search for sustainable solutions. This requires a global effort based on collaboration and cooperation, transcending political divisions. China, as a developing country, has benefited from technology transfer and foreign investment during its industrialisation. In the emerging area of clean energy transition, it has gained first-mover advantages, although it has incurred significant costs, especially environmental damage. Chinese investment is often referred to as “red capital,” indicating the potential for political influence, particularly by its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in foreign investment projects. Though most of Chinese lithium companies are private businesses, they are still collectively categorised as red capital, and not viewed as likeminded investors. It would be short-sighted to reject Chinese technologies and investments solely on the basis of political divisions. Instead, countries should learn from both the successes and challenges of China’s experience to achieve their decarbonisation goals. For Australia, it is important to go beyond simplistic policies and carefully assess the benefits and costs of joining a US-centered geopolitical bloc in the lithium supply chain. Such a decision could have repercussions, including retaliations and disruptions in global supply chains and trade. Moreover, it is crucial to both fully assess the environmental consequences and carefully calculate the necessary investments in technology and infrastructure in order to develop a strategic plan that benefits Australia, contributes to global decarbonisation efforts, and promotes the well-being of humanity.

At the end of March, the negotiations that started in June 2021 on the accession of the United Kingdom to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) were successfully concluded, reflecting radical changes in British trade priorities after Brexit. More broadly, this move by London undoubtedly confirms the special importance that the Indo-Pacific region has acquired in the concept of "Global Britain" and in its subsequent relevant updates. The signing ceremony is scheduled for July 2023, for which the trade ministers of the participating countries and the United Kingdom will meet in Auckland (New Zealand). As a result of London's accession, this bloc will surpass the EU in terms of the combined population of its constituent countries. However, unlike the European Union, which the United Kingdom, on the contrary, left, the CPTPP does not have - to the satisfaction of British Eurosceptics - its own court like the EU Court of Justice, or a supranational budget. The union operates as a multinational trade agreement. An important obstacle that hindered reaching an agreement more quickly was London's refusal to weaken national food standards. But in the end, Ottawa (Canada) backed down on calls for London to lift the ban on importing beef with growth hormones. Beijing has also applied for membership in the CPTPP following London (the Chinese application is dated September 16, 2021, but negotiations have not yet begun). However, with London's accession as a full member of the agreement, China's chances of joining the bloc look somewhat weaker, as London is likely to obtain veto power on this issue. It is possible that they will use this veto under the pretext of ensuring higher trade standards within the agreement (including issues related to ecology and food safety). In any case, as It is known, the current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak refers to China as a "systemic challenge", which London intends to respond to with "dynamic pragmatism." Currently, the CPTPP includes 11 states (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam), none of which are European. These countries collectively account for 13% of global GDP. The new partnership replaced the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement of 2016 with 12 participants, after former US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in 2017. In 2020, the 11 countries of the CPTPP accounted for 8.4% of goods and services exported from the United Kingdom. In turn, 6.8% of imports to the United Kingdom came from these countries. The terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership eliminate unnecessary barriers to mutual trade of services by opening financial markets and reducing obstacles to cross-border investment, facilitating data exchange, increasing business mobility, and ensuring regulatory transparency. All of this will support the British government's plans to turn the country into a global technology and service hub, strengthen semiconductor and critical mineral supply chains to produce electric vehicles and wind turbines.London already has trade agreements with most members of this trading bloc, but now these relationships can deepen, and 99% of British goods exported to the bloc countries will be subject to zero import tariffs. Tariffs on imports of Peruvian bananas, Vietnamese rice, crab sticks from Singapore, and Malaysian palm oil into the UK will be reduced (this is a controversial issue that has sparked discussion in the UK, as the production of palm oil, as ecologists point out, leads to deforestation of tropical forests). At the same time, according to assessments by the British government itself, joining the CPTPP is expected to add no more than 0.08% per year to the country's economic growth in the long term (while the slowdown in growth due to Brexit is estimated at 4%). Many politicians and trade experts rightfully point out that participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is not capable of compensating for the economic losses that the UK is experiencing due to its departure from the EU. Moreover, due to differences in its rules and standards from European regulations, Britain's accession will prevent it from returning to the European Union in case of a change of priorities. In other words, this agreement is like driving an additional wedge into the relationship between London and Brussels, which are just starting to improve. It is worth remembering in this regard that it was Liz Truss, a former trade minister in Boris Johnson's cabinet and one of the main advocates of independence from the EU, who submitted the British application to join the CPTPP. So far, for London, it is not so much a direct economic, but rather a strategic and symbolic acquisition, firstly due to the rapid growth (according to some estimates, up to 65% by 2030) in the number of middle-class consumers in a dynamically developing region, committed to innovation, and secondly, because of the fact that in the foreseeable future, mid-ranking trading powers such as Thailand and South Korea, which have already submitted applications, are planning to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Membership in the TPP is becoming more important for Britain due to the unattainability of a large trade agreement with the United States and the crisis in the World Trade Organization, which is currently unable to firmly enforce the rules of global trade. The matter is not limited to trade alone as London's foreign policy is clearly shifting towards the Indo-Pacific region. In this sense, Australia and Japan, concerned about economic pressure from China and its military ambitions, see Great Britain as a natural ally in opposing Beijing. It is assumed that stronger economic ties will lead to the strengthening of geostrategic alliances. Due to the high dependence of countries such as Chile on Beijing, which is the largest trading partner and main investor for Chileans, Britain's participation in the CPTPP, according to London's opinion, will contribute to the establishment of necessary connections that are seen by Britain's partners in the region as an attractive alternative to ties with China.

The dollar’s strength is placing pressure on economies around the world, including in developing Asia. What makes this bout of dollar strength unique is that the stress is not limited to Asia’s developing economies. Asian economies are diverse and the direct financial impact of dollar strength varies. Some regional economies have significant foreign currency debts and limited foreign currency reserves. Unsurprisingly, these economies are in financial trouble. Sri Lanka defaulted on its bonds earlier in the year and is now trying to restructure its external debt. Pakistan has had to seek an emergency financing package from the International Monetary Fund, backstopped with pledges of additional support from both China and the Gulf. Bangladesh has proactively sought out IMF financing in the face of a terms of trade shock. Laos is, in all probability, relying on the continued forbearance of China’s policy banks to manage its unsustainable debt loads. All these countries are struggling to pay for imports of oil and natural gas. A broader set of Asian economies have relatively strong foreign currency balance sheets and are not at risk of immediate financial distress. Many have been able to rely on their local currency bond markets to finance fiscal deficits, limiting their direct financial vulnerability to swings in the dollar. India is in a much stronger position than during the 2013–14 ‘taper’ tantrum. It started 2022 with US$650 billion in foreign reserves, more than double the US$250 billion it held in 2012. The Indian government’s external debt, primarily to the multilateral development banks, only totalled US$125 billion. Thailand’s government started 2022 with over US$250 billion in foreign exchange reserves — or over 50 per cent of its GDP — while owing a bit over US$30 billion to external creditors. Other countries have more subtle strengths. For example, a substantial share of Indonesia’s US$80 billion in international sovereign bonds are denominated in yen. At the same time, balance sheet resilience is not sufficient to insulate a country’s broader economy from the impacts of a strong dollar. Even countries that have little to fear financially worry about the impact of currency weakness on households’ costs of living. There has been little correlation to date between the extent of currency depreciation across the main Asian currencies and the underlying strength of countries’ foreign currency balance sheets. The currencies of advanced Asian economies have actually depreciated more than the currencies of developing Asian economies. Japan — with plenty of reserves, significant foreign assets in its government pension fund and insurance companies that are structurally ‘long’ dollars — has experienced the largest depreciation. Taiwan and South Korea have followed. Meanwhile India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have experienced smaller depreciations. The reason for this is simple. Up until Japan’s heavy intervention in late September 2022, lower income Asian economies had been more willing to defend their currencies through a combination of rate increases and foreign reserve sales. There are signs that this is changing. Japan intervened heavily in September and October. South Korea is now worried that the won  has become too weak and is seeking to join Japan in obtaining a standing Federal Reserve swap line to meet dollar liquidity needs in its financial sector — potentially freeing up more of its existing reserves for intervention. Even though the dollar is now off its October peak, developing Asian economies continue to face several risks. The first is that certain economies may overestimate their balance sheet strength and sell foreign exchange for longer than is prudent. The basic principle is that temporary shocks can be financed with borrowed or reserve sales while permanent shocks require adjustment. The longer global energy prices remain high and the dollar remains strong, the more difficult it will be for countries to avoid adjustment. The second risk is the possibility of an additional shock from Japan. Japan’s efforts to limit the yen’s depreciation through intervention may fail, as it is harder for Japan to defend its currency through intervention than it is for smaller economies, whose financial markets remain less integrated into global markets. There is the additional risk that yen weakness and imported inflation could lead the Bank of Japan to abandon its policy of ‘yield curve control’ and that the associated rise in long-term Japanese government bond rates could push up interest rates globally. Many emerging economies would likely need to raise their domestic interest rates to avoid importing additional inflation, and to limit popular pressure for fiscal subsidies to offset higher fuel prices. This would be the Asian version of what is now called a reverse currency war. The third risk is a currency shock from China. China has long relied primarily on the signal sent by the People’s Bank of China’s daily fix — the central reference point for daily trading — to manage the yuan with only limited direct intervention by its central bank. To date, the pressure on China appears manageable. News reports suggest that the PBoC has leaned on China’s large state banks to use their balance sheets to help maintain the trading band around the yuan, but there is little evidence of pressure on the central bank’s reserves. However, if its economy remains weak, China may choose to allow more depreciation — both against the dollar and against the currencies of its trading partners to restart its economy. This would be an admission that China’s ability to avoid a prolonged stall through internal demand is limited and that exports are again required for growth. A yuan that is as weak as the yen could easily trigger a race down across the currencies of developing Asia. Many, though not all, developing Asian economies are less vulnerable to a repeat of the 1997 crisis. But few countries will be able to escape the fallout from the dollar’s current strength. A broader overshoot of many currencies that amplifies concentrated pockets of debt difficulties and complicates the fight against inflation globally remains a real risk.

China’s silence towards the European Union’s electric vehicle probe could mean that a more harmful retaliation is on its way During her State of the Union address on 13 September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Union would undertake an anti-subsidy probe against the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) sector. This signalled a major step in the EU’s shift to a more aggressive trade defence against China and raises the question of how China will react, given the importance of the Chinese market to key sectors of the European economy (including the auto and luxury sectors), and also given China’s crucial role in providing goods to the EU for the green transition? An EU-China High Economic and Trade dialogue on 25 September in Beijing, between EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and his Chinese counterparts, may have given a glimpse into China’s mindset. There were fears Chinese officials would respond aggressively to von der Leyen’s announcement during Dombrovskis’s visit but this was not the case. Nevertheless, the silence may be deceptive. Three main factors should be taken into account when considering potential Chinese retaliation. Subtle but harmful retaliation First, China might file its own anti-subsidy investigation at the World Trade Organisation against key European sectors. This would not be difficult since Europe has ramped up its subsidies massively since the pandemic, and more recently has attempted to gain more ‘strategic autonomy’ in sectors including semiconductors. There is very little the EU can do about this potential retaliation, which would be costly for the sectors targeted and for the EU’s image as a free-trade and WTO champion. Second, China could try to persuade EU governments that the Commission-led investigation should be withdrawn. A similar probe happened in early 2014, when the EU launched an anti-subsidy investigation into solar panels produced in China. President Xi Jinping visited then Chancellor Angela Merkel right after the anti-subsidy investigation was announced. Subsequently, the issue was settled quickly, with the Commission withdrawing the case from the WTO. Based on this previous experience, China might prefer to take up the issue bilaterally, possibly with Germany again, rather than enter discussions with the Commission. But a major difference this time is the relative importance of the auto sector in the EU compared to solar power. The auto sector accounts for 14 million jobs in Europe and a good part of the EU’s exports. Exports of cars and components are heavily concentrated in a few EU countries, especially Germany. These exports to China have plummeted in 2023, with a close to 30% drop, and Chinese competition in third markets and even the EU market, has become much more intense. Third, also unlike the solar-panel probe, it is the Commission and not the sector being harmed that has filed the case. It will be harder for the Commission to withdraw the investigation because it would lose credibility. Merkel decided to accommodate Xi Jinping’s request in 2014 because she wanted to save the auto sector, even at the cost of hurting a smaller part of the German economy – the solar panel companies. The new investigation aims to protect the automotive sector. There could be consequences for major European auto companies producing electric vehicles in China, but jobs in Europe are now more important than the future of those companies in China. In any case, the future of European manufacturers is bleak; they seem to have already lost the EV race to their Chinese competitors. China will find it much harder to move the EU away from its decision to pursue an anti-subsidy investigation, differently to what happened in 2014. Lessons to learn There might be a lesson for Europe in what happened to Apple in China in September. Days before Apple’s launch of its new iPhone 15, Huawei launched its Mate 60 with upgraded functionalities which require high-end semiconductors. Beyond raising doubts about the effectiveness of US-led export controls on advanced semiconductors, this announcement constituted a direct challenge to Apple’s phone sales in China. Chinese officials were also prohibited from using iPhones and rumours spread in Chinese media in advance of the Apple launch about the underwhelming quality of the iPhone 15. Investors dumped Apple stock globally and the company lost about 6% of its value in a few days. China’s retaliation against the Commission’s anti-subsidy investigation might not be as direct and transparent, but it will still be harmful and might offer less room for the EU to respond. Europe’s strategic dependence on China is greater than in 2014 and this probe has the potential to cause a bigger fall-out for the EU. China has strengthened its position as a global power and uncompetitive behaviour could hit European core sectors harder because China has more power to retaliate. On the flip side, the stakes are higher for the EU given the importance of the auto sector in terms of jobs and exports. For that reason, China may not manage to deter the EU’s investigation as easily as it did in the past. But this may prompt China to threaten even larger retaliation.