Integration or fragmentation: the arrow of China’s lithium product development

Lithium is an indispensable resource for the next generation of clean technology. Promoting the development of lithium industry has become a global consensus, with China being no exception. The development process involves not only the growth and degeneration of lithium products but also the path-dependency issues arising from resources and technology. This study, based on the perspective of product space structure, constructs China’s lithium product network to study its pattern evolution and predict the development direction. Then, according to the current situation and pattern evolution trends, potential advantageous lithium products and advantage-degraded lithium products are identified, and tactics for expanding chains and breaking chains are formulated for them, presenting strategies for the integrated and fragmentated development of China’s lithium products. This aims to steer China’s lithium products towards a more orderly and closely interconnected direction, representing the arrow of development for China’s lithium products.