You need to read up on this. You do know that manganese is an element, not a process, right? And that lithium manganese dioxide is a mineral not the result of processing lithium. If your contention is that lithium deposits can be commercially synthesized into lithium manganese dioxide, you are just wrong.
Ooops! I mean Manganese is a mineral. There is plenty of lithium everywhere. Manganese is required to make a lithium ion battery as in the Leaf, etc. You can’t process lithium into a battery without China controlling the minerals.
I have read up on this. I think you need to because the bulk of Chinese deposits are lithium carbonate. Lithium Manganese Dioxide is easily created by adding lithium to Manganese Dioxide. Lithium Manganese Dioxide does not occur in nature that often. However the Chinese do control MgO2, but like I said there are literally dozens of different Lithium Ion battery technologies, its just that LiMgO2 is the easiest to implement which is why we see it in most smaller batteries.