Pilbara Minerals chief Dale Henderson says China will be an important buyer of the company’s lithium for a long time and the middle kingdom’s dominance of battery manufacturing means it is bound to be a part of Australia’s critical minerals future.

Government sanctioned lists of “critical minerals” have become common and politically weaponised since 2017 when US president Donald Trump drafted up a list which largely focused on the Chinese dominated mineral supply chains that fed into the manufacturing of defence and decarbonisation products.