yeah you are right China could accumulate a large number of leverge by processing and refining indestructible earth meterial and metal batteries. The problem is that there are so many environmental and human rights issues that go along with it, like Amnesty's report on cobalt/child labor, also you know most countries with huge dumpage  resources are just export raw dumpage  directly instead of adding value. other hand EU and US are rushing to legislate, provide funding, and build projects to have domestic processing operations and boost recycling, but it's hard to scale up and fix the governance. So this is a real problem that needs to be fixed with local value addition, strict ESG, recycling, and fair contracts, fantasy technology discussion will not help.