This paper discusses the impacts of climate change, green development, and energy structure transformation on the global economy, technological pathways, and geopolitical landscape, as well as the resulting surge in demand for critical minerals. Due to their geopolitical location, capital advantages, and industrial transformation needs, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have emerged as significant players in the global competition for critical minerals. The United States, the European Union, and China are actively establishing mineral cooperation with GCC nations to ensure supply chain security and diversification. Academic research on the GCC's critical mineral strategies remains relatively limited. This paper systematically analyzes the strategic motivations, policy mechanisms, spatial distribution, and international cooperation pathways of these strategies, assessing their potential impacts on regional industrial structures, global resource governance, and China-GCC cooperation dynamics.

1. Key Motivations Behind GCC Countries' Critical Mineral Strategies

The discussion focuses on the primary motivations driving GCC countries' critical mineral strategies, encompassing economic development, resource security, and geopolitical influence. Economically, GCC nations are leveraging critical minerals to diversify their industries, reduce reliance on oil, and enhance economic resilience. Against the backdrop of global energy transition, critical minerals serve as core materials for green technologies, prompting GCC countries to capitalize on their energy and capital advantages to develop processing and smelting industries, establishing localized value-added systems. In terms of resource security, GCC states are strengthening their autonomy and risk resilience in the global energy transition by participating in critical mineral supply chains, addressing challenges posed by transition risks and geopolitical competition. Geopolitically, by controlling critical mineral resources and embedding themselves in supply chains, GCC countries are gaining new geopolitical influence and discourse power, transforming from oil exporters into hub nations within critical mineral supply chains.

2. The Formation of GCC Countries' Critical Mineral Strategies

GCC countries have adopted resource nationalism and industrial policy reinforcement strategies in global critical mineral supply chains to address post-oil-era challenges. These nations regard critical minerals as central to economic security and industrial transformation, leveraging energy, capital, and locational advantages to achieve deeper strategic integration in global supply chains. GCC states are shifting from market-based procurement to capital embedding and supply chain control, deploying sovereign wealth funds, state-owned enterprises, and overseas joint ventures to build global resource networks, reducing dependence on single countries and enhancing geopolitical autonomy. Domestically, GCC members are strengthening top-level planning and industrial foundations. For instance, Saudi Arabia has designated mining as a pillar of economic diversification, enacting a new Mining Investment Law to streamline approvals and allow foreign ownership while maintaining special approval requirements for critical minerals. GCC countries are also advancing into higher-value segments of the supply chain, promoting mineral processing and green metallurgy. Saudi Arabia aims to become a "global mineral processing hub," collaborating with multiple countries on investments exceeding $12 billion to achieve a capacity of 10 million tons by 2030. Driven by global carbon neutrality agendas, GCC nations are prioritizing low-carbon smelting technologies to enhance competitiveness. The UAE, for example, has launched a national hydrogen strategy targeting annual production of 15 million tons of green hydrogen by 2050. GCC countries are also stabilizing mineral supply through capital operations and geopolitical hedging. Saudi Arabia's Manara Minerals, backed by the Public Investment Fund, has established a cross-continental mineral resource network. Leveraging their geopolitical centrality, GCC states are flexibly positioning themselves between major power blocs, maintaining close economic ties with both Eastern and Western powers while deepening cooperation with China. As critical minerals become a focal point of global geopolitical competition, GCC countries increasingly recognize that true structural power stems not only from control over capital and supply chain segments but also from influence over global governance rules and agendas. GCC nations are transitioning from mere resource suppliers to institutional shapers, seeking a more central role in the emerging global critical mineral governance order. They are actively participating in rule-making, hosting and engaging in multilateral platforms to shape international resource agendas and governance discourse. GCC members are also exerting influence through existing mechanisms, such as the expanded BRICS framework, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE may advocate for supply chain security and producer rights. Regionally, GCC countries are fostering policy coordination and standard-setting, positioning themselves as organizers and rule-makers in global mineral supply chains. Domestically, they are updating mining regulations and enhancing transparency to align with international norms. Regionally, GCC states are advancing unified mineral strategies under the GCC framework to present a cohesive voice in international governance negotiations.

3. The Impacts of GCC Countries' Critical Mineral Strategies

While GCC countries face constraints such as limited technological autonomy, shortages of high-end manufacturing talent, and incomplete industrial chain support, their energy price advantages, financial resources, policy stability, and locational strengths position them to become prominent players in global new energy end-product manufacturing, potentially emerging as regional manufacturing hubs with implications for global critical mineral supply chains and geopolitics. GCC participation in critical mineral supply chains is driving multipolarization and strategic rebalancing, altering their role in global resource networks and positioning them as key actors in structural power shifts. GCC nations are transitioning from resource dependents to institutional coordinators, gaining indirect influence over value chains and serving as balancing forces in existing resource governance systems. Their strategies are shifting global supply chains from production-capacity dominance to governance-centric models. Through ESG standardization pilots, green metal certification, and low-carbon smelting projects, GCC countries are evolving from resource users to norm exporters.

By integrating critical minerals into national development plans, GCC countries demonstrate ambitions to expand non-oil industrial pathways, reflecting a politicized, strategic, and institutionalized approach to economic transformation. Critical mineral strategies are viewed as the most structurally substitutable alternative to oil dependence, driving national capability restructuring, coordinated industrial policies, and economic upgrading. These strategies also reshape national identity and international image, opening pathways for "normative modernization." However, this transition carries risks, including reliance on sustained global green transitions and technological pathways, shortcomings in state-capital-led models regarding regulation, transparency, and openness, and intensifying competition among GCC states in mineral investments.

As GCC countries grow more active in global critical mineral governance, China—the world's largest processor and consumer of critical minerals—faces dual impacts. On one hand, GCC efforts to enhance supply chain resilience amid "de-risking" pressures create opportunities for Sino-GCC cooperation. On the other hand, their pursuit of institutional neutrality and multilateral strategic autonomy challenges China's structural advantages in global resource landscapes. GCC nations are becoming key partners for China in supply chain diversification and global value chain expansion, yet structural competition is intensifying. While China retains an advantageous position in interactions with GCC states, it must enhance institutional agency in rule negotiations, sustainability discourse, and multilateral platforms. The relationship should be viewed as "cooperative competition," centered on forging sustainable consensus and governance synergy amid institutional tensions.

4. Conclusion

The paper underscores the strategic importance of critical minerals in global energy transitions and geopolitical realignments, the rising role of GCC countries in global resource governance, and the systematic, structured, and forward-looking nature of their critical mineral strategies. GCC strategic transformation demonstrates the capacity of mid-sized states to re-embed themselves in great-power competition, challenging traditional international relations theories. The negotiation and institutional design of a China-GCC Free Trade Area could serve as a governance interface in global critical mineral cooperation, elevating the partnership from energy interdependence to a green strategic alliance. GCC countries may leverage cooperation with China to reduce reliance on Western markets, expand strategic space, and amplify institutional influence in the Global South, offering a model for middle-power coalition strategies in multipolar governance. China-GCC collaboration will evolve from energy interdependence to joint supply chain shaping and institutional co-creation, enhancing GCC geopolitical autonomy and providing a new paradigm for Global South nations to redefine structural positions in rule-making processes.