AUTHOR=An Jiachen , Chen Liangliang 
  
TITLE=More market-based tools, less supply chain vulnerability: China’s rare earths policy reforms and their impact on the global supply chain
  
JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science
  
VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2026
  
YEAR=2026
  
URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2026.1854509
  
DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2026.1854509
  
ISSN=2296-665X
  
ABSTRACT=Rare earth elements (REEs) are critical metals for clean energy technologies. All countries face urgent challenges in mitigating supply chain risks and stabilizing the global REEs supply. As a major supplier within the global REEs supply chain, China’s market-based policies targeting market participants exert substantial impacts on supply chain security. This study adopts the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model to analyze how China’s market-based REEs policies affect global supply chain vulnerability. The empirical results show that such policies can alleviate supply chain vulnerability. A greater number of market-based policy tools slightly lowers vulnerability (coefficient = −0.02, p < 0.1). A higher proportion of market-based tools significantly curbs vulnerability in the short term (coefficient = −4.56, p < 0.01), yet the long-term effect (coefficient = −1.25) lacks statistical significance. This study puts forward policy adjustments to improve policy efficiency and further reduce supply chain vulnerabilities.