Navigating Clean Energy Competition: India’s Critical Minerals Strategy and Supply Chain Diplomacy

The global transition towards clean energy has transformed technology-specific supply chains into areas of geoeconomic competition and economic statecraft. Control over these supply chains or even specific nodes within them increasingly shapes patterns of strategic dependence, vulnerability, realignment, and influence among major powers, including the United States, the European Union, and China. For emerging powers, the concentration of critical production nodes with few actors, particularly critical minerals and their processing, and component manufacturing, poses severe challenges to energy security and strategic autonomy. This paper examines how India has adapted its critical minerals strategy and supply chain diplomacy to navigate great-power competition in two key technologies for clean energy production: batteries and solar photovoltaics (PV). The paper conceptualizes clean energy supply chains as geoeconomic instruments composed of technology-specific production nodes. Four types of nodes are relevant to this discussion. First, upstream nodes where critical minerals are extracted; second, midstream nodes, where critical mineral processing and manufacturing of key components take place; third, downstream nodes for assembling and domestic integration; and fourth, cross-cutting nodes for setting standards for intellectual property and technology governance. Geographical concentration across these supply chain nodes creates asymmetric dependencies with strategic consequences. In both the battery and solar PV supply chains, China’s global dominance at the upstream and midstream nodes heightens concerns about their reliability and security. India faces acute exposure to concentrated upstream and midstream production nodes in both supply chains, while lacking the material capacity to unilaterally reshape these structures. With the energy transition shifting attention from hydrocarbons to critical minerals and technological capabilities, India faces new security dilemmas over access, resilience, and autonomy. The paper advances a neoclassical realist framework to explain how states pursue strategic agencies under conditions of supply chain dependence. By considering the great power competition along the battery and solar PV supply chain as an external strategic constraint, the paper analyzes India’s critical mineral strategy and supply chain diplomacy as a foreign policy response mediated by domestic institutions, historical experiences, and preferences associated with strategic autonomy. Instead of assuming that dependence uniformly erodes autonomy, the paper demonstrates how recalibrating alignment choices, diversifying relationships, and leveraging institutional settings can manage vulnerabilities and preserve strategic flexibility. The paper conducts a qualitative analysis of India’s diplomatic engagements across the battery and solar PV supply chains. It examines India’s partnerships with the US and EU, selective engagement with China, and its outreach to resource-rich regions in Australia, Africa, and Latin America. Methodologically, the study draws on official speeches, policy documents, joint statements, and strategic frameworks from mid-2010 onwards to trace elite threat perceptions and strategic intent. The paper particularly focuses on how Indian policymakers have framed supply chain dependence, risk of chokepoints, and strategic hedging in official discourses and policy initiatives. By comparing India’s strategies across the battery and solar PV supply chains, the paper shows how emerging powers deploy diversification, selective alignment, and institutional engagement to navigate technology-specific clean energy supply chains under conditions of strategic interdependence.