A road in Yichun, known as China’s lithium mining capital, on March 19.
Photographer: Gilles Sabrie/BloombergThe Big Take
China’s Lithium City Is a Front Line of the Battery Trade War
Beijing wants a high-tech economy built on domestic supply, even if it comes at a cost.
The growl of extractors echoes across the vast mountaintop mines of Yichun in central China. A procession of heavy-duty trucks rolls down the valley to waiting refineries, where shipments of gray ore are processed into a battery material vital to the world’s energy transition — lithium.