Cobalt is an indispensable mineral for strategic emerging industries. China lacks cobalt, the U. S. and European threaten the security of China's cobalt by dominating the global governance system. In this regard, it is necessary to analyze the current global governance system of cobalt, understand the characteristics of the system and put forward China's participation path. This paper summarizes the evolutionary characteristics, core elements, existing problems and challenges of the governance system, also puts forward suggestions on enhancing the responsible mining awareness of Chinese enterprises, actively participating in and dominate the governance process, scaling up the cooperation of international mining investment, strengthening the local resource exploitation and strategic reserves, with a view to providing a theoretical basis for China to select its path to participate in the global governance of cobalt.

cobalt  /  resource security  /  global governance