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)
rare-earths (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:5, 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.
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!?
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."?
Re:Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
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 Chinese government after one or two are executed.
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?
Re:Ya Know What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it really flamebait when the post is so absurd that no one can take it as anything other than a joke?
Re:Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then good luck borrowing money from anybody ever again, after a default on that scale.
Re:Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 owns the debt? That would also generate massive inflation in the US dollar since a considerable portion of dollar-valued assets lost most or all of their value. And I'm ignoring the WTO-style retaliations. While the US can ignore them, seizure of assets, tariffs, trade embargoes, etc are going to hurt the US.
Finally, I'm not that concerned about the Chinese government strategy. They aren't that good. A near monopoly on rare earths, for example, only makes sense if a) you have the power to enforce the monopoly and b) rare earths become important enough strategically to warrant the effort of creating the monopoly. My view is that China's current inability to enforce these contracts is only the tip of the iceberg. We still have yet to consider whether the contracts have been made in good faith. For example, if a contract has been made with a corrupt government (eg, Burma), then there's a good chance that the contract isn't enforceable without considerably more military power than China will have for decades.
Similarly, China's purchase of massive amounts of US debt just doesn't make that much sense. Even if one is correct in the assumption that the US will pay off its debts, it's still pretty obvious that the US government is engaging in near-suicidal levels of spending and entitlement. My view is that China does so only to support its export industries. I believe that to be a inferior strategy in the long run as well since they lose the benefit of imports from even cheaper places.
My view is that the US could, if it were to keep to sensible levels of government spending, maintain trade deficits indefinitely. There is tremendous wealth creation going on in the US (even during recessions). In good years, only part of this wealth is used to buy imported goods and services. China, by eschewing the benefits of imports, is weakening its economy and depriving its citizens of wealth.
Re:Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Original research (Score:3, Insightful)
That's one side of the story, because yes, experts do know of the subtleties of a topic, because it's hard to formulate knowledge of very many things into succinct direct factual statements, because there are subtle cases where the opposite of the formulated statement is true. What makes someone an expert is being very aware of the exceptions, of when the factual statement is false. So a simple quotation of a succinct factual statement from published literature is not proper knowledge. The human brain is good at looking at very many different things, and drawing succinct guiding principles from them, to simplify and save thought processes. It's how the human brain functions, by generalizations, by stereotyping, but succinct generalizations are sometimes forced onto a topic where they don't really fit well, and instead a long winded deliberation is more appropriate. Wikipedia articles are often very good at highlighting these subtleties involving a topic, and it's like the experts actually wrote these Wikipedia articles themselves, and simple quoting of experts from a distance by those who don't understand the subtleties is not appropriate. No original research? There is no other proper knowledge but original research or equivalent mirroring of it, the only proper knowledge is full knowledge, and little knowledge is dangerous. There is a fading zone though, a balance, a tradeoff between long windedness of a Wikipedia article, vs. full and proper knowledge, full and proper description of a topic, because an encyclopedia article does have to be somewhat succinct, because the reader comes to it to quickly grasp the major ideas in a topic, and get a good starting base, and then the fine points can be further researched in the expert literature.
By the way there are also cases of crackpots successfully publishing literature in widely acclaimed scientific journals, and a Wikipedia editor who's a "non-expert" might decide to arbitrate and overrule the cited information. Just because something is published literature it does not always mean it is better than the collective agreement of Wikipedia editor's personal, private opinions.
Wikipedia, is full of opinions. Even though it is supposed to contain no original research, you could say that there is no such thing as original research, because almost no original research in general is totally original, but it is derived as a natural flow of ideas from other people's work. Newton said that he might have been able to see farther than others, but that was because he was standing on shoulders of giants. There are very few exceptions, such as Cantor's math of infinites, or Bolyai's axiom of parallels, where people have pitted their minds against a topic for millenia, and a very fresh view is presented, and you could say it's not a natural flow of ideas from what was previously known. But even there you can say that eventually someone else would have come up with the same ideas or something very similar, and it's a natural flow, it just took a while to make the next step, and those successful in making that next step contributed more significantly than usual, and possibly deserve some greater reward (even if it's hard to come up with a proper reward for Cantor or Bolyai, how do you measure the value of such progress in $ terms?) There is no completely individualized human knowledge, we all contribute by chiseling at the whole, adding little tidbits here and there.
Re:Iridium RMB anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
With so called "fait currency" governments can have absolute control over the supply and thus control infalation (something they can't do with gold, silver, etc), the down side is governments sometimes collapse, when that happens the currency becomes fancy toilet paper (ie: it wipes out 100% of peoples savings, eg:Zimbabwe). The smart thing to do is treat currency itself as a kind of commodity and turn the fluctuating value of it's various forms into personal profit, not that I know how to do that but those who do are extremely wealthy.
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 hidden.
Gold is shiny and pleasing in jewelry.
Gold has a high price per unit weight.
Gold is easily exchanged for other currencies.
Gold has a 3,000 year history as a currency in it's own right.
Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:China's military expansion of Lebensraum (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 it to declare "independence", as a Japanese puppet state.
While claims of Chinese *Communist* expansion into Tibet and consolidation of power in Western China is another issue entirely, the idea of Chinese expansion from 1800-1949 is simply propagandist bullshit. Through the Opium Wars, Taiping Rebellion and other civil strife, to the Nationalist/Communist Civil War, China couldn't control its own territory, much less expand.
We were carving China up, hence calling it the "sick man of the East". Claiming pre-1945 China was expanding or looking for "Lebensraum" is simply rediculous.
Claiming post-Communist China has imperial ambitions is another argument entirely, and perhaps one worth discussing. But trying to use "Manchukuo" as an example, or saying the China was a dominant empire (it was an empire in decline, corrupt and feeble) discredits much of the rest of your argument. "The secret and reclusive Middle Kingdom"? It was the Republic of China at that point, and currently involved in both civil war and trying to repel invasion from the Japanese.
For the rest, Modern Chinese leaders do not view their industrial usage of the territories as expansion, but as using territories that rightfully belong to them, just like the US drilling for oil in Alaska (which we purchased from Russia in the mid 1800s).
Using adjectives like âoesinister policy" and "consolidate de facto Chinese rule for an eternity" does not help your case, either. Makes you sound paranoid at best. I am not even Chinese; but the historical inaccuracies and misrepresentations in your post would make anyone weep.