China is once again trying to square a circle that has defined its industrial economy for a decade: it wants to curb the sort of excess production that crushes margins, fuels trade blowback and deepens deflation at home, but it also wants to avoid the unemployment and regional fiscal stress that come when large legacy sectors are forced to shrink quickly.

The National People’s Congress language putting steel and oil refining back in the crosshairs is therefore best read as a renewed political directive to “tighten the screws” without triggering a disorderly contraction, an approach that has historically produced incremental tightening at the center and uneven enforcement on the ground.

Denmark will halt all ongoing offshore wind tenders, with its energy minister stating that the current framework—where no subsidies are offered—is no longer effective under today’s market conditions. The global offshore wind industry has been severely affected by surging costs, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks…

Japan and the United States are preparing to use this week’s leaders’ summit to push their economic relationship further into the realm of strategic resource security. The two sides are expected to announce cooperation on the joint development of rare earths, lithium and copper, with Japanese companies including Mitsubishi Materials and Mitsui involved in projects such as a rare earth refining operation in Indiana and a lithium mine in North Carolina.

The immediate significance is that critical minerals are no longer being treated as a narrow commercial issue. They are being elevated to the top tier of alliance management, alongside defense, semiconductors and energy security.