Yes, though money is still a big part of it. An Australian company (Lynas) developed the capability but was struggling to get investment largely because they couldn't produce them as cheaply as China's scale/subsidies/etc could.

When Japan was temporarily cut off from rare earths they became an investor (willing to pay more to reduce single-vendor risks), but apparently it was hard to get the US at the time to care enough. At least that's the story that was floating around.