China’s tungsten export controls on Japan are backfiring
china’s tungsten export controls on japan
are backfiring
WRITTEN BY JING GE
24 July 2026
Although tungsten is a relatively small input by trade value, its importance to Japan’s economy is disproportionate, given the scale of the industries it supports. Directly, it is a core material for cemented-carbide cutting tools, including drills, inserts, and end mills used by Japanese toolmakers. Indirectly, those tools are embedded in the production processes of Japan’s automotive, machinery, electronics, semiconductor, aerospace, and defence industries. Tungsten is also a strategically important dual-use material, with defence applications ranging from armour-piercing munitions to military turbine engines. Therefore, a supply disruption not only affects tungsten processors but also raises costs and creates uncertainty across Japan’s wider precision-manufacturing and defence-industrial base.
China controls more than 80 per cent of global tungsten mine supply and processing capacity. In February 2025, in retaliation for tariff increases imposed by the Trump administration, China placed tungsten, along with four other rare metals and seven rare-earth metals, under export controls. In January 2026, amid worsening bilateral tensions following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks about a possible Japanese military response to a Taiwan contingency, China’s Ministry of Commerce further tightened restrictions on dual-use exports, particularly those involving military end-users or applications that could enhance Japan’s military capabilities. In February 2026, China’s tungsten exports to Japan stopped amid deteriorating China–Japan relations.
Economic coercion does not always strengthen the coercer’s leverage. It can also force the dependent side to recalculate risk, reorganise supply chains, and turn what was once a slow-moving industrial policy agenda into an urgent task. That is precisely the shift now taking place in Japan. China’s tungsten restrictions are intended to pressure Japan, but they may instead be accelerating Japan’s efforts to reduce its dependence on Chinese critical minerals.
China’s coercion cannot cut off the supply
China’s export controls on tungsten materials have affected Japan’s manufacturing, particularly the tungsten-processing and cemented-carbide cutting-tool industries. According to Japan’s Ministry of Finance, April 2026 imports of three tungsten-related products placed under Chinese controls — including tungstates — fell 50 per cent from the 2025 monthly average, and 63 per cent compared with April 2024, before the export controls were introduced.
But Japan’s tungsten manufacturing was not immediately halted: they quickly turned to the US, Singapore, and Europe to buy tungsten scrap, using recycling channels to fill the supply gap left by China. From January to March 2026, US exports of tungsten scrap roughly tripled year-on-year overall, while exports to Japan surged 24-fold, making the US Japan’s largest source. In April 2026, Singapore overtook the US as Japan’s largest supplier of tungsten scrap, with Europe emerging as an important supplementary source.
China’s controls are changing Japan’s political calculus: dependence on Chinese supply is no longer just a commercial risk but an economic-security vulnerability.
China’s export controls reveal a more complex reality: when there is enough strategic and industrial pressure, dependent countries will search for alternative routes, even if they are more expensive, slower, and less convenient. This does not mean that every critical mineral can be diversified as quickly as tungsten. For materials where China’s role is even more concentrated in processing or refining, adjustment would likely take longer and cost more. But the tungsten case shows that while Beijing can impose costs, it cannot prevent Japan from adapting by diversifying its supply sources, expanding recycling, and investing in alternative production.
Costs are forcing reform
Although China’s tungsten export controls have not brought Japanese manufacturing to a full halt, they have sharply increased production costs. In May 2026, Sumitomo Electric Industries President Osamu Inoue stated that tungsten procurement from China had “completely stopped”. Around 30 per cent of the raw materials needed for the company’s cutting tools had previously come from China. From June 2026, Mitsubishi Materials more than tripled prices for some tungsten materials used in cemented carbide.
Obtaining tungsten scrap from the US and reprocessing it is more costly than importing tungsten scrap directly from China. Although company-level figures comparing the two have not been publicly disclosed, the additional cost of alternative procurement is reflected in Sumitomo Electric’s decision to raise prices for some cutting tools by up to 60 per cent. Japan’s adjustment was fast but not frictionless: companies were able to draw on inventories and alternative scrap-based supply to avoid an immediate production halt, but the switch involved delays, reprocessing costs, and higher procurement prices that fed through into higher factory-gate prices and the risk of reduced output.
These cost pressures are already driving capital investment. Mitsubishi Materials has announced an investment of about USD 64 million to expand tungsten recycling capacity in Europe and Japan. In Europe, Mitsubishi plans to increase recycling capacity at H.C. Starck, the tungsten producer it acquired in 2024, by 40 per cent. In Japan, capacity at Mitsubishi’s production base in Akita Prefecture is expected to double by 2028–29. Sumitomo Electric Industries also plans to invest USD 100 million in a new domestic plant for recycling and processing tungsten scrap, expected to be operational by early 2028 and raise tungsten supply capacity by about 50 per cent.
The other side of this tungsten crisis is that it may help Japan convert short-term cost pressure into longer-term supply-chain reform. Japanese companies are responding by securing tungsten scrap from alternative suppliers and investing in recycling capacity at home and abroad. At the policy level, the Japanese government is treating tungsten dependence as an economic-security vulnerability, addressing it through the Economic Security Promotion Act — which designates critical minerals as specified critical products and provides subsidies for approved supply-security plans — and through the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), which maintains a national rare-metals stockpile and supports diversified sourcing, processing, and recycling capacity. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and JOGMEC have also begun supporting projects designed to expand Japan’s domestic tungsten-processing capacity. This shows that Japan’s response is no longer limited to corporate procurement decisions but is developing into a coordinated public-private supply-chain reform.
China’s controls are changing Japan’s political calculus: dependence on Chinese supply is no longer just a commercial risk but an economic-security vulnerability. In the past, low cost, stable delivery, and supply efficiency were enough to support procurement decisions. Now, political risk itself has become a cost. Even if China resumes tungsten exports, Japanese companies and policymakers are unlikely to return to the old model of relying heavily on Chinese supply, having already invested substantially in alternative suppliers and recycling capacity.
The Indo-Pacific needs supply chain resilience
The significance of the tungsten crisis extends beyond Japan. It reminds the entire Indo-Pacific that critical minerals are not simply a trade issue, but a strategic risk. Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Southeast Asian states, and the US all depend on critical mineral supply chains to varying degrees. South Korea illustrates this vulnerability: when Beijing announced export-permit requirements for certain graphite products in October 2023, Seoul convened battery and materials producers to assess the impact, as 93.7 per cent of the country’s natural and synthetic graphite imports came from China in 2022. The issue is not only where critical minerals are located but who controls processing, refining, and recycling capacity. Even if companies can source critical minerals from outside China, strategic vulnerability persists if that capacity remains concentrated.
Japan’s response to the tungsten shock offers a concrete lesson for other Indo-Pacific countries. Its ability to avoid an immediate production halt depended on several mechanisms: companies drew on inventories and sourced tungsten scrap from the US, Singapore, and Europe; major producers expanded recycling and processing capacity at home and abroad; and policymakers increasingly treated dependence on Chinese supply as an economic-security vulnerability rather than a purely commercial concern. The case suggests that diversification is more credible when governments and firms address different parts of the same vulnerability. Public authorities can identify chokepoints, support stockpiling, and reduce the risk of investing in alternative capacity, while companies develop the recycling, processing, and procurement arrangements needed to sustain non-Chinese supply. Although other countries may not be able to adjust as quickly as Japan, its experience shows how a supply shock can drive longer-term resilience.
China’s dominance in the tungsten supply chain allows Beijing to turn an industrial chokepoint into political leverage. From China’s perspective, this may look like a tactical success: it demonstrates that tensions with China can lead to concrete costs for Japanese industry. However, the same pressure is proving strategically counterproductive. If METI, JOGMEC, and major tungsten users convert the crisis into a coordinated reform agenda, China’s leverage will erode.
For the Indo-Pacific, the lesson is that critical mineral security cannot be left to market efficiency alone. Markets can redirect trade flows after a shock, but they cannot decide which dependencies are politically unacceptable, which industries require protection, or how much public money should be spent on stockpiles, recycling capacity, processing facilities, and trusted supply partnerships. Those are political decisions that require government-led risk assessment, industrial policy, diplomatic coordination, and long-term financing before the next round of export controls arrives.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent those of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Jing Ge is an instructor at Florida International University. She also works as a research assistant at the Jack D. Gordon Institute, where she provides policy analysis. Her research interests include foreign policy, Asia-Pacific regional security studies, great power competition, and global governance. She has written for several publications, including 9DASHLINE, The National Interest, The Diplomat, The Interpreter, East Asia Forum, The Australian Outlook, and American Purpose. Her academic work has been published in many international peer-reviewed journals. Image credit: Syced/Wikimedia Commons.