China supplies the world's critical minerals for mobile phones and jet fighters, but Australia is trying to break free

John Coyne, an analyst at the partially Defence funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said other strategic allies had been targeted too. "Ten years ago, China reduced the availability of rare earth to Japan in punishment over issues to deal with the South China Sea," Mr Coyne said. Mr Coyne said western nations were increasingly abandoning free market thinking to address the strategic risk. "[China has] done a great job at being able to supply everything the western world needed - whether it be metals or magnets - and they supply them a lot cheaper than what the western world would be able to produce. The head of one rare earth minerals company, Northern Minerals, told the ABC the strategic vulnerability was significant. "China could stop any time in the next three to five years exporting anything to do with heavy rare earths and only supply internal to Chinese industries," chief executive Mark Tory said. "We've definitely been asleep but the reason we've been asleep is because [China] has done a great job at being able to supply everything the western world needed."