Everyone has large reserves. They aren't rare, they are everywhere. But nobody else will mine them because they are used in relatively small amounts, absolutely destroy the environment, very hard to get to, very labor intensive, kill off the employees mining them, and refining them is even worse. China is China so they don't give a shit about the downsides and have a disposable labor force. The US used to be the largest supplier because we were the only Major consumer. We we're thrilled to hand it off to the Chinese and let them destroy their environment. Obviously that was pretty short sighted but Americas biggest fault has always been not being able to plan out long term. But building out a mining and refining venture would take at least a decade and would have to be heavily subsidized.
