The Australian government has ordered several offshore shareholders with close ties to China to immediately divest their holdings in rare earths developer Northern Minerals, marking the second time in two years the country has intervened on national security grounds to protect its critical minerals sector.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the decision on Monday, confirming that six corporate entities have been given a strict 14-day window to dispose of an aggregate 17.5% stake in the mining firm, valued at roughly US$160 million.
The disposal orders target a group of foreign investors—five registered in China or Hong Kong, and one in the British Virgin Islands—including Hong Kong Ying Tak, Real International Resources, Qogir Trading and Service Co., and Vastness Investment Group. Corporate filings indicate that Vastness had unsuccessfully attempted a boardroom coup earlier this year to depose the mining firm’s executive chairman.
Northern Minerals is currently developing the strategically vital Browns Range heavy rare earths project in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. The deposit is a primary potential source of dysprosium and terbium—highly coveted, heavy atomic-weight rare earth elements critical for the manufacturing of high-performance permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, defense technologies, and industrial robotics.
The intervention highlights a high-stakes geopolitical tug-of-war as Western governments, led by Australia and the United States, attempt to aggressively decouple and break Beijing’s near-monopoly on the global critical minerals supply chain. Northern Minerals’ development has already garnered substantial financial backing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank as part of a joint U.S.-Australia strategic commodity partnership.
“This decision was entirely consistent with advice from Treasury and the Foreign Investment Review Board. It is about protecting our national interest and ensuring compliance with our foreign investment framework,” Chalmers told reporters in Brisbane. “We operate a robust and non-discriminatory foreign investment framework, and we will take further action if required to protect our national interest in relation to this matter.”
The targeted shareholders are legally obligated to sell their shares within two weeks to completely unassociated buyers. Regulatory watchdogs suspect the entities were operating as coordinated proxies to covertly circumvent prior foreign investment caps and stymie the company’s independent supply chain projects.
