U.S.-China Rare-Earth Deal Shows Beijing’s Dominance of Crucial Sector

Welcome to Foreign policyChina’s summary.

The most prominent events this week: China agrees on A rare deal With the United States, Dalai Lama He is preparing to announce the caliphate plans, and new Video game The nerve is struck among Chinese men.

Welcome to Foreign policyChina’s summary.

The most prominent events this week: China agrees on A rare deal With the United States, Dalai Lama He is preparing to announce the caliphate plans, and new Video game The nerve is struck among Chinese men.

China, the United States agrees to the rare land deal

Last Friday, China indicated that it would agree to a new deal that allows the export of rare land to the United States, which represents a penetration after the United States and China talks earlier in Geneva and London.

American manufacturers need a rare ground for a wide range of products, from computer screens to lasers. China produces approximately 60 percent and more than 90 percent of the rare global land supply. Beijing has resulted in the practice of this financial lever on Washington in recent months, as Chinese analyst Scott Kennedy writes in Foreign policy.

But will Beijing pressure a always comment on Washington, or will it finally lead the United States to rebuild a long -term supply chain at home?

China’s dominance of the rare Earth sector is not the result of geological wealth but rather an economic advantage. Rare land, despite the name, is abundant around the world. But after the Chinese openness and modernization in 1978, the rare Chinese land companies soon became cheaper and most popular. From 1978 to 1995, China’s production of rare land grew by about 40 percent every year.

Early, this growth was mostly from bottom to top, but was later encouraged by the government. Chinese scientists requested the first rare international patent in 1983, and by the mid -1990s, Chinese technology was competing with advanced products in the United States.

Chinese companies acquired foreign assets, such as the American company Magnequench in 1995. Meanwhile, the spread of personal computing and then the mobile phone created a tremendous request on the rare ground of the nineties onwards.

The United States has always been aware of the problems that the Chinese excel in this sector. After China temporarily slowed the export of rare land to Japan in 2010, it prompted the reopening of the rare mountain mine in California to provide an alternative to Chinese companies amid the increasing requirements.

For more than a decade, experts and strategists called for the revival of the rare Earth industry in the United States to reduce dependence on China. But it will be difficult to withdraw this project on a large scale. In 2010, the US Government Accountability Office estimated that it would take up to 15 years to rebuild the rare local supply chain.

Within 15 years since then, Mountain Pass – whose former owners went bankrupt in 2015 – remains the only facility that produces and improving the rare land in the entire country. US President Donald Trump’s efforts are being made in the past to rebuild the industry, and in his second term, it seems that the president is committed to dismantling the legacy of his predecessor from rebuilding anything.

Although China should not be afraid to restore our rare production any time soon, it does not bear any risks. A major part of any industry is individuals, and China has benefited from the lack of political freedoms to maintain its hegemony in this regard.

as Wall Street Journal It was mentioned last week, rare Chinese Earth experts are closely tracked and monitored. Some get their passports confiscation and hold employers – an increasingly common practice in China today.

What we are following

Thai political crisis. China expressed its desire for “stability” in Thailand after the Thai Constitutional Court arrested Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Tuesday. The court accused Paetongtarn of violating ethics when she described the former Cambodian leader (and family friend) Hun Sen during a recent border crisis, and promised to do what he needs. Hun Sen later released the strip and falsehood that was publicly extracted, but this step is likely to be driven by local political needs instead of geopolitical demands.

Thailand is close to the United States, but it is increasingly tending to China. Paetongtarn family – a political strain that has played a major role in Thai policy since 2000s–Of Chinese origin.

Paetongtarn itself has tried to improve relations with China by supporting the unprecedented campaign on the online crime rings operating along the Thai border, which is famous for kidnapping Chinese citizens and fraud. Her comment will lead to some concern in Beijing, but it is unlikely that anyone behind her will make any radical changes.

Dalai Lama Declaration. Dalai Lama is expected to address official plans for his dispute this week, before his ninetieth birthday on Sunday. Dalai Lama is the spiritual secular leader, historically, and his position is transferred through reincarnation. China, which claims to have historical ownership of Tabit, is the Dalai Lama as separatist and says it will choose behind it.

Beijing’s demand has its roots in the Cheng Empire, which ruled China, Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of modern Central Asia, and repent from 1644 to 1911. Although Cheng’s control in Tibet always, Qing’s names confirm that random names in the jar.

Meanwhile, Dalai Lama said that his successor would be born outside China and urged his followers to reject the successor that Beijing chose.

Read the most read this week

Technology and business

Covid-19 report. Last Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a new report on the assets of the Covid-19s. The report is ultimately decisive, but it is strongly inclined to the hypothesis that the virus is transmitted through the trade of wildlife. However, it does not reject the possibility of laboratory leakage, a theory of the Trump administration.

China is likely to be subjected to the dismissal of the report to the hypothesis that the virus entered the country by cold storage, a common theory that replaces Chinese blame. He also emphasized that he did not receive any cooperation from China effectively, which increased a break that started when Beijing stumbled on the agency’s previous investigations.

After the first SARS epidemic broke out in 2002, China promised to close the main live markets but failed to implement its own regulations, making the possible epidemic outbreak in the Wuhan Wet market very embarrassing.

Video game for women. A new video game went up to the top of China’s graphs and hit a nerve among Chinese men. Revenge from golden drilling The male protagonist follows, seeking revenge on women who are depicted by the game as benefiting from vulnerable men online to drain them from their origins.

The game is a reflection of the broader themes that revolve around Chinese Internet. It is dominated by these spaces online by the influencers who are trying to sell sexually charged content without drawing anger of censorship. These women have huge followers and dignity supporters online, but they also generated anger among Chinese men, they were well rooted in the documentary Hao Wu Republic of people’s desire.

The emergence of organized crime gangs targeting Chinese men for online fraud has contributed to this anger, but also produced cases in which women were targeted after being accused of lying to act as golden rods.