China Considering Cuts In Rare-Earth Metal Exports

SillySnake sends in a report from the Telegraph on draft plans in China to restrict exports of rare earths. "Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons. A draft report by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs."

Comments

Re:Update

[CastrTroy]

I'm guessing satellites would pick up such a mass movement of people. You could probably wipe out 80% of them before they even left Chinese soil. Sure you'd have to worry about civilian casualties, But you could just wait until they get to an uninhabited place and then bomb them. Also, if they wanted to go to alaska, they would have to cross over Russian soil. I don't think the Russians would like this, and would probably help to bomb them all. Also, they would still have to cross some ocean, as there is no connecting land mass. At that point we could easily start sinking ships. Also, it would be quite hard for them to organize 300 million people to all attack at once without some of the news of the attack getting out before they actually started to move.