Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has stated in Parliament on the threats affecting our critical industries of rare earths and emerging new energy sectors, which will weaken our economic and security capacities if not urgently handled.
The mushrooming of illegal activities and exploitations on our rare earths assets over the past few years have indicated a clear and present danger of our critical assets being plundered by both internal and external parties at our own expense.
The incidents have been recurring, and each time it is being dealt with in ways that further exposed our ignorance and seemingly cavalier attitude towards safeguarding our key geostrategic deposit and advantage that runs into billions of ringgit and most importantly, our future parameter for our national security and geopolitical survival.
Already, our incoherent and disunited approach in managing our key assets and resources, especially our vital rare earths, has further emboldened external parties in taking advantage of our lack of foresight, seriousness and strategic clarity on this issue.
The line of oversight, control and authority over key resources remain divided and drowned in the division of federal and state authorities, further exacerbated by political divisions, at our long term strategic expense.
Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the clear ignorance and mismanagement of our crucial national assets must be stemmed in the bud, and a clear and urgent national action plan must be undertaken to protect our national advantage and resources which will ensure our immediate survival and economic power.
For far too long, we have lacked the coordinated, all of nation and whole of government approach in dealing with our rare earths industry and our collective emerging resources that will shape our national power agenda.
This disconnect between the state and the federal level and the lack of future driven awareness of the importance of these assets further created a vicious cycle for foreign powers to seize upon this opening and to extend their overtures and efforts to get a hand on these resources through various means.
Throughout the country as a whole, there is a compelling and strategic need for all states with strategic resources, particularly rare earths, to coordinate with the federal government and also the National Security Council, in a holistic structure.
It will need the synergy and amalgamation of other expertise including advisory bodies consisting of top experts and strategic thinkers on how best to preserve and cultivate our assets, from the development and contract-awarding process to the preservation of a sustainable cultivation. This crucial strategy must not be left to any individual state or party to decide alone, bypassing greater national interests.
There must be a prevailing and overarching decision making process that involves all stakeholders, policymakers and the public in determining the best path forward in managing our vital resources worth billions, but more importantly, in creating the best investments for the future of our survival.
Rare earths have been one of the most important resources in the changing geopolitical ecosystem in the world today, and we are at the forefront of this interplay where our role is critical in both ensuring our leverage and bargaining chips as well as in maximising our security stakes and assurances.
We have been in the eyes of the great powers in their global competition for supremacy, where green energy and critical new resources especially rare earths become the quintessence of the geopolitical race.
The US is increasing its urgency and overtures to reduce Beijing’s dominance in this field, and along with its outreach, we must be wise to capitalise on the larger spectrum and positive baggage of ripple and spillover effects in the higher technological realm of mobility, transfer and practical impact of expertise and knowledge development in these high impact sectors.
In securing food, energy, resources and supply chain resilience and security, we are at the centrestage of exerting bigger chips and cards, and this is where we must be forward-looking and strategic in managing our assets and in determining the best returns to the country.
We remain a country blessed with strategic and vital resources, but remain at risk of being squandered the wrong way with long term strategic mistakes by our inability to break free from conventional trap and addictive lure of fast and easy gains.
In 2019, the Parliament was informed that the country has RM732 billion worth of metal mineral reserves in the form of coal, tin ore, iron ore, gold, manganese, silica sand and kaolin to be explored. In Kedah, RM60 billion worth of rare earth assets are ripe for extraction, it needs careful assessment and planning.
Malaysia has been blessed with a significant amount of non-radioactive rare earth deposits. The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that some 30,000 metric tonnes of rare earth ores can be found in Peninsular Malaysia. Rare earth elements (REEs) have been increasingly important in consumer electronics, electric vehicles (EV), clean energy, and most strategically, in military equipment and usage.
In the military, REEs are used in vital military assets, particularly precision-guided weapons, communication equipment, Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment, and other defence electronics.
The $800million Lynas plant in Malaysia is the world’s largest, single, rare earths-processing facility and the only scale producer of separated rare earths outside China. It must not be framed overwhelmingly from the negative viewpoint, and it must include our long term security and geopolitical calculations.
Lynas Malaysia’s operation in Malaysia since 2012 has been able to break the monopoly by being the first refining plant outside China. It is also one of the world’s biggest rare earth refining plants.
Malaysia has the opportunity to be a world leader in this industry that supports technologies used every day, like cars and smartphones, as well as future facing industries such as electric vehicles and wind turbines, and we must play our card well.
The government has said that Malaysia could attract investments of up to RM100 billion (S$33 billion) in the rare earth sector over the next decade.
We must not let this opportunity of having the biggest REEs supplies outside China slip away, and to squander it to foreign forces that will backfire on our geopolitical strength and advantage. Malaysia has a strategic advantage as home to the only significant non-Chinese supplier of rare earth products, a position that we must capitalise on and to seize upon to our future strategic assurance.
It can be further developed to create an impactful stepping stone towards giving positive messages and assurances to other critical industries and top manufacturers in the crucial high impact field including semiconductor and high technology industries.
Rare earths are increasingly being used as another vital and critical resource factor in a greater global geopolitical competition especially in enhancing military technology and capacity and in technological supremacy, which includes technology and space race.
This alone compels us to be wise, and have the foresight and boldness to play our card well that will ensure our long term returns in the broader picture of our security and geopolitical gains, and not out of pure monetary returns alone.
The investment by Western companies, including Lynas, has the added boosts in creating positive chain effects and spillover impact on other economic fields in creating the foundation pillared on values, transparency, integrity, environmental awareness and protection efforts, labour standards, human rights and injection of high value jobs, expertise and technology transfer.
Malaysia New Energy Direction Plan 2022-2035 and the National Energy Policy 2022-2040 must include strategic plans to holistically elevate our rare earths and semiconductor industries in transforming our economic fundamentals and in securing our geopolitical gains. It is high time we look at the big picture and long term considerations for the country, rather than being tied down by persistent past dogma and the trap of short term gains and political interests.
-University Of Malaya Foreign Affairs And Strategy Analyst Collins Chong Yew Keat
