The copper in an EV charging cable, in an AI server, in every wire in your house has to be 99.99% pure — but it starts as rock that's only about 0.5% copper. The step that turns “dirty rock” into “pure metal” is smelting and refining. And even though China mines less than 10% of the world's copper ore, it controls more than half of the smelting. This is the quietest chokepoint in the copper chain — and the most powerful.