“There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China,” Deng Xiaoping is often quoted as having said back in 1992, when he recognised the importance of the mining sector to China’s future growth.
And it is the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia that has been at the forefront of this mining-fuelled growth, with the province being home to one of the world’s largest sources of rare earth metals, which are typically used in mobile phones and flat-screen televisions, as well as other natural resources.
