The unfolding endgame: Gaza, rare earths and western decline

Anna Chen – First published 26 July 2025, rare earths

Glimmers of hope in the darkness

Rare earth mining

The relentless violence against Palestinians by Israel in Gaza continues to expose the brutal logic of Western imperialism, but two significant developments offer glimmers of hope in the unremitting darkness: the rise of a new UK political force challenging Labour’s complicity, and China’s rare earths squeeze that is crippling the US-led war machine. These forces, combined with a tornado of reckless reactions under pressure, suggest an accelerating decline of American hegemony.

The Corbyn-Sultana Party: forcing accountability on Palestine

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s newly launched left-wing party, temporarily dubbed “Your Party,” represents the most significant challenge to Keir Starmer’s Labour government from the left. Its founding declaration explicitly condemns a “rigged system” that funds “billions for war” while denying basic welfare, and demands a “free and independent Palestine”.

This isn’t mere rhetoric. Starmer is vulnerable. The party’s emergence follows Labour’s internal rebellions over Gaza and welfare cuts, with Sultana suspended for opposing the two-child benefit cap. Corbyn’s independent victory in Islington North proves grassroots support exists for anti-war, redistributive politics.

On Thursday, Starmer performed an abrupt U-turn from branding himself a supporter of Zionism “without qualification” to acknowledging what the rest of us can see: the suffering in Gaza is indefensible. Timing suggests this might have been stated to save his skin from the Hague, besides which, he is still resisting recognition of an independent Palestinian state. By calling out UK policy as complicit in genocide, the new party amplifies legal and moral pressure on him. With the ICJ investigating genocide claims, Corbyn’s alliance with pro-Gaza independents could provide a home for a fractured Labour’s base.

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana announce the formation of the Your Party, July 2025

China’s rare earths fightback: economic warfare against the war machine

Deng Xiaoping said in 1987 that the Middle East has oil but China has rare earth minerals.

China’s restriction of rare earths exports, controlling 90% of global processing and 70% of mining, is a masterclass in asymmetric economic statecraft. It’s a determined throttle rather than an immediate military face-off, pre-empting US stated intentions to go to war with it by 2027. Never do what your enemy wants you to do, a lesson underlined by Russia’s incursion into Ukraine under provocation.

Its impact cascades through the Western war apparatus:

Israel’s Iron Dome is at Risk. Raytheon, manufacturer of the Iron Dome system, relies on Chinese-sourced terbium and dysprosium for guidance systems. Export controls have already slashed US rare earth magnet imports by 58%.

There’s panic in the Pentagon as supplies run dry and weapons are used up on the European and Middle Eastern fronts before they even have a taste of China, the neocon elite’s ultimate objective.

This month’s $400 million investment in MP Materials, America’s sole rare earth producer, is a desperate, unsustainable stopgap. MP’s refining capacity remains years behind China’s, and its California mine lacks heavy rare earth reserves essential for advanced weaponry.

Western powers losing their composure

In Europe, Ursula von der Leyen’s dire threats of WTO action are a bark worse than any bite she can muster, and echo the failed 2012 case against China. EU High Representative and Vice President Kaja Kallas is reduced to screeching at Wang Yi and accusing China of enabling Russia which is clearly winning the West’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Beijing now frames restrictions as “environmental protections” and “security measures,” utilising WTO rules while accelerating BRICS mineral independence. Why on rare earth would you enable openly hostile forces to tool up against you?

The rare earths battle is part of an existential problem for China but one which they’ve tackled with martial arts dexterity without a shot being fired.

China’s high prices allowed US and European companies to set up competitive rare earth mining enterprises, including Chevron’s Molycorp Mountain Pass mine in 2008. When China lost the WTO ruling in January 2015, it had to drop its export restrictions. Its response was to massively lower its prices until its competition could no longer compete, and sent Chevron’s mine into bankruptcy. Two years later, MP Mine Operations LCC, which had a Chinese minority interest, bought it up: it’s now better known as MP Materials Corp; trading as MP on the New York Stock Exchange.

Raytheon makes Israel’s Iron Dome and declared the war on Gaza as “good for business”. But it is running out of rare earths.

The Military-Industrial Complex under stress

The war economy’s insatiable greed now collides with material reality.

War profiteering has been exposed. Raytheon’s CEO openly declared the Israel-Gaza war “good for business” as Biden sought $14 billion to restock the Iron Dome. “ He said, “I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you’re going to see a benefit of this restocking. On top of what we think is going to be an increase in DOD top line”. Yet China’s export controls have triggered artillery shortages in Ukraine and delayed F-35 deliveries to Israel; systems dependent on Chinese-refined scandium (restricted April 2025).

While 700 defence lobbyists swarm over Washington, MP Materials’ $400 million Pentagon bailout can’t resolve its dependence on Chinese processing. Apple’s parallel $500M deal with MP underscores corporate panic over supply chains.

Apart from which, Israel and the Ukraine are running out of weapons from sheer disproportionate overuse. Nato members are being compelled to send their own Patriot systems to the Ukraine while chucking money at the Military Industrial Complex in order to keep Israel armed. US General Witkoff’s abrupt withdrawal from truce talks with Hamas on spurious grounds shows how panicked they are as they race against time.

The death spiral of American hegemony

It didn’t have to be this way. China’s gratitude for Nixon-Kissinger and genuine affection for America was an equilibrium that could have rolled on for ages with America enjoying its twilight years as venerable elder.

My wishful thinking on this, however, may be belied by the dynamics of imperialism and the tragic inevitability of the failing power lashing out in its death throes.

China inadvertently tested US relations when it gave the benefit of the doubt and hoped for the best. It showed more than good will by rescuing the global economy from America’s Great Crash of 2008, taking a hit itself and kicking off the longest market bull run ever. It was promptly rewarded two years later by Obama’s world-changing Pivot to Asia to “contain” China, an act of aggression that, far from revivifying US fortunes at the end of its capitalist cycle, has accelerated its own demise. All that affection, admiration and support destroyed by the hegemon’s paranoia and, paradoxically, its hubris: the worst possible combo.

Nixon-Kissinger’s triangular diplomacy once balanced China against the USSR, securing US twilight dominance. But Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” shattered that balance, revealing imperial hubris. America’s proxy war against Russia, beginning with the US-backed Maidan coup in 2014, ensured China awakened to its own position as final target once Russia was dispatched.

The rare earths boomerang effect

By treating China as a threat after it rescued global capitalism in 2008, the US accelerated BRICS consolidation. Russia now supplies 70% of China’s palladium; China processes 59% of the world’s lithium.

It has resulted in Capitalism’s auto-cannibalism. The dollar’s weaponisation hastened de-dollarisation. The US prints money to fund MP Materials and Ukraine aid, but inflation erodes this lifeline. As Raytheon lobbies for more wars, the economy strains under $1.7 trillion F-35 programmes.

The Global South’s Answer: BRICS embodies collective resilience. China’s rare earths strategy isn’t aggression; it’s self-defence against a dying hegemon’s lashing out.

The path ahead

Gaza’s suffering is not an anomaly but a template: the Palestinians today are the Global South tomorrow. Yet the tools of resistance are crystallizing. Corbyn’s party fractures the political cover for genocide. China’s rare earth stranglehold exposes the war machine’s material fragility.

The U.S. still dreams of a 2027 war with China, but Beijing refuses to play by Washington’s script: never do what your enemy wants. China’s rare earths throttling is a masterful evasion; a peaceful, systemic counterstrike that collapses the war economy from within. The Erysichthon Curse takes hold: the empire, gorging on its own institutions, now consumes itself.

Food queue of starving Palestinians in Gaza due to Israel’s blockade of aid trucks. Even medics and press are starting to succumb.

Further reading

Shakedown: A Timeline of America’s 21st century war on China: Page 4, 2024 to the Present — President Donald Trump’s second term turmoil

Shakedown Timeline 2010-2020: Page 2, Obama’s Pivot-to-Asia to Donald Trump’s first presidency

Anna Chen — Writer, presenter and broadcaster: BBC and Guardian before the pivot to China; ResonanceFM. Asia Times, New Internationalist, South China Morning Post. TED speaker, Orwell Prize shortlisted, cultural outrider.