China and Japan Covet the Same Rare-Earth Metals 159
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Australian: "Japan's increasingly frantic efforts to lead the world in green technology have put it on a collision course with the ambitions of China and dragged both government and industry into the murky realm of large-scale mineral smuggling."
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Informative)
Except the Chinese government is trying to control the market and shut down competition, and the Japanese government is ... doing something, presumably, but what isn't exactly clear from TFA. They could try to promote competition, but unsurprisingly, it doesn't sound like they're doing it.
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Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. Japan and China are "competing" for different things, presumably only one of which most westerners will support.
China is trying to own the supplies/means of production for rare earth metals. Apparently they own most of the existing supply/production, and are moving to own supplies and/or the mining companies that produce the supplies elsewhere in the world.
Japanese auto manufacturers are giant consumers of rare earth metals, presumably to make batteries for their hybrids, and so Japan is competing for a larger supply to consume.
The BAD thing here (to most westerners) is that China is locking down the market for rare earth metals, which are apparently important for many renewable energy technologies. This is bad because western countries are being very aggressive about renewable energy, but China can either frustrate those efforts or make them really expensive.
The GOOD thing here (to most westerners) is that there is apparently a huge black market for these materials, which means that China can't control its own producers very well. This could lead to market reform in China - the market may be freed up as Chinese producers, seeking more profits, fight the political actors in China who favor export quotas. Freer Chinese markets = less power of the Chinese government on world trade.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Japanese auto manufacturers are giant consumers of rare earth metals, presumably to make batteries for their hybrids, and so Japan is competing for a larger supply to consume.
Japan is a puny island with a huge industry. They're competing for resources. This isn't news since 1930.
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Japan is a puny island with a huge industry.
Geography isn't always the best power indicator. Japan may be small, but they have a great deal of control in the world economy. China won't let them at rare earth metals? They'll find a way to use metals that *are* available to them, or to get the metals they need.
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Geography isn't always the best power indicator. Japan may be small, but they have a great deal of control in the world economy.
We are talking about Japan, after all. You know, the ones who already invaded China once, and the ones who needed nuclear bombs to surrender.
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Try 1868. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration [wikipedia.org]
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
Gallium for LEDs ....
Germanium for optics
Indium for LCDs
Rhodium for ???
Tantalum for Cellphones
These are the rare earth metals manufacturers are after, and they're running out.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/04/26051202.jpg [gawker.com]
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The GOOD thing here (to most westerners) is that there is apparently a huge black market for these materials, which means that China can't control its own producers very well. This could lead to market reform in China - the market may be freed up as Chinese producers, seeking more profits, fight the political actors in China who favor export quotas. Freer Chinese markets = less power of the Chinese government on world trade.
You just might be surprised at how fast the producers fall in line with the Chine
The supplies aren't in China (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you're implying China is going to assassinate foreign industrialists, you're apparently confused. Most of the known reserves of rare earth metals aren't in China - the problem, for Japan, is that China has negotiated exclusive trading rights with several developing countries over their stocks of rare earth metals. So the local governments may even be in on this 'black market' - the problem is that if they openly sell directly to Japanese companies, China will bring suit against them in the WTO.
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They do, but there's still more outside of China than inside.
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hear hear! :)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
If the parent actually said something of doubtable factual accuracy, then it would be at least a little appropriate. He's just stating that he thinks this situation may be helped by competitive forces.
Are you expecting everyone to footnote their opinions with "1. My Brain. A couple minutes ago."?
Original research (Score:3, Insightful)
If the parent actually said something of doubtable factual accuracy, then it would be at least a little appropriate.
If someone disagrees, then it's doubtable. As to whether it's factual:
Are you expecting everyone to footnote their opinions with "1. My Brain. A couple minutes ago."?
At least on Wikipedia, you're not supposed to post original research, including original syntheses. You can post opinions if you cite a reliable source stating that someone else holds that opinion.
But of course, Slashdot is not Wikipedia. Is this what you were trying to get at?
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Re: Doubtability (Score:2)
If someone disagrees, then it's doubtable. As to whether it's factual:
That's true, but not very relevant. Whether a statement needs a citation does not depend on whether or not it is doubtable (or doubted), per se. Rather, it depends on whether the *factual accuracy* of the statement is doubtable. What I took from AC's post is that a statement judged on factual merit requires a citation if the veracity is doubtable, but a statement of opinion does not.
The factual premises on which the opinion is founded may need citations, but not the original statement of opinion.
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The factual premises on which the opinion is founded may need citations
So I took [citation needed] on an opinion to mean that one needs to present more factual premises and cite them. If this was incorrect, what should DreamsAreOkToo have written as a pithy way of saying "Please present the factual premises on which you base your opinion"?
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Brief and witty is good. Brief and ambiguous is bad. Should probably have just used more words, rather than try to be witty. You can't just ask someone to explain all their premises. State the premise you have a problem with, and then *maybe* you can use "citation needed."
I personally don't even know what he wants clarification on. Does he want someone to explain...
- what good deeds will will come of this (after all, how do we know that mining these minerals does not cause more environmental harm)?
- how
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Nothing except Wikipedia is Wikipedia. Please keep the "citation neededs" on Wikipedia, where they belong, and far away from casual conversation.
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I'm sorry, but as a native English speaker I had no problems reading the sentence and understanding that it was a point of view. It doesn't even look like a fact.
Or maybe I should rephrase that as:
I think I'm sorry, but as I believe I'm a native English speaker I didn't perceive that I had any problems in understanding that it might have been a point of view. In my view, it didn't look like a fact. :-)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
1) China's government is trying to lock up rare earth metals so that they can profit off of it politically. Since these are used in green technologies, this is bad environmentally.
China is going to profit off of it economically.
They have been pursuing a decades long mineral aquisition policy. And they're beating the USA.
Capitalism just can't compete with (Chinese) government financed companies.
Who in their right mind wouldn't want to do everything in their power to monopolize a limited natural resource?
You don't even really know that it's bad for the the environment... yet.
If it makes sense, someone will break the monopoly. More on this later.
2) This isn't really affecting the market, because there's a huge black market for the stuff. As shown by drugs, Prohibition, embargoes... black markets usually breed a lot of crime.
I'm not sure you make sense.
"not really affecting the market" and "huge black market" are contradictory.
Not to mention that black markets are by definition illegal; claiming that they breed crime is tautological.
1) "Ginya Adachi, from the Japanese Rare Earth Association, said that China's dominance of rare earths would serve the developed world with a rude shock about global trade: Japan, America and Europe must now realise that some markets are not real, but political."
Pure hyperbole. China's lock on rare earth metals isn't recent news. They've had it for >20 years.
And there are dozens of markets whose prices are set because of political considerations.
If I wanted to be pedantic, I could argue that every tariff and subsidy qualifies.
Last but not least, that article was shit.
It leaves out tons of back story and doesn't even mention why people are talking about this again.
1. An Australian group called "Lynas" couldn't get the funding to build a refinery in Malaysia or develop a new mine in Australia until they sold 51% of their ownership to China for 500 Million.
2. A Chinese invesment company just bought 25% of a major Australian rare earth mining corp
Looks like this strategic resource isn't all that strategic since nobody is willing to fork over the cash to build refineries outside of China, without Chinese cash.
Maybe Canada will since they're pretty much the only player left.
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Last but not least, that article was shit.
It leaves out tons of back story and doesn't even mention why people are talking about this again.
1. An Australian group called "Lynas" couldn't get the funding to build a refinery in Malaysia or develop a new mine in Australia until they sold 51% of their ownership to China for 500 Million.
I don't usually quote myself, but I was reading more and this is just rich: ::epic facepalm::
Goldman Sachs is the company that pulled financing from Lynas' processing plant.
An American investment firm allowed the Chinese to take over the world's largest rare earth mineral processing plant.
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Is it really flamebait when the post is so absurd that no one can take it as anything other than a joke?
WOW! (Score:5, Funny)
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2) Still no name for these rare-earth metals even with RTFA.
Wikipedia for the win. [wikipedia.org]
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No, but he might respond with the "Year Births" page that Wikipedia has for ever year. Such as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1968_births [wikipedia.org]
And you might learn how to scroll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_metals#Technological_applications [wikipedia.org]
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Re:WOW! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WOW! (Score:5, Informative)
Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:2)
The US used to have a currency backed by the barrel of oil. $20 bought a barrel. Or so the tin-foil-hat-wearing gold-bugs say.
Now that oil has more or less peaked, perhaps renewable resources will take off. Maybe China will get to print the world currency.
Re:Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ohh, gold has significant intrinsic worth: its use for industry and effectiveness as a very malleable, highly conductive noble metal that can be handled in nearly monomolecular layers make it very effective for all sorts of industrial uses. But yes, its use and manipulations for decoration and economic market uses are quite out of scale with its industrial use.
This wasn't always the case: The invention of steel, the assembly line, and the invention of bank notes all distorted the value of easily worked, sta
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The term is 'fiat currency'.
The intrinsic worth of Gold (Score:3, Insightful)
Gold has little intrinsic worth
There is no such thing as intrinsic worth, at all, for anything, including food. There are only desirable properties, and the desire for those properties changes on a second by second basis for each individual and their circumstance. If I own a dozen palaces, then the "intrinsic value" of an additional hovel for shelter is close to zero for me.
Gold is scarce; it is difficult to counterfeit and difficult to mine.
Gold doesn't oxidize or otherwise degrade.
Gold is easily divisible.
Gold is easily moved and hidde
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Aside from the moral issue of literally stealing the life's savings of millions of chinese peasants? I mean, I know non-white people aren't important, but even that seems a little harsh. That funding from china comes from their trade surplus, which means they have been lending us their savings.
As for what would happen to us, well... http://www.amazon.com/Liberation-Adventures-Collapse-United-America/dp/0765320460 [amazon.com]
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Aside from the moral issue of literally stealing the life's savings of millions of chinese peasants?
No, this money comes from the Chinese government not Chinese citizens. Sure at one point, Chinese peasants might have had some of this money, but it isn't theirs any more.
Having said that, defaulting on hundreds of billions or trillions of debt ultimately won't help the US's reputation or financial condition. It'd just be another nail in the coffin. Chinese could always sell its debt to another party (like Japan or the UK) in order to damage the US further. Will the US continue its default when the UK ow
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IF we were to default on that debt -- what country would be stupid enough to buy it from China?? Other countries have even less ability to coerce us into paying.
[I do think we are fast approaching a point where we'll either have to default and nationalize, or become a vassal state.]
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I think it's 1) to support the
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it's probably worth it to them to have the US by the balls, because they have the ability to effectively destroy the dollar, and by extension, the US economy.
I disagree. I think that China has traded a whole lot of valuable goods for a whole lot of paper that could be made worthless by the government with very few consequences. You see, while default would create a massive spike in the interest rate charged for government bonds (and associated securities), I don't think that would affect the corporate stock or bond markets that much. The interest rate for corporate bonds is set against the interest rate for the safest government. Though that government is cu
Re:Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then good luck borrowing money from anybody ever again, after a default on that scale.
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Which doesn't seem to have stopped the U.S. from making loans to countries that historically have been in default more often than not. (Sometimes I think in pursuit of being seen as the benevolent worldfather, we've become just plain stupid.)
And maybe we'd be better off if we weren't spending 2 out of every 3 future dollars on interest to service our debts. Learning to live within our means, the hard way if need be, might ultimately be a Good Thing.
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Erm, no. Your comment is pretty much a complete misreading of historical events.
First of all, it wasn't Hitler that told the governments of the world to, in essence, "Fuck off." That job was done by the Weimar Republic, who massively devalued the German Mark by printing massive amounts of it to pay their debts under the Treaty of Versailles. Unfortunately, this, in turn, created massive hyperinflation that destroyed the credibility of the mainstream political figures with the German people. It was that
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I stand corrected, I thought it was Hitler who printed the money when he first came to power.
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... and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. [gutenberg.org]
Shame... (Score:5, Funny)
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... And if things go downhill from here, we may expect some uranium in our cereals all over the world, even if we didn't covet that at all.
OP and TFA (Score:2)
rare-earths (Score:5, Insightful)
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are only rare on Earth.
Citation, please?
Time to start asteroid mining.
You do understand, of course, the astronomic (pun intended) price of the resources mined in the asteroid belt?
Re:rare-earths (Score:4, Funny)
You do understand, of course, the astronomic (pun intended) price of the resources mined in the asteroid belt?
You know what? [thebestpag...iverse.net]
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You must be new to the internets.
FYI... (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_Page_in_the_Universe [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maddox_(writer) [wikipedia.org]
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Sorry, if you don't think Maddox is funny, your funny bone must be broken. (Pun intended.)
Re:rare-earths (Score:5, Informative)
are only rare on Earth. Citation, please?
Actually, it was all said tongue in cheek. Having gotten that out of the way... As someone else pointed out, they're only considered "rare-earths" for historical reasons. I believe some of the platinum groups are less abundant; but, equally necessary to support our technology. In either case, the relative abundance of elements on Earth should be relatively similar throughout the inner solar system, with some tendancy for sorting by mass as the original cloud condensed to form the Sun and planets.
You do understand, of course, the astronomic (pun intended) price of the resources mined in the asteroid belt?
It's very high. Most of the cost is in launching the equipment and supplies needed. Then there's manpower and support. Consider NEO 433 Eros, a relatively easy target to which we have sent a robotic probe. It has a metal content which, by one estimate, is worth $20 Trillion (US) at current market prices. The technology and marketplace might not support a mining expedition to Eros right now; but, it's conceivable that in the near future a business case could be made for such an effort. Now consider that 433 Eros is only 3% metal content. Another example with higher metal content is 4660 Nereus. There are hundreds more which have orbits that bring them near Earth.
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"Consider NEO 433 Eros, a relatively easy target to which we have sent a robotic probe. It has a metal content which, by one estimate, is worth $20 Trillion (US) at current market prices."
Sounds like a way to pay off the national debt -- is there one close enough and small enough that we could send up a couple of robotic engines and drag the thing into a more convenient orbit? I'm wondering whst the cost vs benefits would be, given only current tech. Maybe a trillion spent, but $20T gained??
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Well, that's sort of my point. We don't (currently) have the technology available to pull that much mass back to Earth orbit. For that matter, we can't get to the Moon and back with what we've got available right now. In the next two or three decades we will have the building blocks needed for small scale operations (a pilot plant, if you will). Clearly there's the possiblity of profit, if you can make the massive initial outlay. You can then use the initial mining operations to boot-strap the 2nd gene
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That may be... but if we're the only nation that has it in surplus, then WE are in a position to dictate the market, to our own benefit -- and it's about time we started looking after ourselves, because no one else is going to do it.
Dumping it all at once for a one-shot profit would be stupid. Nope, you dole it out at a competitive price, and fund the country for years to come. No need to go all Walmart about it.
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Dumping it all at once for a one-shot profit would be stupid. Nope, you dole it out at a competitive price, and fund the country for years to come.
Unfortunately, $50-100 Billion is barely enough to support a dozen senators' pet projects, and not nearly enough to fund our country. It would, however, be enough to make serious improvements.
All of that really doesn't matter, though. "Rare earth" isn't a misnomer - we've not got much of these metals, and we're going to need to get more outside of Earth eventually.
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are only rare on Earth.
Citation, please?
Here's one: http://www.tricitiesnet.com/donsastronomy/mining.html [tricitiesnet.com]
And here's about 165,000 more: http://www.google.com/search?q=space+asteroids+rare+earth+metals [google.com]
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They really aren't that rare. The naming is a historical relic. While they aren't common like, say, silicon, many other elements that aren't "rare earth" aren't either.
"large-scale mineral smuggling"? (Score:4, Funny)
Why is this news? (Score:2, Informative)
Rare-earths aren't only in China. China is simply making rare-earths available cheaper than it would be for countries to mine them themselves.
News flash: Japan imports nearly everything.
the 1950's called (Score:4, Funny)
China's bastnasite and monazite supply for magnets (Score:5, Informative)
Lithium (presumably for lithium-ion electric car batteries) is not a rare-earth metal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element
Which element(s) are we fussing about? Why are they useful for green tech?
Lanthanum: very useful for green tech. Hydrogen fuel cell-related.
Hydrogen sponge alloys can contain lanthanum. These alloys are capable of storing up to 400 times their own volume of hydrogen gas in a reversible adsorption process. Heat energy is released
Cerium: maybe useful for green tech. Maybe motor magnets.
Cerium is used in alloys that are used to make permanent magnets.
Praseodymium: maybe marginally useful for green tech. Lightweight cars.
As an alloying agent with magnesium to create high-strength metals that are used in aircraft engines
Neodymium: very useful for green tech. Strong motor magnets.
Neodymium magnets are the strongest permanent magnets known.
Promethium: probably not useful for green tech.
Light sources.
Samarium: probably not useful for green tech.
Headphone magnets.
Alloys.
Europium: probably not useful for green tech.
Red color in CRTs.
Gadolinium: probably not useful for green tech.
Garnets.
CDs.
MRIs.
Terbium: marginally useful for green tech.
Solid state devices.
Alloys that respond strongly to a magnetic field. Sensor, actuator applications.
"Green" phosphors. Ha.
Dysprosium: very useful for green tech. Strong motor magnets.
* Neodymium-iron-boron magnets can have up to 6% of the neodymium substituted with dysprosium[15] to raise the coercivity for demanding applications such as drive motors for hybrid electric vehicles.
* This substitution would require up to 100 grams of dysprosium per hybrid car produced.
* Based on Toyota's projected 2 million units per year, the use of dysprosium in applications such as this would quickly exhaust the available supply of the metal. The dysprosium substitution may also be useful in other applications, as it improves the corrosion resistance of the magnets
* Currently, most dysprosium is being obtained from the ion-adsorption clay ores of southern China.
Holium: maybe useful for green tech.
Very strong magnets.
Cubic zirconia.
Lasers.
Erbium: useful for green tech, but probably not in the article's context, which was automotive.
Nuclear control rods.
Cubic zirconia.
Lasers.
Cryocoolers.
Thulium: scarce; probably not useful for green tech.
Superconductors.
Microwave equipment.
X-ray devices, in a nuclear reactor.
Ytterbium: useful for green tech, but probably not in the article's context, which was automotive.
Convert infrared light to electricity in solar cells.
X-ray source. Steel dopant.
Optics, lasers.
Lutetium: scarce; useful for green tech, but probably not in the article's context, which was automotive.
Catalyst in process of making OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes).
It turns out China (and to some extend Australia) are rich in these ores that contain lanthanum, neodymium, terbium, and dysprosium:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastnasite
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monazite
Other ores:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenotime
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergusonite
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadolinite
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euxenite
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycrase
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blomstrandine
The Australian News article is probably worrying over China controlling bastnasite and monazite, which notably have neodymium and dysprosium, which are used for magnets, which go in motors, which go in electric cars, which is a green tech. A car is pictured in the article.
Working the lanthanum angle wrt fuel cells seems less likely.
Also, an AC on /. that read Wikipedia is not a reliable source :)
Re:China's bastnasite and monazite supply for magn (Score:4, Funny)
[citation needed]
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Interestingly enough, there is a major chinese financial stake in both major Aussie rare earths companies trying to develop Australian located deposits. ARU and LYC respectively. In LYC's case its a controlling interest. Haven't looked in depth into ARU as I don't hold.
The issue has seemed to be too far beneath the radar for the govt to get involved unlike say OzMinerals (where the federal govt moved to restrict how much stake the incoming Chinese companies were allowed to buy and specifically excluded the
Lead? (Score:2)
NOW China really has the US by the balls (Score:5, Insightful)
What really stood out to me in TFA:
there are now a lot of [green] technologies that can't work without rare earths, and China is currently in effective control of the global supply.
So I am thinking to myself: 1) The U.S. is amassing trillions and debt, much of it held by the Chinese, and 2) The Chinese own the key elements required by certain Green technology - which the U.S. government is pushing toward.
Did I just catch a glimpse of the slow arc of the decline of the U.S.? Is the U.S. grabbing its own ankles, or what!?
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China is SHITTING itself that america might not be able to pay back all those debts, they recently became nervous about this and it's seen in them asking for reassurance that their investments are safe. After all america still has a military that could easily repell any hostile advances, so exactly what recourse do you think china is going to have if america really starts to pack it in? the USA will just tell china to wait for i
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the USA will just tell china to wait for it's money like a good boy.
Just tell *any* country/institution that you won't pay your debt and you're in for a financial collapse because then nobody else will lend you anything.
really it's in china's best interests to play nice with america as it's their number one customer, without them china's rise is finished as their own domestic demand can't support the double digit growth they have been enjoying (as seen in their 8% figure)
It's not because China depends on th
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Just consider the case where China would say "we will not lend any more money and we will not renew any of the current loans (i.e. we want our money back as soon as the agreement allows it)". That would create very serious problems for the US. Of course, at the moment it's not in China's best interests either because the US is a good customer, but that could change. It also means it's now in the US' best interests to be a good customer.
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Just consider the case where China would say "we will not lend any more money and we will not renew any of the current loans (i.e. we want our money back as soon as the agreement allows it)". That would create very serious problems for the US. Of course, at the moment it's not in China's best interests either because the US is a good customer, but that could change. It also means it's now in the US' best interests to be a good customer.
Congratulations, you just exposed the entire western world's secret plan to avoid a war with China and turn them into trading partners instead.
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What's the big deal? (Score:4, Informative)
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From what I understand from the article, China only holds 95% of the supply because they are able to provide the metals for cheaper.
It's a poor article.
China holds 97% of the output, mostly because they own the processing plants.
China only has ~50% of the global supply, but has bought control of even more.
If these Chinese companies took advantage of their "monopoly position" by raising prices significantly, then other countries/companies would simply mine their own rare earth metals.
It isn't about mining, it is about refining.
Almost all roads lead to Chinese processing plants.
** Cue Command and Conquer music "Act on instinct" (Score:2)
Irony (Score:2)
Oh fun... what irony.
So we will go from being dependent on foreign oil to being dependent on foreign rare-earth metals? So much for alternative energy setting us free from political messes over energy?
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> So we will go from being dependent on foreign oil to being dependent on foreign
> rare-earth metals?
These metals are found at low concentrations pretty much everywhere. The highest-yielding deposits currently known may be in China but they aren't much better than lower yielding deposits elsewhere. Also, there has not yet been much exploration for them. It is likely that the best deposits have not yet been found.
China's military expansion of Lebensraum (Score:5, Informative)
BACKGROUND: From 1930's until 1945 Imperial Japan and Nazi-Germany were engaged in a militaristic expansion of their Lebensraum (lit. german expression meaning "living space for their own ethnicity") while attempting to grab foreign countries' natural resources to feed their industries (including the important military-industrial complex). This was in fact a "modern" replay of age-old imperialism and something that the most recent dominant empires, such as Britain, Russia and China had been at until then.
After WWII, (Soviet) Russia emerged as the greatest beneficiary in terms of imperial territory, while the recently democratized Britain had to begin surrendering the sovereignty of most of their empire's territory back to their native peoples.
Meanwhile the secretive and reclusive Chinese empire of Middle Kingdom, with its age-old imperial view of its neighbouring countries (of non-Chinese and non-sinicized peoples) as mere vassal states, was being taken over by Mao's communist dictatorship which uniquely combined the Marxist doctrines (like internationalism) with its own Han-Chinese chauvism (racial and cultural superiority akin to Nazi ideology).
Thus after the 1949 takeover of China by Mao the Soviet-backed "people's liberation" communist army was quickly sent to "liberate" and annex the vast territories of China's historical western neighbours, Mongols, Tibetans and Uighurs. Manchus in the north had at that point mostly been demographically assimilated already, despite Manchuria's widely recognized declaration of independence in 1932.
The sparsely populated and non-Chinese Central-Asian nations of Tibetans, Mongols and Uighurs, however, were soon put under systematic colonial exploitation, including the sinister policy of settling massive numbers of uprooted Chinese settlers into the occupied territories in order to consolidate de facto Chinese imperial rule there for eternity.
TODAY: The territories of Tibetans, turkic Uighurs and (South) Mongols (as Northern Mongolia regained its independence from Soviet Union in 1991) have been integrated into the centrally-planned industrial system of the (formerly communist) nazional-socialist Chinese empire by the virtue of their massive exploitable natural resources such as oil, gas, water and vast deposits of precious and industrial minerals of all kinds. Native people are still an annoyance to be dealt with, mainly through policies of Han-chauvinist propaganda and systematic sinicization enforced through strict military control.
Here is one example article detailing China's ongoing industrial exploitation of the occupied territories. While this particular article doesn't refer to rare earth metals specifically, both South Mongolia and Tibet [highlandmining.com] are being mined for them.
China mines Tibet's rich resources [cnn.com]
MOD PARENT UP -- good historical points! (Score:3, Interesting)
My sister's work has offices in China. It's become clear to them (and the Chinese will tell you this to your face, if you ask) that China's REAL motivation with all this new "capitalism" is in sucking all the wealth out of the West.
Which goes right along with what you said. (Interesting post, BTW.)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Given the weakness and corruption of late Qing dynasty China, they were hardly expanding anywhere. In fact, China endured over a century of humiliation by foreign powers, including Russia, France, Germany, the US, and Japan, as they carved up "spheres of influence" and took Chinese land (Hong Kong by Britain, Jiaotong Peninsula by Germans, Taiwan by Japanese in the 1890s). Japan and Russia fought for control in Manchuria; the Japanese won that war, and had de-facto control of Manchuria until they allowed
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Dear vampire baozi, nowhere did I refer to "Chinese expansion from 1800-1949" which you label as propagandist bullshit.
Yet, since you bring it up, even the unpopular ("foreign") Manchu dynasty of Qing and the subsequent short-lived Republic, despite dealing with foreign imperial colonies on the coast (and later the Japanese in the north-east), imposed (or attempted to do so militarily but were defeated like in Tibet, until the PLA in 1950) Chinese colonial rule in the above-mentioned neighbouring people's t
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Utter bullshit. Mongolia was never a part of the Soviet Union. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_People's_Republic [wikipedia.org]
Please note that "regained its independence from" != "a part of." The post you replied to never said that Mongolia was "a part of" the Soviet Union, but only asserted the well documented political and military alignment with the Soviet Union. You may recall a similar situation existed with Cuba.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
When Chinese forces attacked Mongolia in 1919 to negate its independence from China, the Soviet Red Army helped Mongolia ward off the invasion. The Mongolian People's Republic was established in 1921 with Soviet influence.
The sky is falling. (Score:2)
Check back tomorrow for all the details as this exclusive story unfolds.
Green, my ass (Score:2)
If it's using up an extremely finite resource -- how "green" is it, really??
I'd say -- not at all, and that any "greenery" is a temporary illusion.
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