As far as I'm concerned, as I have already said, I wonder whether critical minerals represent a threat to national security. It isn't clear. If we compare a mine owned by Chinese interests to a mine owned by German interests, does it pose a threat to national security? That isn't necessarily the case. A German business might very well decide to sell its entire production to Germany to produce electric vehicles in Germany, while a Chinese business might simply sell its minerals to the highest bidder, and vice versa, of course.
In a case like that, the question that arises is where the risk lies, and what the threat is. Is there really a threat to national security? Maybe not, unless the minerals are used to manufacture military equipment, for example. At that point, we might need to debate it. Again, there is the issue of the identity of the owner. In addition, since the owner always has the option of buying the asset but not operating it, would we have ways of requiring that the owner operate it, for example by telling the owner that it will lose its investment if the asset is not operated?
There may be other avenues to explore that are not limited solely to agreeing or not agreeing to the investment. In some cases, foreign investors are prepared to pay dearly to get our assets. So do we want to deprive ourselves of that? We have to ask ourselves why they want to pay so much, and what economic risks and, potentially, national security risks there are. However, whether the investors are Chinese, German or American is not necessarily going to determine the risk. A more thorough and somewhat more nuanced analysis has to be done.