This paper combs the actions for the United States, Japan and Europe to restructure their rare earth supply chain, analyzes the motivation and possibility of the reconstruction, and identifies its impact on the development of China's rare earth industry. The following conclusions are drawn. 1) through reconstructing supply chain, the United States, Japan and Europe have initially established a rare earth resource supply chain system independent of China; 2) the theoretical basis of the reconstruction, which is a long-term strategy, is to maintain their comparative advantages in high-end rare earth applications, and the practical basis is to ensure supply security for their industries; 3) to reconstruct the rare earth supply chain, they continue to resume their rare earth mines, the pattern of rare earth supply being changed greatly and gradually becoming diversified and China's dominant position in the supply being gradually decreased; 4) according to the output of rare earth permanent magnet materials and the neodymium iron boron magnetic materials consumed by new energy vehicles, it is predicted that the demand for rare earth will reach more than 600000 t by 2030 while the supply will be only 350000 t, far less than the demand, and the gap will become larger and larger as time goes by. Moreover, corresponding suggestions are put forward for China to improve the competitiveness of its whole rare earth industry chain.

reconstruction of rare earth supply chain  /  rare earth industry chain  /  rare earth supply and demand pattern