The impact of geopolitical relations on the evolution of cobalt trade network from the perspective of industrial chain

The turbulent international situation in recent years has aroused a profound impact on global cobalt trade, so it is necessary to investigate the influence of geopolitical relations on cobalt trade. This study divides the geopolitical network into cooperation network and conflict network. Besides, the evolution of global cobalt trade network is studied from the perspective of the whole industry chain. Furthermore, the impact of geopolitical relations on the evolution of cobalt trade network is studied based on QAP method and ERGM. The results show that (1) The scale of geopolitical cooperation network is larger than that of conflict network, while more and more countries have participated in the global geopolitical conflict in recent years; (2) The cooperation network has significant positive impact only on the evolution of midstream and downstream, and the conflict network has the opposite impact on them, indicating that geopolitical cooperation will promote the formation of new trade relations; (3) The influence on the evolution of cobalt trade network increases first and then decreases over time. This paper suggests that countries should pay special attention to geopolitical cooperation and establish more cooperation with countries with high political stability.