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China: U.S. Could ‘Spark World War III’ by Diversifying Mineral Supply Chains

China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday warned the United States could “spark World War III” by pushing too hard to decouple from the Chinese minerals industry by developing its own supply.

After a little throat-clearing and harrumphing about how “it’s reasonable for any country to diversify its supply chains that involve critical resources,” the Global Times said China would consider it tantamount to an act of war if the U.S. diversifies too much because Beijing sees decoupling as preparation for “an all-out conflict” with America’s “strategic competitors” that could escalate into “World War III.”

In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party, the U.S. and its NATO allies could have no plausible reason for decoupling from peaceful China except “anxiety” that they would lose their supply of precious minerals by starting a war.

The Global Times was particularly agitated by U.S. moves to secure alternate supplies of antimony, a mineral that is “critical to the defense-industrial supply chain and is needed to produce everything from armor-piercing bullets and explosives to nuclear weapons as well as sundry other military equipment, such as night vision goggles.”