Chinas Export Restrictions Stoke Fears About Battery Supply Chains
China has slapped export controls on graphite, a key mineral used to make steel and electric car batteries, ratcheting up a trade fight with the United States over the technologies needed to wean the world’s economy off planet-heating fossil fuels. The measures, announced Friday in a joint declaration from Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs, banned exports of artificial graphite, the natural flake version of the mineral, and products made with them unless the government grants permission. The restrictions take effect on Dec. 1. “Graphite is a key material that holds strategic significance in new-energy industry and global players are fiercely competing with one another in this sector,” Tian Yun, an economist in Beijing, told the Chinese nationalist ne...