Thinking of our reliance on potentially unfriendly countries for critical goods, should the West be concerned about China’s domination of battery production? Look what Russia has done with gas and grain. Crude oil cartels control production to manipulate barrel price. Our demand for cheaper consumer goods means producers move production to cheaper options.
Governments never seem to deal with longer term strategic decisions but jump on short term cost cuts and savings. Quick fixes that seem good at the time either financially or political expediency.
The UK has been deindustrialised for many years with service industries being preferred. Manufacturing exported to cheap labour countries. Globalisation has shown some negative aspects. Dependance on shipping from manufacturing bases to consumer bases via the Suez Canal had a big effect not so long ago.
