China Now Halting Shipments of Rare Earth Minerals To US 738
blackraven14250 writes with news that China, after putting at least a temporary stop to rare earth exports to Japan, is now doing the same with exports to the US; according to the linked article, this is in response to recent US promises to investigate certain Chinese trade practices.
Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA, emphasis mine:
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially what they are doing is what we we (as in West) have been doing to China and still doing to many other developing countries for about a century. We're still doing it in most agricultural products, dumping so that local farmers in Africa can't really compete unless they play ball.
The issue isn't protectionism. It's that this is really the first time that West actually got the taste of same medicine, and same arguments to back the medicine, as it was giving to developing countries for centuries. Chinese have watched what we did, learned, and simply copied our actions. And now, we're finding that in the raw, brutal, jungle-law "only strongest and most ruthless survives" style of globalisation we created, we may not be the only top dogs. And that realisation is so shocking to many of the elite, they're clearly in denial. Mostly because they simply believe in the system they created on religious level, and when the system is turned against them, they are unable to see the bigger picture. So we get the "oh noes, China is being protectionist" tears from top leaders. Never mind that we did the same thing for centuries, when China does it, it's deeply wrong. Not because system is deeply flawed, but because it's not the West that is the party in control.
It's not even that it's somehow irreplaceable. There is a centuries-worth of rare earths across both Northern American and Europe. It's just that we're so used to being the ones using globalisation as a hammer to beat the nail of competition into the ground, we are simply stumped as to what we are supposed to do when we become the nail that is getting hammered instead. A hundred years of being the hammer makes us a pretty bad nail.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hardly the first time. Every major manufacturing, farming, and mining economy in the world does this to some extent: the quesiton is how much, and whether nations follow their treaties about it. Look carefully at the history of OPEC to see where the "West got the taste of their own medicine", and at the history of gold trading and spice trading for the last several thousand years.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is america bitch.
We'll build a fucking nailgun.
In what factory, you jingoist ignorant fuck?!
Thanks for perfectly illustrating why we are in this situation. "This is America!" is a meaningless phrase. You didn't do shit when they busted the unions. You didn't do shit when the easier jobs were shipped over there. You didn't do shit while the Congress continued to cut taxes for corporations so they could sell us out. You just sat there, with that smug look on your face, saying "Yeah boy! This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference. Why pay more for TV set? That's stupid, when we can all just put it on a credit card for half the price."
Do me a fucking solid favor. Go find the largest object you can imagine shoving up your ass, and then sit on it. Because it's a good primer on what the next thirty years is going to be like for you.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is america bitch.
"This is America!" is a meaningless phrase. You didn't do shit when they busted the unions. You didn't do shit when the easier jobs were shipped over there. You didn't do shit while the Congress continued to cut taxes for corporations so they could sell us out. You just sat there, with that smug look on your face, saying "Yeah boy! This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference. Why pay more for TV set? That's stupid, when we can all just put it on a credit card for half the price."
Best. Post. Ever.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Go find the largest object you can imagine shoving up your ass, and then sit on it.
Best Buy is having a sale on refrigerators, fresh off the boat from China. Should do the trick.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Funny)
This is america bitch.
We'll build a fucking nailgun.
In what factory, you jingoist ignorant fuck?!
And, more importantly, are we talking about a real nail gun or about a machine gun style "kill space aliens" type of nail gun, and can I get a discount of some type?
To make a nailgun... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
To make a nailgun, we need neodymium magnets!!
Actually, here in the Bible Belt we only use God's gift to the nailgun manufacturing industry: Prayseodymium!.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Informative)
Acutally according to the article [livescience.com] he might be on to something: "U.S. rare earth companies have begun looking to reopen old mines and search for new deposits, but industry experts say that relaunching an independent U.S. supply chain could take 15 years."
I know it says 15 years, but I have a feeling that if China really decided to withhold rare earth minerals for an extended time we'd find a supply a bit faster.
The only reason we use China's rare earth minerals is because they mine it and ship it to the US cheaper than we can mine it ourselves: [technewsdaily.com] "many U.S. companies have not jumped into the market because China's state-owned mines keep rare earth prices artificially low."
But we have plenty to mine: [technewsdaily.com] "the U.S. holds rare earth ore reserves of up to 13 million metric tons. By contrast, the entire world produced just 124,000 metric tons in 2009". That means we have roughly 104 years worth of rare earth ore reserves, I think we'll be just fine.
China's kind of like the neighbor kid that knocks on my door and offers to mow the lawn for $20. It's not that I can't mow myself, but when it's so cheap to pay someone else why do it myself? If he ever didn't show up for a couple weeks I'd just do it myself, but as long as he's offering I'll keep paying him.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Interesting)
China's kind of like the neighbor kid that knocks on my door and offers to mow the lawn for $20. It's not that I can't mow myself, but when it's so cheap to pay someone else why do it myself? If he ever didn't show up for a couple weeks I'd just do it myself, but as long as he's offering I'll keep paying him.
China has 97% of the rare earth metals rights across the world. It is the world's number one exporter. It has the largest reserves of cash and raw material in the world. (I even submitted a story about this back in April [slashdot.org].) I've read the GAO report on restarting our mines. Forgive me for taking their estimate with a grain of salt, but something tells me 15 years is a long time to be out of the technology manufacturing business.
I think you're confused on who the kid with the lawnmower is.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Funny)
So you keep paying the kid to mow your lawn for a couple of years. One day he shows up with his own lawnmower. No point having your own mower when it's not being used, so you put your mower on eBay. A few years later you lose your job at the lawnmower factory and find yourself mowing lawns for $20 a time, of which $5 goes to the kid for borrowing his mower.
Oh, also the kid is exerting increasingly firm control over the South China Sea, but I'm not sure how to work that into the analogy. ;-)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
China's kind of like the neighbor kid that knocks on my door and offers to mow the lawn for $20. It's not that I can't mow myself, but when it's so cheap to pay someone else why do it myself? If he ever didn't show up for a couple weeks I'd just do it myself, but as long as he's offering I'll keep paying him.
And even better, you're paying him in "iamhassi" dollars some of which you borrowed from him ( like 2+ trillion or so :) ). To cap it off you can create trillions of "iamhassi" dollars on your computer anytime you want (and the US already has: google Federal Reserve trillions).
The US likes to make out China as the bad guy. Sure China are bad, but China's not screwing the USA as much as the USA has been screwing everybody else- since much of the world buys and sells stuff in US dollars, whenever the USA crea
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have always believed that Nixon's opening of trade with China was a massive mistake. We basically turned a communist nation, theoretically a non-belligerent enemy, into a superpower. We handed sensitive technology to a communist country which has never stated that it won't engage in hostilities with the United States. Indeed, they have recently been developing some advanced military technologies which are frankly disturbing, and I can't help but think that they got a leg up in this by the uncontrolled flow of technology to factories in China.
In the short term manufacturing goods in that part of the world has allowed the common man (and the uncommon woman) to afford nice, shiny things which would have been completely unthinkable to previous generations, but we're now seeing the downside to this dance with the devil.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for perfectly illustrating why we are in this situation. "This is America!" is a meaningless phrase. You didn't do shit when they busted the unions. You didn't do shit when the easier jobs were shipped over there. You didn't do shit while the Congress continued to cut taxes for corporations so they could sell us out. You just sat there, with that smug look on your face, saying "Yeah boy! This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference. Why pay more for TV set? That's stupid, when we can all just put it on a credit card for half the price."
And how does your whiny little rant help? Half the things you mention actually helped US keep manufacturing. For example, busting the unions, shipping out the easier jobs, and cutting corporate taxes. The problem fundamentally is that the US is much more expensive than China for manufacturing. Some of that premium is just because we're a wealthier country (especially per capita and in property values) and want a cleaner environment and safer working conditions and some of it is nonsense like the Social Secu
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Interesting)
If anything you just said is true, why is Germany the #2 exporter in the world, and kicking our ass in exports per capita? ($12,000 vs $3,000)
Your bullshit diversions are meaningless.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In what factory, you jingoist ignorant fuck?!
Well...I only did a very quick search on Google, but I'll go out on a limb on this one.
I going to guess that it's the factory that makes nail guns like the Bostitch N80CB-1or the N66C-1, you ignorant communist douche.
Seriously...the N80CB-1 says it's made in the USA right on the Amazon page for it, and the other one mentions it in one of the reviews. They're good nail guns too, if you're into that sort of thing. It's even a union shop.
Hey...all of the metap
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:4, Insightful)
Being protectionist is not the same as being nationalist, you're confusing the two. As you said, free trade is not the panacea for everything and sometimes protectionist measures are needed in order to correct imbalance or distortions in the market. If a trading partner is artificially deflating prices, then protectionist measures are called for. If they are exporting sub-standard products or ones with high external (ie. social or environmental) costs, then protectionist measures are called for. Anything related to international trade that the market itself cannot manage basically called for some sort of measure to restrict it and control it; it is self-delusional to think otherwise.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:4, Informative)
Do you subsidize your local business, or do you dump? What is happening in China is that they are doing BOTH. Keep in mind that China belongs to IMF and WTO. They have promised to do allow their money to float, to not subsidize general trade (though apparently key tech can be), and to not dump on the open market. China breaks all of those rules. Does Sweden? Nope.
US is a member of IMF and WTO. Yet, just look at the agriculture sector.
1. Huge tariffs on cane sugar
2. Huge subsidies on corn
3. Dumping agriculture surplus to 3rd world, killing their local production
4. Subsidies on wheat, cotton and tons of other stuff
Of course, this is not specific just to US. Most European countries do that too w.r.t. agricultural subsidies (see, France, Holland, Germany, UK, etc..). Hell, basically HALF of all the money from the EU (the European budget), is spent on agriculture subsidies!
So yes, US, please stop accusing China of stuff while you do the same thing. Currency manipulator next? Sure, China does it! So does the US and everyone else!!
The *real* problem for the US is China is not their puppet.
My only hope is that US and China don't fuck up the trade situation more than it already is. You know, step back from big red trade-war button and be the bigger man. But then for some reason I do not expect China or US to do that - both have way too much nationalistic pride, for their own economic demise.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Informative)
War proofing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:4, Interesting)
http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/features/0303/newzealand_subsidies.shtml [rodaleinstitute.org]
As a Vegan, I wish we *WEREN'T* so invested in Animal Agriculture, which remains very profitable without subsidy.
This story is of a spoilt USA crying after being beaten at its own crooked game. My parents have this image of China as rural agriculture, of living off five grains of rice a day. I'm 22, and my generation probably see things differently :
http://macenstein.com/default/2010/07/exclusive-pics-of-the-shanghai-china-apple-store/ [macenstein.com]
Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to worry, Chinese will have EPA in a few years. Otherwise there will be nobody left healthy enough to work in their factories. We have all been through this.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
We tried letting business do anything without restriction, then around 1900 decided there's a better way. China will do the same or they won't have anyone left healthy enough to work. Do you seriously not see the barrel we're racing to the bottom of?
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. The EPA does a good (if sometimes possibly a little extreme) job of protecting our air and water. I think that's fantastic and wonderful! But the result is that we turn around and buy stuff from horrible polluting factories overseas that have people working in unsafe conditions, etc, but who can, by virtue of destroying their own people and environment, make stuff much more cheaply than we can.
What we need is to have protective tariffs on imports from such, so that the price of building clean factories does not render them totally unprofitable. Same deal with human rights abuses abroad. If the abuses are making their exports cheaper, then we either need to allow the same sort of abuses here so we can compete, or artificially raise the prices of the imports so we can compete without abusing our people.
You simply can't have one without the other.
Bad analogy: The Ivy League mostly plays itself in football. If Ivy League teams with tough academic requirements on their athletes were to try to play against the Ohio States and Texases of the country, they would get creamed, and everyone would say "haha, why are you losing?". So they mostly only play other teams with similar academic requirements. If they could, I'm sure that they'd love to play against Oregon, but with the restriction that only Oregon's players that met Ivy League academic standards would be allowed on the field. Obviously they can't do this. As a sovereign nation that can lay down rules for what goes in and out of the country, we can do this.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I'm all for the middle ground, but where it apparently lies depends on where you're standing.
The US corporate income tax rate is AMONG the highest in the world. Fortunately, large companies at least don't pay anything near that. Some of the largest, most complex and profitable companies manage to avoid paying taxes altogether.
Here's another way of looking at it. Who contributes more taxes, individuals or corporations? If you answered "individuals", you are right. So right there you can see that the de facto corporate tax rates are lower than individual tax rates, despite being high in theory.
Now for extra credit, which of the following figures represents the gross amount of the corporate income tax paid in America as a fraction of the gross paid by individuals like you or me?
(1) 90%
(2) 75%
(3) 50%
(4) 25%
(5) 10%
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He's complaining about China, not the US. There's just no way to compete with somebody who will destroy himself just to beat you.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Wow, that was easy.
3) By the way... We have less stuff now. But we have more wildlife. It was a tradeoff, but I'd support making it.
Re:Way to prove their point! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course you can compete, by levying tariffs on the guy who is using destructive business practices.
We could restart all of America's manufacturing facilities if our trade policies were just a little more isolationist -- which would be in line with how foreign countries treat our goods.
The answer is more regulation (Score:3, Insightful)
Because we haven't outsourced enough to China already.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
a trade war? good (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing gets the American economy going like a good challenge..
Foreign companies invest in China. Then, China creates a Chinese alternative.. state-run.. state-subsidized.. copying the foreign model. Only.. China manipulates their currency for an export advantage. China keeps their middle class underpaid (while the government hordes money). And safety? Safety costs money.. Harming an American worker is more expensive than keeping him safe.. In China, harm a Chinese worker.. and replace him with one of the horde.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-LLsODnuHI [youtube.com]
As American consumers, we pay less for cheap plastic crap now.. at the expense of our jobs and quality..
And Walmart leads the way.. fastest from store shelves to landfills.
Re:a trade war? good (Score:5, Interesting)
. The writer pretty much argues that the last trade war wasn't really won at all,
and even that limited success was more a factor of specific global issues and not because of American industry. Give it a read, it makes an interesting argument.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, I am naked and I access Slashdot via ESP.
Re:a trade war? good (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately, American consumers caused this problem.
No.
Look at corporate profits and income for the top 1% of income earners from 1980 to the present. See how both of those numbers skyrocketed? Yes, the top 1% of income tripled from 1980 to 2006 when adjusted for inflation. See how the middle class stopped growing, and barely kept pace with inflation?
Now go look at the data for Germany. See how their strong unions kept their manufacturing sector competitive, and how they remain competitive with China for raw exports, and blow them out of the water on a per capita basis? All while having a stellar environmental record?
The business community dismantled unions and regulations, the government allowed the wealthy to change the rules to enrich themselves and destroy the middle class, all while telling us we were being liberated by the market. Well, guess what: the market apparently decided to sell all of our debt and manufacturing capacity and raw materials processing to China, and send the check to a few thousand already wealthy douchebags. It seems some needs were "peculiarly attended to" and others were forgotten. Ain't that a bitch.
(And yeah, some of us saw it coming. [slashdot.org])
It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interests has been so carefully attended to; and among this later class our merchants and manufactures have been by far the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations, which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to; and the interest, not so much of the consumers, as that of some other sets of producers, has been sacrificed to it.
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Book IV, Chapter VIII, pg.721
Hindsight is 20/20... (Score:3, Insightful)
Third parties? (Score:3, Insightful)
What to prevent a third party from buying these resources and then selling them to Japan or US?
Environmentalism (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The main reason production of many rare earths exists mainly in China and moved out of North America and Europe is the extremely polluting and toxic process of extraction.
Theirs isn't really that much worse then what ours was back when we were extracting rare earths.
US needs China more then China needs US (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless the US can get a collation of country blocks (like NAFTA, EU, OPEC, etc.), perhaps with a ruling by the WTO, to joint together in trade sanctions against China. Countries like Canada, Australia, and others that provide a lot of mineral and energy resources to China would have a lot more influence.
Remember that China does not produce sufficient mineral and energy resources, not to mention food, for its economy and to feed its population.
As a Canadian, I hope that our government demands guarantees that China not to restrict rare-earth shipments to Canada, or Canada will block all resource and food shipments to China.
Re:US needs China more then China needs US (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that the US needs China to buy its public debt,
China doesn't have to buy US debt. Especially if commodities start trading in something other than US dollars. After all, why the hell would you support the dollar today? The interest rate sucks, the US government is spending more than ever before, and the US economy (which has been in the tank for a while now) continues to struggle. Plus add this to the fact that US banks have no idea who they have loaned money to - no, there are far wiser places to put your money today than US treasury notes. In fact, almost anywhere BUT US T-bills will get you a better return.
The US is in for a very, very rude awakening in my opinion. Gross incompetence has been demonstrated on both a government, military and economic level. I'm just glad I don't live there.
When opinions overshadow facts... (Score:5, Informative)
China doesn't have to buy US debt.
Actually they do have to buy US debt. China manages their currency and the only way to maintain their currency at a weak exchange rate to the dollar is to buy US Treasuries. China cannot stop buying dollars in the short term even if they want to.
Especially if commodities start trading in something other than US dollars.
Won't happen any time soon. The dollar is the world's de-facto reserve currency. Many commodities (including oil) trade in US dollars. This is not likely to change.
After all, why the hell would you support the dollar today? The interest rate sucks,
Which interest rate, out of curiosity, are you referring to? Currencies don't have interest rates. Treasury bills do, but yields on government debt are low everywhere except on governments in risk of default (like Greece). Furthermore, the coupon on US treasuries is almost always lower than for most other debt because it is considered safer than any other debt. US treasuries are backed by the ability of the US government (which has never defaulted) to raise taxes on the biggest single economy in the world. Nothing is perfectly safe but that's about as good as it gets.
the US government is spending more than ever before, and the US economy (which has been in the tank for a while now) continues to struggle.
It's a global recession. Every major economy is struggling, not just the US.
Plus add this to the fact that US banks have no idea who they have loaned money to -
I have no idea where you got this idea or what you are referring to. I'm pretty sure the US banks have a very good idea who they have loaned to. They have other problems but knowing who their debtors are is not one of them.
no, there are far wiser places to put your money today than US treasury notes. In fact, almost anywhere BUT US T-bills will get you a better return.
No one invests in T-bills to get a big return. The return on Tbills has been very low for most of the last century when compared with alternatives. Hell, the calculations for cost of investments is usually found starting with the so called risk-free rate (normally US Treasuries which are considered the world around to be the closest thing to a risk free investment) plus some additional interest to compensate for additional risk. The reason people buy them is because they are safe or because (like China) they are trying to manage their exchange rates. If you are looking for a big return, government debt is rarely the best option out there.
Ha, Ha! (Score:4, Insightful)
Joke's on you, China!
We don't manufacture anything anymore!
Will this finally wake up America? (Score:3, Insightful)
For decades, America has been enriching its enemies and opponents by voracious consumption of oil, offshoring of jobs, insatiable appetite for foreign-made, cheap goods and China has capitalized ( communized? ) on the USoA's stupidity and gamed the system with its currency policies. And, now this?
Wake up, America!!! It's time to get back to the business of making and building things yourselves. Mr Obama, sometimes you have to unsheath the Iron Fist; it can't always be the velvet glove.
Block all Chinese imports, eject the Chinese ambassador and announce a free trade agreement with Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Australia. And take some of that damnable corporate and farming welfare money and pour it into materials research so that you have alternatives or reasonable substitutes for the lanthanides ( or maybe just invent some really cool materials ).
But...... don't wait. ACT IMMEDIATELY. Screw the governing by committee. Just fucking make it so!!
Lithium? (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's connect the dots..... ... and this is not distant future. This is 60,000 presold vehicles in Israel today, and retail rollout in the upcoming 4 months....
China wants to drive.
They're adding more cars on the road a year than the US and Europe combined (~2-3mil/year national car parc growth)
Chery, their biggest independent car maker, has signed a deal with Better Place. They're almost completely leapfrogging the Internal Combustion Engine altogether. Beijin's mayor deputy has visited Better Place in Israel multiple times.
Right now, anyone who ignores what the hybrid-entrenched car companies (Read: Toyota, Chevrolet, Honda) are saying and has his ear to the ground knows one thing:
Once an electric car stops being a greenie status symbol 10K$ more expensive than an ICE car, and starts being 10K$ cheaper than an ICE car (which is what the Better Place model does), Multi-Trillion-Dollar-Industry (Oil and Automotive combined) undergoes BIG disruption happens. All hell breaks loose.
Priuses have moved in production from 10,000car/anum to 100,000car/anum.
Renault, on the other hand, the boldest pure-EV company (and Better Place's biggest partner), just geared up for a 1,000,000car/anum production in Turkey. They know one thing: When Better Place starts running cross-subsidy ("Free iPhone on a 3-year-plan") on a car that's 10K$ car cheaper (batteries not included), subsidized by government to the tune of another 5K$-10K$, and is 5K$ cheaper than hybrid/ice because there is no ICE, and starts giving away cars for free...
Then Renault doesn't have a demand problem like Toyota do. They have a supply problem. It becomes a question of how many cars you can hand out for free.
All the big players - namely countries - know this. It's no secret, and Shai Agassi is all over YouTube like a rash. Everyone is watching Israel, Denmark and Australia very closely.
This is why Japan, China, Europe and the US have dumped 4 BIL$ into car battery production, when nobody is actually producing anywhere near this many cars yet.
By 2015-2016, there will be more electric cars sold than ICE ones.
And in the middle of it is the one technology pretty much all the big car players have agreed on - Lithium Ion. Afghanistan and Bolivia, large as their stash may be, is not happening anytime soon. [discovery.com]
It'll be Argentina & Chile's salt flats, slightly more expensive Lithium from spodumene ore in Australia, China (and to lesser extent North America and some other locations in the world), and for countries that are willing to pay premium for national security and divorcing workforce driving to work from import dependence like Korea - production from ocean seawater.
China is concerned wants to make sure it's lithium needs are served before everything else.
This development is anything but surprising.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're wrong, on multiple accounts.
First off, charging a 22kWh car battery via photovoltaic is akin to filling the hoover dam with a drinking straw. It's can't be done. Check your physics.
Second, you charge the car from the grid, via a plug. Cars, on average, park 22 hours a day, and drive 2 hours a day. And it enables the smart grid operator (which is what Better Place is) to buy 100% renewable (essentially pick up as many long-term contracts for solar and/or wind as they need, taking the power whenever it
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? I thought they were due to assassinations of archdukes and such.
With WWI... (Score:4, Interesting)
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was the spark, but pressure had been building for awhile. High school teacher explained with the acronym MAIN:
Militarism - Tools and the desire to use them. 'Beliefs' category.
Alliances - Webs of alliance treaties would widen a small conflict into a larger one as other countries got behind their allies.
Imperialism - this one about resources, but also beliefs ("white man's burden", et cetera)
Nationalism - this one squarely 'beliefs'.
Re:Not again... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Actually, we waited until all the economies in Europe were devastated, stepped in to ensure that the remaining conquering force couldn't establish a single European currency, then implemented the greenback as global currency to gain all the economic clout (that has been utterly squandered in the past two decades) that goes with such a position.
I have no idea what history you're reading... (Score:3, Informative)
I have no idea what history you're reading...
On July 24, 1941, Japan occupied French Indo-China (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos).
On July 26, 1941, F.D.R. froze all Japanese assets in the U.S. and embargoed all trade with Japan, including sales of oil and scrap metal.
On November 20, 1941, Japan gave a list of demands to Washington, including thawing the frozen assets, resuming full trade relations, and U.S. aid in obtaining supplies from the Dutch East Indies. U.S. Secretary of state Hull made a counter-proposal i
In this case I really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Rare earths, despite the name, aren't. Go look it up, there are plenty of them, and the US has plenty to be had. They aren't mined much in the US because China is cheaper since they don't care about safety. Ok fine, but that doesn't mean they can't or won't be mined again in the US if there's a reason. China refuses to trade, the US just starts up production. Prices may rise some but that is ok, believe it or not a market can absorb that just fine (just look to the increase in gas, it wasn't without problems but it near tripled in the period of a few years and life goes on).
Now China could wind up in a much worse situation, if they keep the game up and people aren't willing to trade. Their economy is heavily based on foreign trade and lacking that it could have a nasty downturn, which could cause massive unrest. The government's problems/abuses are largely overlooked because of the massive quality of life improvements going on. If those stop, could go bad for them.
Also there's the fact that despite the hype you see on /. the US DOES in fact build things, it turns out more manufactured goods than any other nation (though China is on track to surpass it in 2020 or so). More to the point, America builds a lot of high tech and important shit. Computer processors, heavy machinery, airplanes, etc. In the event of a trade freeze, China would probably find itself on the worse end of it. Cheap consumer goods are nice, but hardly necessary and that is a large amount of what China builds (and many of those goods are simply assembled of foreign parts to foreign specs). Heavy equipment and computer chips are a little more important to continued progress.
Now in the case of war, the US could unquestionably wage war against China if they felt dumb enough. However China cannot against the US. There is a massive ocean in the way and China has no blue water navy. They cannot project the force necessary, and cannot deal with the US intelligence abilities (like recon satellites and IUSS). They could load up container ships with massive amounts of soldiers and tanks, which they have in abundance, all of which would rest at the bottom of the ocean shortly after sailing.
So I don't find war over this a very realistic scenario. Not a good idea still, but not likely to result in war.
Re:In this case I really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a massive ocean in the way and China has no blue water navy.
Which is exactly why China is working on a blue water navy.
They cannot project the force necessary, and cannot deal with the US intelligence abilities (like recon satellites and IUSS).
What do you think the satellite kill was for that China performed?
It's almost as if the Chinese leadership is aware of what its deficiencies are, and has long-term plans to remedy them. And yet, I hear the same comments about China I heard about Japan in the 70s and early 80s: they just copy, they don't innovate, and have a mediocre directed economy. And then they ate our lunch. I expect the same to happen with China. They will eat our lunch, because we're only looking at where they are, not where they're going.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not likely. Sure, they'll definitely feel it, but china exports to the whole world. They'll survive.
In the mean time, in the US, it's going to take some time to tool up to make much more expensive replacement widgets.
Re:Not again... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now, it's not worth causing heavy damage to our economy just to hurt them more.The US is perfectly capable of pissing the CPC off just by switching recognition to the ROC government, which wouldn't break our economy and would send a nice, strong political message.
Re:Not again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not again... (Score:5, Informative)
China has had phenomenal success by limiting free trade.
Re:Already found them... location, location, locat (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I way off here or should we not be keeping these rights?
Can anyone enlighten me if I am missing something since IANAG.
Yes. You are way off. The mineral rights reside with the Afghan people and their government.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The reasons for Afghanistan were not dubious. You're thinking of Iraq.
rescued from wolves (Score:5, Funny)
War between America and China? It must be cool to grow up in an isolated wood cabin reading dusty tomes about world history from the 1950s then suddenly the satellite dish arrives and you can post on the internet.
Sorry, I missed which country is invading the other.
China could stamp out a billion machetes in just a few weeks. Rwanda was barely an hours worth of China's productive capacity. 18,000 Japanese soldiers cut off from their supply chain defended Iwo Jima for 35 days. You'd face 18 million Chinese just landing on the beach. Some would have weapons.
Or how about the Chinese invading Los Angeles. I don't think they'd survive the first commute. By the first number that came up, there are 65 million handguns in America. Imagine that these were not all pointed at fellow Americans for a few hours. It would make Mogadishu look like a mild celebration of Chinese new year. The bullets would be flying thicker than rice at a Mafia wedding.
Or maybe the Americans could hatch a plot to pump sulphur dioxides into the atmosphere and reverse global warming while secretly stock-piling a million M1A1 tanks to cross the newly exposed land bridge to China. Hey, it almost worked for the Germans.
A final possibility is that both sides would follow "A Taste of Armageddon" and China agrees to manufacture a few million suicide booths at an unbeatable low, low price with Walmart branding. This would be good for Texas, but might strain the agreement as the Chinese complain "do we really have to make them so large?" Meanwhile the Japanese embargo the entire deal in an effort to collect royalties on the bundled BluRay player and the Cell chips sourced from IBM overheat running the provably-fair thermonuclear simulation. It would be a fiasco all around.
Re:rescued from wolves (Score:5, Funny)
You have a newsletter, don't you?
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Funny)
But that would put Wal-Mart out of business!
Jokes aside, trade wars lead to shooting wars. This isn't welcome news.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps if you suggested a more limited or symbolic ban/tariff then it may work.
But seriously, everyone knows by now that China and American are stuck. Breaking out of the current relationship would fuck both of you up. And China has way more slack than the US does to fuck around and be an abusive boyfriend. And everyone saw that coming to.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Close our markets to all of China's exports.
You don't have to close our markets, just impose a 10% to 20% across the board import tariff on all manufactured goods.
Actually, we should take away their MFN (most favored nation) trading status. They never deserved it in the first place.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Seems like a reasonable compromise to my nuke-em-and-let-god-sort-them-out strategy.
You don't get it.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that is very simplistic.
The Chinese governement has about $860 Billion of US debt, if they were to dump 10% of tomorrow, it would destroy the US economy. For less than 10% US defense budget, the Chinese can cause millions to lose their jobs.
The Chinese economy is much more self-sufficient than the US Economy. Chinese people may suffer but they know how to live with that. US citizens won't know what to do without Walmart, their Apple iPhone, etc. The Chinese don't need our IP, patents, copyrights
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Most favored nation" makes it sound like we're awarding them BFF status or something. Go look it up:
"In international trade, MFN status (or treatment) is awarded by one nation to another. It means that the receiving nation will be granted all trade advantages -- such as low tariffs -- that any other nation also receives. In effect, a nation with MFN status will not be discriminated against and will not be treated worse than any other nation with MFN status."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And then where does the Federal Government borrow the money to rollover expiring treasuries, let along fund current spending?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They just create it, like they have been doing so far. The biggest purchaser of US treasuries is (drumroll) - the US government.
Now I'm not saying this is a good idea (it's not. Keynes may have said "in the long run we're all dead", but if you act irresponsibly you can be dead in the short run too). But it's the status quo and has been for a long time. Getting the money is never a problem for the US government. It's maintaining the value of the currency that's the problem.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have ANY idea what this would mean? It's not just the Walmarts of the world that deal with China.
I run a very small company - just a couple of geeks in a little office/warehouse. We do enough business for both of us to pay the rent and put food on the table, with the occasional mention in Make or hackaday as a side benefit. We take pride in doing as much of our work domestically as we can and sourcing locally whenever possible, but I can tell you we wouldn't last 3 months without trade with China.
Global supply chains are far too interconnected for something so drastic. When the economy tanked in 2008, despite the fact that we still had plenty of orders coming in we almost went under when we couldn't get the parts we needed. Even when *our* suppliers were OK, if one of *their* suppliers was in trouble we felt it.
People seem to have this weird idea that there's some sort of China, Inc. that just sits over there on the other side of the Pacific building plastic widgets to cram down our throats via Walmart. That's not how it works. China's far from blameless, but "close our markets to Chinese exports" is right up there with "nuke Baghdad" for brilliant foreign policy.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The US and the rest of the world can not be held hostage by economic terrorism from China.
Really, must everything the US doesn't like be called terrorism? China refusing to sell us every product we want may be many things, but terrorism it isn't.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Informative)
When they are a sole supplier, it is terrorism.
Sigh....
terrorism-noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.
By your reasoning, if Apple decided they didn't want to sell me an iPhone, Apple would be engaging in terrorism.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like someone needs to update their dictionary. The OPs statement is contemporarily correct
terrorism-noun (tu'ur'ism)
1. the use of violence to to kill, maim, or upset fine Americans or people fine Americans like.
2. the property of being muslim.
3. the act of doing something I don't approve of.
3. the act of being something I don't approve of.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Trade disputes with the US don't just involve china. Go look up the softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the US for a prime of example of the US being a bunch of dicks. NAFTA and WTO sided with Canada and yet Canada STILL had to negotiate its way out of that dispute.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Board game theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you ever played Settlers of Catan? I remember this one game when one player in particular got a monopoly on sheep. Everyone else was diversifying their economy. This guy wanted to control the world's supply of sheep.
Since you really do need sheep to do anything, long story short, he won the game.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Since you really do need sheep to do anything, long story short, he won the game.
Ok, so New Zealand is fine then, but what's the US going to do?
Re:Wal-Mart should follow suit (Score:5, Funny)
It's OK. He's on a roll. This is the only fun he gets, so just let him be. He'll go to sleep tonight thinking "Boy, I straightened out that liberal Slashdot today". We've already taken away all his free speech and liberty, don't take that away from him too.
Re:Wal-Mart should follow suit (Score:5, Interesting)
An example: Let's say you're a senior computer programmer at a Fortune 500 corp. You get interesting work, reasonable vacation time, your co-workers and boss are friendly, and the pay is great. The problem here is that you're still working for someone else's (the owner's, the board of directors', whatever) dream, not your own. That means someone else is profiting more from your work than you, that someone else is deciding what projects to begin and what projects to cancel, and that someone else is free to delegate whatever duties they don't find enjoyable. I think that the employee's role as a stone in a corporate pyramid is to be avoided, unless servile habits can somehow be considered virtuous. I've noticed a couple tendencies among employee friends of mine, tendencies that become more noticeable the more heavily said employee invests in his career. They're unhappy, and their personal lives are fixed in humdrum routine. They spend so much time ignoring their own instincts and goals in lieu of company orders that they become listless and unable to motivate themselves to do anything new or bold in their personal lives.
Back in the 18th and early 19th centuries, most Americans had their own livelihoods, often organized as family businesses where each worker was involved or at least consulted in most every other aspect of the business. People generally did what they wanted and found a way to monetize it enough to get by. Massive, rigid corporate hierarchies only really emerged after the mid-19th century, when sweatshops and compulsory schooling started to indoctrinate everyone into obediently following the commands of the elite "experts".
Nowhere is this more evident than the way most people participate in elections. They are astoundingly passive, focusing almost entirely on voting, the least important step in the electoral cycle. On average, they don't work for political campaigns, they don't participate in primaries, and they tend to vote for whatever football team ^W^W party they've always voted for (if they vote at all; voter turnout sucks). The really politically active ones usually don't do much more wait until the candidates are narrowed down before voting against someone. Every November, people brag about how they did their civic duty by voting, content to ignore the much larger difference they could have made earlier in the process. With a population as politically apathetic as ours, it's no wonder that those in power treat our wishes with such contempt. They are sure in their ivy-league belief that the electorate is composed of adult-age children who need to be closely managed as wards of the state ("liberals") and/or rallied to the cause of our fearless leader's foreign adventures ("conservatives").
In short, a reluctance or outright refusal to think for onesself is the root cause of many of the U.S.'s failings. This problem could probably stop within a single generation if we got our children out of state schools and into countless work apprenticeships and charities with people of different social classes instead. Just think of the kind of well-rounded, genuinely worthwhile people such a liberal education would produce.
Re:Woot for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the US should, as a response, stop shipments of garbage abroad.
Start processing electric junk at home to recycle rare earth and precious metals.
Re:Woot for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Hear, hear! In the long term, I think it will be a good thing that China's regime is finally showing its true colors as a childish mannequin of a government, too brittle to accept even the mildest criticism due to having no legitimacy. They were never elected, and the Heavens aren't smiling like they used to in the olden days when claiming a Heavenly mandate was all that was needed.
This will force the U.S. and the West in general to get smarter about what materials are necessary for modern life and find substitutes for the ones China controls. It will have the effect of shifting the West's economy further away from China's.
Re:Woot for me (Score:4, Insightful)
The west in general isn't going to get "smarter". The west in general have always had to slink on their bellies and make deals with the devil to keep their standard of life going as it is. There are two big differences here. The first is that the US isn't calling the shots (so it all feels weirdly familiar, yet totally foreign). The second is that no one can militarily push China around. Before the US could point guns at a (generally) middle eastern oil state and grimace while paying slightly higher prices. The process wasn't pleasant, but it worked out for both parties. China has its own (sovereign) resources. In the end this isn't going to be pleasant, not by a long shot.
Uncle Steau -- Now gets why BBC news always portrays China as the once and future king, it hurts less that way.
Re:Woot for me (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't rate China's nuclear strike capability very highly. The devices are (relatively) crude, old, and inaccurate. Plus I rate the American ability to interdict them very, very highly. US strike aircraft are very stealthy and highly precise, and their target location and identification capabilities are top notch. The days of "hide-a SCUD" from Gulf War 1 taught our American cousins a number of very valuable lessons.
I'd be willing to bet that in the case of open war between the US and China that China would lose all nuclear strike capability in minutes.
There are other factors though that I think act as serious disincentives to full-on warfare:
1. It would be a massive, one-sided slaughter, with Chinese casualties being simply horrible to contemplate - and we aren't in the days of rampant xenophobia where you could paint the enemy as some sort of sub-human "yellow peril" and justify that sort of death toll. I think that Western society simply won't stomach pictures and video of Chinese soldiers and civilians killed en masse;
2. The costs of fielding a modern army are astronomical. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan barely count as sub-theatres in a WW2 context, and yet the amount of money and resources required to sustain them is simply staggering. Committing the entire power of the modern US military to full scale warfare in China would probably be the single most expensive thing ever attempted in human history;
3. China is so inexorably linked to the US in an economic sense that open war with China would collapse the US civilian economy. So few consumer goods are actually manufactured in the US - and the common practice is just-in-time delivery, rather than massive warehousing - that stopping the flow of sea containers from China would see every Wal-Mart in the US empty within a month. This would touch the American voter far more seriously than WW2 rationing ever did - and I think modern generations are far less willing to accept that sort of hardship.
That's not to say that these forces that tend to reduce the probability of war could not be overcome. China has a HUGE economic lever to use on the US. If they use it hard enough, they can create the kind of conditions that would allow the US population to start thinking in xenophobic terms which would then open the doors to full-scale military retribution. It is entirely possible to go down this road should both parties prove sufficiently intransigent. But my assessment that the probability that this would ever happen is very low.
DG
Re:Woot for me (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, the US should, as a response, stop shipments of garbage abroad. Start processing electric junk at home to recycle rare earth and precious metals.
Better yet, stop making deals with the Devil in the first place. Maybe then we won't keep getting burned.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No we'd run out of oil by 1980 and 1990.
Re:Woot for me (Score:4, Interesting)
first models predicted peak oil between 1965 and 1970 http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf [hubbertpeak.com]
...in the US. And that's when it peaked [wikipedia.org].
Re:Tit for tat (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe, but it won't happen in the foreseeable future. We'll be mining it from the ocean before we'll be mining Afghanistan [discovery.com].
Re:The whole thing pisses me off (Score:4, Insightful)
And they also seem to be committed to keeping their currency artificially undervalued, thereby holding the exchange rate down.
This just makes the US more and more dependent because every day that goes by, the politicians in their complacency think "oh, business as usual" and calmly forget that China is HOLDING it down. The truth of the matter is that America is being mis-managed. Allowing said mis-management to continue, intentionally or no, does not make America stronger it makes it weaker. But now America has banks and other corporations that know they are "too big to fail", and suddenly there are no consequences to mis-management anymore because Uncle Sam will always be there to print some more dollar bills. Or so they think.
I live outside the US and I am seeing first hand what is happening to exchange rates. The dollar is plummeting (because no one believes in its value anymore). This is really hurting exporters because they can't pay their workers. I can imagine that at one point something will have to give and the price of your bananas or whatever will have to go up. That means inflation for you - which the US government will try to hide, but so many cards are already missing from the US house of cards that it's not going to take much to cause another panic. May's flash crash was a beautiful example of how close we still are to the cliff edge.
Re:kick them out (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:kick them out (Score:5, Insightful)
The US does exactly the same thing in the agriculture sector.
So I entirely agree, so long the US gets kicked out as well.