National People's Congress Representative and Chinese Academy of Sciences Academician Yan Chunhua: The Rare Earth Industry Should Shift from "Resource Advantage" to "Technological Advantage"

“This year’s government work report emphasizes the implementation of a new round of high-quality development initiatives for key manufacturing industry chains. This is not only a crucial lever for promoting economic growth but also a matter of national strategic security.” National People’s Congress delegate and Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Yan Chunhua said in an interview. As a researcher who has long been engaged in rare earth studies, he pointed out that the core of this strategic initiative is to transform China’s resource endowment advantages into resilient and secure industrial and supply chain advantages, driving the industry from “resource possession” to “technological control” for leapfrog development.

National People’s Congress delegate and Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Yan Chunhua (photo provided by interviewee)

Yan Chunhua stated that manufacturing is the foundation of industry and a concrete reflection of a country’s comprehensive strength. As a key material supporting emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, wind power, and industrial robots, the development path of rare earths vividly exemplifies this strategy. After decades of effort, China has achieved a leap from being a “big country in rare earth resources” to a “big producer of rare earths.” Standing at a new historical starting point, the new round of initiatives aims to help the rare earth industry move away from solely relying on “resource advantages” toward “technological advantages,” entering a stage of deep processing that turns “raw materials into gold,” and truly achieving a leap in new quality productivity.

“However, it is not optimistic that we still face bottlenecks in high-end applications and foundational patents,” Yan Chunhua expressed concern. He pointed out that re-establishing the industrial foundation must first identify the weaknesses. Currently, China has formed a global leading advantage in upstream links such as rare earth mining, beneficiation, and separation, but there are also clear shortcomings: First, gaps exist in high-end applications, such as the high-end neodymium-iron-boron magnets required for electric vehicle drive motors, which still lag behind top Japanese and German products in key indicators like consistency and temperature resistance; second, there is insufficient layout of foundational patents, as countries like the US, Europe, and Japan have built deep “patent moats” in high-end application fields, often creating intellectual property barriers for our exports; third, the transformation from academia and research institutes to industry is not smooth, with basic research results often stopping at the laboratory stage and struggling to reach industrialized, mature technologies in the “last mile.”

Regarding solutions, Yan Chunhua suggested focusing on technological breakthroughs across the entire “materials-device-equipment” chain. He believes that tackling major technical equipment must identify key directions and concentrate efforts on solving “hard bones”:

First, tackling high-end rare earth permanent magnetic materials. These are the “power hearts” of new energy vehicles, wind power, and industrial robots, and breakthroughs are needed to develop new generations of permanent magnets with higher magnetic energy density, higher coercivity, and better temperature stability.

Second, promoting the device application of rare earth functional materials. This should extend from “making materials” to “making devices,” such as developing rare earth super-magnetostrictive materials for high-power sonar and precision actuators, as well as rare earth hydrogen storage materials for hydrogen energy storage and transportation.

Third, developing intelligent preparation equipment. Focus on creating intelligent, green complete sets of equipment to achieve integrated innovation of “materials-process-equipment,” addressing the challenges of complex rare earth material preparation processes and narrow process windows.

How to organize breakthroughs? Yan Chunhua recommended adopting a “new national system” approach, led by leading enterprises, in collaboration with universities and research institutes to form innovation consortia, using a “task-based” mechanism to focus on solving “bottleneck” problems. Currently, industrial clusters in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, and Ganzhou, Jiangxi, are organizing national research forces to carry out targeted, goal-oriented collaborative efforts, which is a beneficial practice of this approach.

Additionally, Yan Chunhua emphasized the importance of cluster development to achieve a “dual-drive” of innovation ecology and chain-based coordination. He believes that building a national advanced manufacturing cluster depends on two key points:

First, establishing a full-chain innovation ecosystem from “basic research” to “technological breakthroughs” to “results transformation.” For example, Ganzhou’s “China Rare Earth Gold Valley” relies on a “national-level” platform to form a science and technology innovation cluster, while Baotou leverages leading enterprises to gather technological resources—both successful explorations. Universities like Peking University and Lanzhou University also play a role by leveraging their basic research and talent advantages, actively participating in collaborations to promote the integration of basic and applied research.

Second, strengthening the leading role of “chain master” enterprises and promoting integration among large, medium, and small enterprises. Clusters are not just a simple gathering of companies but an organic aggregation of the industrial chain. The role of “chain master” enterprises like China Rare Earth Group and Northern Rare Earth Group should be leveraged to drive the development of small and medium-sized enterprises along specialized, innovative paths, forming an industrial ecosystem with both towering trees and dense shrubs.

“This new round of high-quality development initiatives for manufacturing industry chains points the way for the rare earth industry,” Yan Chunhua concluded. “We must lead with technological innovation, transforming rare earths from ‘resource advantages’ to ‘technological advantages,’ upgrading from ‘material supply’ to ‘solution provision,’ and contributing to the building of a manufacturing powerhouse with rare earths.” (Reported by Yang Xiufeng, China Economic Net)