TOKYO -- Canada can play a "big role" in reducing reliance on China for vital industrial metals, Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson said Thursday, as the U.S. and its allies seek to decouple their supply chains from Asia's largest economy.
Ottawa seeks to develop these resources and "also to look at processing those minerals in countries like Canada, in countries like Japan, countries like the United States, so that we're not quite so dependent on the processing that happens in China," Wilkinson told Nikkei in an interview here, explaining his country's new strategy on critical minerals.