Dear all,
The lecture, titled “Mutually Assured Resilience” in Global Critical Minerals Supply Chains, will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, in Room 302 of the ShanghaiTech Library. Please find below the abstract and a brief introduction to the speaker.
Abstract:China is the world’s dominant player in global critical minerals value chains, especially in the midstream processing and refining segments. In recent years, we have seen a rapid securitization of global minerals procurement, following diverse shocks to international supply chains, including the global pandemic. In this presentation, the author argues that to date, current policy discussions in the West suffer from the consequences of an incomplete paradigmatic transition away from a market-led approach, underappreciation of the nature of China’s position and how it delineates across minerals and along value chains, overly broad and underspecified end goals, and an overly constrained understanding of resource security. To chart a way forward, I propose an asymmetric resilience paradigm, based on defensive, assertive, plurilateral and global stability pillars. This approach seeks to recalibrate the balance of strengths and vulnerabilities between China and the West, instead of trying to eliminate dependence or to replicate China's own approach. Based upon a recognition that variation matters, both across and along value chains, this approach seeks to modulate each side’s exposure, while recognizing that China is also pursuing resource security. This framework seeks a recalibrated equilibrium that both sides can feel secure in—a form of mutually assured resilience—given the interconnectedness of global critical minerals supply chains as both a structural feature and an important component of supply chain resilience.
Speaker:Pascale Massot is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is also John H. McArthur Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in Vancouver, non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in New York, and a Canadian Global Affairs Institute Fellow.
Dr. Massot is the author of China’s Vulnerability Paradox: How the World’s Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets (Oxford University Press, 2024) – Winner of the 2025 Best Book Award in International Political Economy from the International Studies Association and the 2025 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize.
She served as Senior Advisor for China and Asia for various Canadian Cabinet ministers, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade, at different points between 2015 and 2022. In this capacity, she participated in the inaugural Canada-China Economic and Financial Strategic Dialogue in Beijing in 2017. She was a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a visiting PhD candidate at Peking University’s Center for International Political Economy and a Cadieux-Léger Fellow at Global Affairs Canada.
Her research interests include the global political economy of China’s rise, China’s impact on global extractive commodity markets—including debates around de-risking, critical minerals and economic security, Canada-China relations, and the advent of Indo-Pacific strategies around the world. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Host：Liu Yuxi, assistant professor, Institute of Humanites, ShanghaiTech University
Registration Link and Q&R Code:The talk will be delivered in English. Additionally, the speaker possesses professional working proficiency in French and Mandarin. To register, please click on the QR code below: https://wenjuan.shanghaitech.edu.cn/vm/YsvEw61.aspx