76 Years of Extraction: How the CCP Plundered Tibet’s Earth, Silenced Its People, and Now Tightens Its Grip on Rare Earths

Tibet Justice Center reports that Tibet holds “very rich mineral resources,” including large shares of China’s supply of iron, copper, lithium, gold, bauxite, uranium etc., and that these are extracted in ways that violate Tibetans’ right to self-determined development. Free Tibet / Tibet Watch have documented ecological disasters, landslides, soil erosion, damage to waterways and destruction of vegetation caused by mining in Tibetan villages, and that residents’ complaints are routinely ignored. Radio Free Asia, environmental researchers note illegal or semi-legal coal and mineral mining in Tibetan areas (including hydrological reserves and grazing lands), with consequences for water quality, pasture loss, and loss of livelihood.

As Beijing moves to tighten export rules on crucial rare-earth elements — the same minerals long extracted from Tibet under state-directed exploitation — the world confronts a stark irony: after decades of selling resources taken from an occupied land, China now seeks to hoard those materials for its own strategic and military ambitions.