Western governments, currently ?ploughing tens of billions of dollars into critical minerals in an effort to break their reliance on China, could look to history to see how well-intentioned efforts to prop up commodity sectors can backfire.

As efforts to build stockpiles and combat China¡¯s dominance gather pace, a dozen industry executives, investors and analysts interviewed?pointed to the risk of a repeat glut scenario.

¡°There needs to be some coordination between Western governments as they seek to incentivize new production,¡± said Brett Beatty, a partner at Resource Capital Funds, a mining-focused private equity firm that supplies the ?U.S. government with niobium and tantalum via its holdings in Global Advanced Metals.