Losing ground is not just about physical territory. In the case of increasingly important element called gallium (Ga), China is far, far, far ahead, with 98% of global supply for raw or low-purity gallium from China.
Gallium is increasingly vital element because when it combined with other materials, it will become what called as ‘wide bandgap’ (WBG) semiconductors, with high possibility to replace silicon (Si), at least at some applications this near time. WBG can withstand higher frequencies, temperature and voltage than silicon semiconductors. One of well known military application is GaN (gallium nitride) radars, like in F-35 for example. Colin Whelan, President of Advanced Technology at Raytheon Missiles and Defense, even said in 2023 that, “GaN is foundational to nearly all the cutting-edge defense technology that we produce.”
Where this gallium came from? Primarily, gallium extracted as byproduct of processing bauxite into aluminum. Even though bauxite is abundant, but its mining only concentrated in four countries; China, Indonesia, Australia and West Africa country of Guyana*. This scale of high Chinese productions of gallium can’t be ruled out from its government policies, one of it is requiring its aluminum producers to install capacity to extract gallium. This policy create oversupply for global demand of gallium, make gallium extraction for producers other than Chinese less feasible economically which mean they need to compete against Chinese cheap gallium.
China has secured a virtual monopoly over gallium, a critical mineral used to produce microchips in advanced military technologies. Failing to de-risk gallium supply chains could have serious security and economic consequences for the United States and its allies.
features.csis.org
Edit:
*) My bad. Not Guyana but Guinea