EDITORIAL: Indium, gallium, germanium — Beijing cuts the West off from its war metals

Introduction: Beijing's silent counterattack

June 2026: the export controls that change everything

In June 2026, China once again tightened export controls on three strategic metals — indium, gallium, and germanium. This decision, technical in appearance, is in reality a precision economic weapon deployed in direct response to Pentagon sanctions and blacklisting of Chinese companies. Beijing did not fire a missile. It simply closed a tap. And that tap controls a critical share of the Western military and technology industry.

The Western response to these controls too often resembles paralysis. These metals have been known as critical for years. Reports on vulnerabilities in strategic raw material supply chains have multiplied since the pandemic. And yet the dependency remains structural, deep, and slow to reduce. China built this dependency patiently. It is now monetizing it, at the moment of its choosing.

80% of global production: a monopoly position

Chinacontrols more than 80% of global production of indium, gallium, and germanium. This is not the result of geological fortune — these metals are found on every continent. It is the result of a deliberate 30-year industrial strategy: invest massively in extraction and refining capabilities, maintain low production costs through economies of scale and relaxed environmental regulation, and let Western competitors offshore their production for cost reasons. The result: a de facto monopoly over materials indispensable to the global military and technology industry.

This monopoly is all the more dangerous because it covers metals with no direct short-term substitutes for many critical applications. Switching oil suppliers can be done relatively quickly. Rebuilding the gallium refining capacity needed to produce GaN amplifiers for military radar systems cannot be done in a few months.

Gallium: the invisible metal of modern weapons systems

Gallium in every military radar

Gallium is probably the metal least known to the general public and one of the most critical for Western defense. It is the indispensable ingredient of gallium nitride (GaN) transistors — the basic technology of power amplifiers in modern radar systems. The AESA radars of F-35 fighters, Patriot systems, maritime surveillance radars — all use GaN components that require gallium.

Beyond radars, gallium is present in precision-guided missiles (guidance electronics), C4ISR systems (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), and secure satellite communication systems. Cutting off access to gallium is potentially cutting off the supply of critical electronic components for the entire Western military command chain.

Structural dependency and its correction timelines

Rebuilding gallium production capacity outside China takes years, not months. The byproducts of aluminum smelting, in which gallium is naturally present, must be processed in specialized facilities whose construction and regulatory compliance stretch across long investment cycles. Europe and the United States have projects underway, notably in Germany and Canada, but these projects will not be operational until 2028-2030.

Between June 2026 and 2028, the Western defense industry must manage with existing stocks and long-term contracts. ArentFox (June 25, 2026) documents that Chinese export controls are already creating procurement delays and cost overruns that are beginning to weigh on military production programs. This is not yet a crisis — but it is a red alert that is flashing.

Germanium: the army's night vision under threat

The metal of night vision and military fiber optics

Germanium is, alongside gallium, one of the most vulnerable metals in the Western defense supply chain. It is essential for two critical military applications: infrared night vision systems and high-performance military fiber optics. These two applications are not peripheral — they are at the heart of the tactical advantages that Western armies have cultivated since the Gulf War.

Night superiority — the ability to see and fight effectively at night when the adversary cannot — is one of the most valuable asymmetric advantages of American and NATO forces. It relies on night vision goggles, thermal cameras, and infrared guidance systems that all use germanium. Limiting access to germanium is directly attacking this night superiority.

Fiber optics: the backbone of secure communications

High-performance military fiber optics use germanium in their core to optimize high-speed data transmission and reduce signal attenuation over long distances. These fibers constitute the backbone of secure military communication networks — the links that allow commanders to transmit encrypted orders, sensors to transmit their data, and C2 systems to function in a networked fashion.

Cutting off the germanium supply does not instantly neutralize these networks — the fibers already in place continue to function. But it prevents their extension, replacement, and maintenance. On the scale of a prolonged war or a prolonged period of tension, this constraint gradually becomes critical.

Indium: the screens guiding soldiers

Indium in military displays

Indium — with 57% of global production extracted in China — is primarily used in the form of ITO (Indium Tin Oxide), a transparent and conductive material applied to touchscreens, OLED displays, and military cockpit panels. High-performance military LEDs and infrared optical detectors also use significant quantities.

In contemporary defense, screens are ubiquitous: fighter aircraft dashboards, missile command interfaces, battlefield management systems, drones — every modern weapons system has graphic interfaces that use indium. The dependency is diffuse, spread across thousands of components, which makes it all the more difficult to address quickly through specific substitutions.

Long-term alternatives: prohibitive timelines and costs

Alternative technologies to ITO exist or are in development — notably graphene films or doped zinc oxides — but they are not yet mature for large-scale industrial use in military components. The military component electronics qualification processes take years and costly certifications, further slowing the transition to indium alternatives.

The European Union and the United States have substitution programs underway, notably within their respective Critical Raw Materials Acts. But these programs operate on five-to-ten-year horizons — timelines that are incompatible with the strategic urgency created by China's June 2026 export restrictions.

The context: the Pentagon blacklist and Beijing's response

A proportionate and calculated response

The tightening of Chinese export controls on critical metals in June 2026 is a direct response to the listing of new Chinese companies on the Pentagon's Entity List and American sanctions targeting Chinese military and technological capabilities. This response is not impulsive — it is calculated to maximize American and European economic pain while staying below a threshold that would trigger a symmetrical military response or global sanctions.

CNBC reports on June 23, 2026 that tariff policies and American procurement policies have already created supply chain disruptions on both sides. China transforms these mutual disruptions into a unilateral weapon by targeting metals over which it has a near-monopoly — materials that the United States cannot immediately obtain elsewhere in sufficient quantities.

The logic of commercial escalation and its dangers

This step-by-step escalation — American sanctions, Chinese counter-restrictions on metals, potential counter-sanctions on other domains — follows a logic of controlled trade war. Each party seeks to maintain pressure without crossing the red lines that would transform economic competition into direct confrontation. But the margins of error shrink as tensions accumulate.

KPMG Navigator (June 23, 2026) notes that multinationals operating in the technology and defense sectors must now integrate supply chain geopolitical risk as a primary variable in their investment decisions — at the same level as interest rates or currency risks. This is a profound transformation of the global economic environment that China's restrictions on critical metals illustrate with particular acuity.

The European response: between assumed dependency and proclaimed urgency

Europe and its own vulnerabilities

Europe is in an even more vulnerable position than the United States on critical metals. EU Insider (June 23, 2026) signals that the ReArm Europe program now explicitly integrates the reduction of dependencies on Chinese raw materials as a priority. The European Defence Fund has made ITAR-free a funding criterion — but the critical metals question goes beyond the ITAR framework: it touches the raw materials themselves, not just American technologies from which Europe wants to free itself.

Mining and refining projects are under development in Europe — the European Critical Raw Materials Act of 2024 created a legal framework for these investments. But the delay between initial investment and viable commercial production is five to ten years, in the best cases. Europe launched its critical materials awakening too late to be shielded from China's 2026 pressures.

Alternative partnerships: Canada, Australia, Africa

The long-term strategic response requires diversification of supply sources. Canada has significant germanium deposits. Australia, with its exceptional mineral wealth and its commitment to the AUKUS partnership, is a natural partner for securing critical metals supply chains. Several African nations possess important resources — but their extraction requires massive infrastructure investments that neither the EU nor the United States has yet mobilized at the necessary scale.

The American Minerals Security Partnership program, launched in 2022, moves in the right direction — but its concrete results remain limited. Building alternative supply chains takes time and money, in a context where governments are simultaneously called upon to finance defense, the energy transition, and social needs. Democracies' priorities are many. Their resources, less so.

Toward a doctrine of economic resistance

Strategic stockpiles: the buffer solution

While alternative production capabilities are brought online, building strategic stockpiles of critical metals is the most immediate emergency measure. The United States maintains a Strategic National Stockpile whose metallic components have been depleted or reduced in recent years under budget pressure. Replenishing it for critical metals — gallium, germanium, indium, but also rare earths, cobalt, lithium — is a national defense priority.

Europe lacks a coordinated European-level equivalent. Discussions are underway to create a European strategic stockpile mechanism for critical metals, but they have not yet resulted in a concrete funding decision. As long as Europe does not have its own strategic reserves, it will be vulnerable to every surge of Chinese commercial policy.

Transatlantic coordination: an absolute necessity

Faced with this shared vulnerability, the United States and Europe must coordinate their responses with an urgency they have not yet demonstrated. A transatlantic agreement on the sharing of critical metals strategic stockpiles, on coordination of alternative mining investment programs, and on commercial policies toward Chinese restrictions would allow a collectively more effective response than fragmented national policies.

The NATO Ankara summit (July 7-8, 2026) should be an opportunity to place this coordination of critical metals supply chains on the collective defense agenda. The security of raw materials is national security. NATO, whose raison d'être is collective defense, should formally integrate it into its planning processes. The wars of the 21st century are also won in mines and refining laboratories.

The strategic lesson: never create a dependency of which the adversary is the sole supplier

The principle of strategic non-dependency

The current situation on critical metals illustrates a fundamental strategic principle that should have guided Western economic policies for thirty years: never become structurally dependent on a potential adversary for inputs critical to your national security. This principle, obvious in theory, has been systematically sacrificed on the altar of short-term economic efficiency and free-trade globalization.

It is not only the metals. The same finding applies to semiconductors (Taiwan), generic medicines (India/China), solar panels (China), lithium batteries (China). The list of critical dependencies is long and continues to grow despite repeated warnings since 2020. The pandemic was a warning signal. China's restrictions on metals in 2026 are another. How many warnings will it take before systemic action?

Strategic autonomy: more than a slogan

Strategic autonomy — a concept championed by France for years and progressively adopted by the entire EU — is not a protectionist slogan. It is a rational response to the structural vulnerability created by three decades of globalization without safeguards. It does not mean autarky — modern economies are too interconnected for that — but the ability to function, defend oneself, and exert diplomatic pressure without being at the mercy of a single supplier for critical inputs.

China's restrictions on gallium, germanium, and indium are one more argument — if one were needed — for investing massively and rapidly in this autonomy. Every million invested now in alternative production capabilities is insurance against far costlier crises tomorrow. The short-term accounting logic has proven dramatically insufficient. It is time to adopt long-term strategic logic.

Concrete consequences for the defense industry in 2026

Delays and cost overruns hitting programs

The concrete impacts of Chinese restrictions on critical metals are already manifesting in Western defense programs. ArentFox (June 25, 2026) documents disruptions in customs controls and import processes that create procurement delays. Defense industrialists report production timeline extensions, costly component substitutions, and urgent negotiations with alternative suppliers that are sometimes less capable.

In the short term, Bloomberg (June 25, 2026) notes that these disruptions push industrialists to build larger precautionary stockpiles — a bullwhip effect that may temporarily amplify apparent shortages before supply stabilizes on new sources. This well-known supply chain management phenomenon takes on unprecedented national security dimensions when it affects critical military components.

Accelerating research into substitution materials

The constraint also creates its own positive dynamic: Chinese restrictions are accelerating research into substitute materials. American and European laboratories are intensifying work on aluminum nitride-based transistors to replace GaN, on alternative conductive films to ITO, on germanium-free infrared detectors. This work would have advanced more slowly without the pressure of supply constraint.

The history of technological innovation shows that supply constraints are sometimes the best accelerators of breakthrough research. The oil crises of the 1970s accelerated the development of fuel-efficient vehicles and civilian nuclear energy. China's restrictions on critical metals could, in time, accelerate the development of an electronics industry less dependent on these materials. The short-term challenge can become a long-term opportunity if the response is equal to it.

Conclusion: the era of comfortable dependency is over

A rupture demanding a systemic response

China's restrictions on indium, gallium, and germanium in June 2026 are not an ordinary commercial incident. They are the manifestation of a deliberate strategy by Beijing to transform its dominance in critical raw materials into a geopolitical lever. This strategy is rational, effective, and deeply dangerous for Western national security.

The response must be equal: strategic stockpiles immediately replenished, massive investments in alternative extraction and refining capabilities, urgent transatlantic coordination, acceleration of research into substitute materials. This program is not optional — it is a condition of the industrial and military sovereignty of democracies in the medium term.

The editorial of strategic lucidity

I state it without equivocation in this editorial: the West committed a major strategic error in allowing China to build this monopoly on critical metals. Correcting this error will take time, money, and political will. But every additional day of paralysis is another day of vulnerability. Beijing played the long game. It is time that democracies did the same — with the urgency the situation demands and the discipline the stakes deserve.

This is not anti-Chinese sentiment. It is realpolitik. China uses its economic advantages as strategic instruments — every great power does. Refusing to see this reality out of naivety or intellectual laziness is the true luxury we can no longer afford.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Method and limitations

This editorial draws on the dated sources from the lot 8 dossier: CNBC (June 23, 2026), ArentFox (June 25, 2026), KPMG Navigator (June 23, 2026), Straits Times (June 21, 2026), Bloomberg (June 25, 2026), and EU Insider (June 23, 2026). Quantified data on Chinese market shares in gallium, germanium, and indium production comes from these sources. No invention.

An editorial is by nature opinionated. This one defends a pro-Western strategic autonomy position that is the columnist's assumed stance. Arguments are grounded in documented facts but their interpretation is subjective and engaged. Readers are invited to debate them.

Editorial positioning

Maxime Marquette defends the economic and industrial sovereignty of Western democracies. His analysis of critical metals is part of a coherent editorial line that refuses to confuse free trade with strategic naivety. This positioning does not reflect hostility to international trade but the conviction that certain strategic sectors require protections that market logic alone cannot guarantee.

The columnist has no financial ties to mining, refining, or defense companies. His analysis is independent of any particular commercial interest.

Sources

Primary sources

CNBC — Trump tariffs, manufacturing, and supply chains — June 23, 2026

ArentFox — The customs and trade world in June 2026: export controls — June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

KPMG Navigator — June 2026: global economic navigation, geopolitical risks — June 23, 2026

Straits Times — New Trump tariffs: trade war and legal challenges — June 21, 2026

Bloomberg — Chinese economy: 6 charts of the slowdown — June 25, 2026

EU Insider — European defense ITAR-free: ReArm Europe — June 23, 2026