Is China’s lithium quest fuelled by business or politics, and how far will it go to secure ‘white gold’?

South America’s Lithium Triangle contains more than half of the world’s reserves of the critical metal that is used in batteries, and China is looking to carve out a bigger piece of the pie

But the metal’s mining and refinery have been politicised amid rising geopolitical tensions with the West and an ongoing supply-chain crisis

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Lithium has been dubbed “white gold”, and the highly coveted resource has seen its value increase more than fourfold in the past year. Illustration: Perry Tse

Published: 4:00am, 22 Feb 2022Updated: 8:50am, 22 Feb 2022

Just days after Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez signed his country up for China’s Belt and Road Initiative during a high-profile trip to Beijing this month, the spot price of lithium metal in the Chinese market reached 2 million yuan (US$315,000) per tonne for the first time – more than four times what it cost a year ago.

The two countries happen to be the world’s major players in the supply chain of the metal – an essential material used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

Argentina is located in a region with the highest concentrations of the mineral – South America’s so-called Lithium Triangle, which contains more than half of the world’s reserves – while Chinese companies are the biggest buyers and investors of lithium mines around the globe and refine two-thirds of the world’s lithium.

As major economies are all aiming to shift to electric cars in the global fight against climate change, the silvery-white alkali metal has been increasingly called “the new oil” and “white gold”.

And the fact that China and Argentina are forging closer ties has touched a nerve among Western countries, which have vowed to reduce their dependence on lithium from China.

Meanwhile, Chinese experts contend that the country’s global pursuit of the metal is based on market demands and equates to business as usual for Chinese firms.