It’s insane how little reporting there is on this. This is perhaps the biggest story of the week.
Trump is back to making us think in weeks rather than years.
Days. The on-off-on electronic/cell phone tariffs are an example
China knows what it has and isn’t afraid to be the new big-dick-swinging-bully in town now that the USA has blown it’s wad.
You know what, good for them. When you got it, flaunt it.
The way these Trumpian dipshits might put it is “They hold all the cards.”
This is kind of interesting… China has been working on monopolizing sources of raw materials for awhile now, and putting them on the market cheap so that they become the de facto supplier, making it difficult or impossible for any other sources to be developed.
But… there are other sources of things like lithium and cobalt, it’s just been cheaper to buy it from China so everyone does.
Cutting off the supply will cause some slow-downs and a bit of chaos in the short term but what will happen is local sources will suddenly become worth developing. What this does is effectively burn a big piece of China’s economic power… I wonder what they’re getting out of it right now? The impact won’t last very long.
Neither lithium nor cobalt are rare earths, and China isn’t particularly dominating their production either. The leading producers are other countries. These are completely unrelated to the rare earths problem.
With rare earths the situation is that China isn’t only leading in production of the ores, but also in processing capacity, and the technology needed for it. The US already is the second largest producer of rare earth ores, but they still have to send them to China for processing because they can’t do all of it in the US. For the same reason, China produces ~90% of the world’s permanent magnets (these use rare earths like neodymium or samarium). Basically it’s not about developing sources for the ores. Rare earths are not that rare in the first place. It’s about the technology and capacity to do anything with them.
I do agree that the impact might not last long. They’re just forcing the competition to work faster. But maybe the explanation is that they think that making everybody speed up their rare earths development doesn’t change much in the long run anyway, while throwing a wrench into the US industry right now is a pretty good deal.
From research to large scale trials i would expect building the processing industry to take at the very least a few years. And once things are in place, China can just reopen the floodgates and give these new refiners a hard time, unless they are heavily protected by their government then.
So it requires a dedicated long term strategy to counteract, which will take some years. Also in the meantime all dependent industries are suffering big-time while China can still export the finished products and further strengthen their industries.
In terms of economical power this move is much stronger than Trumps tariffs and there is no rewards to be expected for countries who stick it out for the US. The US has already made it clear that it will just make you suffer more, the more you give in to them.
They’ll sell to Europe don’t ya worry
In the meantime, shipments of rare earths have been halted at many ports, with customs officials blocking exports to any country, including to the U.S. as well as Japan and Germany, sources told the Times. China’s Ministry of Commerce issued export restrictions alongside the General Administration of Customs, prohibiting Chinese businesses from any engagement with U.S. firms, especially defense contractors.
They’re clearly calling Trump’s bluff, but why include Japan and Germany in this? Worrying. The article doesn’t explain.
BTW I don’t buy into the narrative that China is the better world dominator. Their human rights record is abhorrent, and they clearly aren’t a democracy. And I don’t see that changing anytinme soon.
but why include Japan and Germany in this?
To stop US companies routing shipments through Germany and Japan.
Precisely this. You route a shipment to an un-tarriffed/un-embargoed country, usually to a shell company or something, and then ship it to wherever using THAT country as the country of origin. It’s a pretty common way of avoiding arms embargoes.
Because these are all loopholes used to bypass any serious moves. Like everyone is still buying Russian oil even in Europe. The blockade is an ineffective joke. This move is China saying fuck your instability and stupidity, we are serious and can back it up. There are no back doors and no way out of this insanely stupid mess.
It is not so much that China is the better world dominator, it is more that the US is already dominating more than any one nation should and it is a good thing if politicians keep dependencies on nations like that in their minds as a concern.
BTW I don’t buy into the narrative that China is the better world dominator. Their human rights record is abhorrent, and they clearly aren’t a democracy. And I don’t see that changing anytinme soon.
China’s human rights record is abhorrent, but they’re mostly willing to keep it in their pants and not overthrow governments or fund genocides on the other side of the world.
not overthrow governments
Uhhhh…
Not overthrow governments on the other side of the world.
It does not make the slightest difference for location of where a country is overthrowing governments
Of course it doesn’t, but go back to the original statement.
Yeah saw and it’s still such a silly thing to say. Like is a genocide better because you keep it to yourself? Christ.
You do realize I’m talking geopolitics right? The comment I replied to said “BTW I don’t buy into the narrative that China is the better world dominator.” What China does within and next to its borders is literally not what we’re taking about.
tell that to someone who lives in an EU country where corrupt politicians are building out surveillance systems with chinese tech, and bringing the country into other large chinese projects from even larger chinese loans, along with chinese battery factories that are polluting our environment!
to someone, like me.
a neighboring country is also neck deep in this shit
I mean that’s not what I’m talking about though, and in the first place does it really matter if the surveillance systems are Chinese or American/Israeli?
They sure like waving their sticks an awful lot in the South China Sea and pissing off all their neighbours though. And in some cases outright hostile. The US needs to be strong to keep China at bay and the reverse needs to be a true, a weaker US will let China get even more belligerent and as someone who’s a neighbour of the Chinese, it’s not a good sight to see.
