“The European Battery Alliance has been turning the spotlight on the risks stemming from our overdependence on critical minerals from third countries, especially China, from the very start.”
“By 2032, China will still control 79% of production of a type of processed graphite – uncoated spheroidised purified graphite – compared to 100% in 2022, according to BMI.”
October 2025: China places export controls on battery components: anode material, cathode material, cells.
Four weeks later, the controls are suspended for a year. China showed its hand: it controls the midstream, and flexed its muscles a little too hard.
Did Europe notice?
A battery is made in four steps. In 2023 and 2025, China put pressure on different ones.
A battery is made in four steps. Europe can depend on China at any of them, and China can squeeze any of them.
Digging the ore out of the ground and concentrating it: graphite flakes, lithium rock, cobalt ore.
Turning the ore into battery-grade material. For graphite, that means shaping flakes into spheres and purifying them, or baking coke at 3,000 °C.
Turning battery-grade material into the parts of a battery: anode and cathode material, electrodes, then cells.
Assembling cells into battery packs, and packs into electric cars.
China starts requiring export licences for natural and high-purity graphite. It aims at mining and refining.
China aims at components: anode material, cathode material, high-energy cells and the machines that make them.
On 7 Nov 2025 the controls are suspended, until Nov 2026.
Our first hypothesis: Europe fixates on mining.
EU raw-materials policy is built around minerals, the way energy policy was built around oil. We expected the talk to stop at the mine.
When European texts say Europe depends on China, which step do they point to most often?
Pick one. We’ll come back to it.
Every paragraph about batteries or critical raw materials from EU institutions and the press, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Sep 2026.
Paragraphs from the European Parliament and Commission, and from Reuters, the Financial Times, the Guardian and Euractiv.
For each paragraph: does it say Europe depends on China? If so, at which step of the chain?
We coded 150 paragraphs ourselves, without seeing Claude’s answers, and measured where it went wrong.
Every share on this page is adjusted for those mistakes, and comes with a margin of error.
Of every 100 paragraphs saying Europe depends on China, how many say where?
Each dot is one paragraph that says Europe depends on China
3,893 claim paragraphs · shares adjusted for coding errors
Each dot is one paragraph that says Europe depends on China. Here are 100 of them, in proportion to all the claims we found.
68 name no step at all.
“Critical raw materials.” “Supply chains.” “China.” The dependency is real, but it has no address.
The other 32 point somewhere. Most often to refining, then to mining.
Components, the step China aimed at in Oct 2025, get about 6 dots in 100.
Remember your guess?
Maybe components just don’t come up?
How often each step is mentioned at all, and how often a mention turns into a claim that Europe depends on China there.
Left: share of all 14,577 paragraphs that mention the step. Right: out of 100 of those mentions, how many name it as the dependency.
Packs and vehicles are everywhere, but rarely the problem. Refining is the reverse. Components sit in between: discussed, rarely feared.
Mentions not yet adjusted for coding errors (in progress)
Components appear in the car-and-battery-plant story, not the supply-chain story.
Paragraph codes, not adjusted · eight most common combinations
The chain in European talk stops at refining.
Paragraph codes, not adjusted · eight most common combinations
What happened when China hit this blind spot?
Month by month: when European texts claim a dependency on China, which step do they point to?
After China targeted components, did claims about components rise, stay the same, or fall?
Share of dependency claims naming each step · 3-month average · hover the numbered markers
Adjusted for coding errors · a claim can name more than one step
From the start, most claims name no step. When one is named, it is usually refining.
China’s graphite licences take effect. Nothing lasting happens. By Jan 2024 the talk has fallen back.
The turn comes before the trigger.
After China’s April 2025 rare-earth controls, claims that name no step climb to about three in four.
China targets components. Claims that name no step peak at nearly 9 in 10 in Dec 2025.
They fall to about 2 in 100 claims, their lowest level in the whole period.
Share of all paragraphs, Dec 2023 – Sep 2025 (hollow) and from Oct 2025 (filled)
Adjusted for coding errors · hover for the margin of error
Paragraphs with a dependency word that also use words from each group · Dec 2023 – Sep 2025 (hollow) and from Oct 2025 (filled)
Word co-occurrence, all 14,577 paragraphs · not based on Claude’s codes
Change in the share of paragraphs on each topic, Dec 2023 – Sep 2025 compared with from Oct 2025, in points
Topics found automatically from word patterns · five biggest rises and falls
The shock made Europe talk more, and talk less precisely.
EU institutions and the press do not talk the same way, and neither do the three battery materials.
Share of documents with at least one paragraph claiming a dependency on China
Documents · adjusted for coding errors
Press articles claiming a dependency: share that name a step
EU institutions show no lasting shift. The move towards vagueness happens in the press.
Documents · not adjusted for coding errors, wide margins
For each material: share of its paragraphs that claim a dependency, and share of those claims that name no step
Paragraphs naming each material · adjusted for coding errors
Words and phrases from the 3,893 paragraphs that claim Europe depends on China. Bigger means more frequent.
Illustration · the map is decorative · words appear at random