"China’s dominance of the first-stage of the global rare earths...

"China’s dominance of the first-stage of the global rare earths chain is weakening,..."

should read: ....is expanding".

They have expanded their mining operations far beyond China. They do not want to mine at home for export. They would much prefer to mine global reserves to produce REE-value-added products for global consumption and mine domestic reserves to satisfy domestic consumption. They have been telling the world that for a very long time.

They are also intensely focused on strategic far- thinking moves to preserve their monopoly, which appears stronger than ever, imo. Amanda's entire management team confirmed "No move to expand by Japanese magnet-makers". Imho, that means China's market share is increasing.

When you are making billions from millions, you make sure your suppliers are happy. Quite a moat they're building. Because they have supply security, they can tailor upgrades far more efficiently from mine to magnet, where XXROW finds itself struggling to get anything started.

As the United States pursues China up the rare earths value chain, it is finding that each segment poses its own problem all the way through to finished products.