The fall of China’s “manganese king” may hit global EV supply chains

ONE AFTERTMI another, the empires of China’s most powerful industrialists are collapsing. In January local media reported that Li Hejun, a solar-panel magnate and once the country’s richest man, had been detained by the police. Liu Zhongtian, who created Asia’s largest aluminium company, is said to have been chased by creditors this year as his company is restructured. Hui Ka Yan, another erstwhile rich-list-topper, was detained in September as his property-development group, Evergrande, foundered. On October 10th Bloomberg reported that He Jinbi, the boss of one of China’s largest copper-trading houses, had also been apprehended by the authorities.Against this backdrop, the troubles of Jia Tianjiang, a 61-year-old billionaire who built a global manganese empire, may seem unremarkable. On September 22nd a Chinese court put his company, Tianyuan Manganese Industry (), into administration, after the huge debts Mr Jia accrued had gone unpaid. Yet his predicament may have consequences far beyond his business—and beyond China’s borders. That is because manganese is used to make types of high-quality steel and in lithium-ion batteries, both of which are instrumental to supply chains President Xi Jinping views as strategic. And Mr Jia, widely known in China as “Manganese King”, has been instrumental in the metal’s production.