Where Data Tells the Story
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Japan and the United States are China’s most consequential strategic rivals. They are also its two largest customers for rare earth metals and compounds.
These compounds are materials inside fighter jets, electric vehicle motors, missile guidance systems, and wind turbines.
Today’s infographic shows Chinese Exports of Rare Earth Metals and Compounds by country.
The data comes from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook published in April 2026. It was actually sourced from World Integrated Trade Solution data.
The IMF does not include charts in its flagship economic assessment without purpose.
A rare-earth export destination map appearing in the April 2026 World Economic Outlook is the institution’s way of flagging supply concentration as a systemic macroeconomic risk.
It’s not a supply chain management challenge for individual companies, but a structural vulnerability at the level of global economic stability.
Seven named destinations account for virtually all of China's rare earth export flows. Two of them account for 70%.
Japan has no significant domestic rare earth deposits.
Its hybrid-vehicle manufacturing, consumer-electronics sector, and defense-components industry depend entirely on imported supply.
In 2010, China halted rare-earth shipments to Japan for approximately two months amid a territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
Rare earth prices spiked globally. And, Japan launched a national diversification strategy.
Fifteen years later, Japan still receives more Chinese rare-earth exports than any other country on Earth.
The United States, at 33%, presents a different kind of contradiction.
American defense contractors (including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon) use rare earth elements in F-35 fighter jets, guided missiles, and radar systems.
The Pentagon’s hardware supply chain runs through China for materials used in the weapons systems the United States deploys globally.
In April 2025, China imposed export controls on seven rare earth elements, including terbium, dysprosium, and yttrium.
That’s precisely the heavy rare earths used in defense applications.