China Embargos Rare Earth Exports To Japan

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the Chinese government has placed a trade embargo on all exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles. China mines 93 percent of the world's rare earth minerals, and more than 99 percent of the world's supply of some of the most prized rare earths, which sell for several hundred dollars a pound. The embargo comes after a dispute over Japan's detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain whose ship collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels as he tried to fish in waters controlled by Japan but long claimed by China. The Chinese embargo is likely to have immediate repercussions in Washington. The House Committee on Science and Technology is scheduled to review a detailed bill to subsidize the revival of the American rare earths industry and the House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to review the American military dependence on Chinese rare earth elements."

Comments

All this over a fishing boat

[Sonny Yatsen]

This has just been the product of one of the stupidest cases of over-reactions of all time on all sides.

Japan's holding a Chinese fishing captain who was fishing off of waters claimed by both Japan and China. Japan refuses to release the captain, so China asks for an informal ban on rare earth exports to Japan for the rest of the month. Both sides are being driven to some completely meaningless conflict by hardliners. China's hardliners see no reason to back down because they want to flex their muscles. Japan's hardliners see no reason to back down because they think they can benefit politically in future elections. And all of this because they can't agree how to settle a case about a fishing boat.

US sources coming back on line

[Animats]

This was covered in the Economist last week.

The US has some of the largest deposits of rare earths in the world. One big location is Mountain Pass, California. The mine there was closed in 2002, because it wasn't competitive with the China price. (Or with China's mining with a complete lack of environmental controls.)

The Mountain Pass mine is being reopened under new management. In a few years, this problem will be over.

The problem with rare-earth mining is that, since the materials are rare, the waste problem is huge. The early stages of extractoin are messy. Big acid lakes, things like that.

Re:I can see the historians now

[Antisyzygy]

Part of the problem stems from something a bit different than what you say. For one, aggression is relative, i.e. History is written by the victors. Japan tried numerous times to fit in with the "imperialist" nations like Britain, France, ect. They never were really accepted by the western imperialist countries as an equal. The few times they militarily dominated parts of China, western powers swooped in and told them they couldn't create a colony there mostly because the western powers wanted Chinese goods. The Japanese felt screwed over whenever the western powers decided that they should not in fact be allowed to create colonies when the western powers themselves were in Africa and other places creating colonies. Long story short, the Japanese did not care for us westerners much and saw us as an adversary to their acquirement of parts of mainland Asia (Mostly in China). This is part of the motivation for Pearl Harbor as they felt if they tried to conquer Manchuria again they would be opposed by westerners. This being the case, they wanted to wipe out the US naval fleet so we couldnt react quick enough to their invasion. After WWII, imperialism is pretty much dead and I would venture to say the Japanese people are not interested in acquiring any part of China. I doubt the situation between Japan and China is the Japanese peoples' fault at this point. If anything the history between them is used by Chinese people as motivation to hate the Japanese.

DISCLAIMER : There are other current economic reasons for the conflict between Japan and China, but I am addressing the "aggression" part of the parent statement.

Re:I can see the historians now

[Anonymous Cowpat]

for China's military to be 10 times bigger than Japan's, the Japanese military (including reserves) would have to be about 20 million - that's 10 times more than the United States can muster.
But, well trained and well equipped count for a lot (vis. Germany vs Russia).

China would probably have a hell of a job to invade Japan (no chance of air superiority - the Japanese have no small quantity of F-15s, and the US has F-22s there), but anyone attacking China sounds like an equally difficult proposition - the Chinese just have too large an army to make an Overlord-style landing. The only option would be to pack troops into friendly countries bordering China and roll over the border once they were there, or pack them into nearby friendly countries which have countries who could be rolled over between them and China (which is generally a diplomatic faux pas). i.e. Russia is the only possible country in the first category (though I suspect that they wouldn't be up for it), otherwise there's South Korea (and rolling across North Korea would not be easy), Thailand (rolling across any of Laos, Burma & Vietnam - yikes!), India (rolling across Burma - the India-China border just isn't realistic) or Pakistan (cutting a small bit of Tajikistan, or generally rolling across Tajikistan & Kazakhstan).

In conclusion, no-one has any realistic prospect of successfully attacking China.

Of course, China knows this; they also know that right now, no-one has the forces, finances or stomach to start world war 3. In maybe 5 years time, the forces and finances will be less of a problem, and they'd have to rely on merely the lack of stomach for starting a war which will make WW2 look like a playground scrap. Unsurprising, therefore, that they have done this now.
Or it could just be diplomatic posturing (more likely).

Not a dispute over a fisherman

[turkeyfish]

This is not a dispute over a fisherman. It is a territorial dispute over a very large chunk of water around a disputed island. It is also an opportunity for China to put pressure on Japan and indirectly on the US (which relies on Japanese to manufacture many critical industrial components, many military in nature that can no longer be manufactured in the US because the US is no longer economically competitive in many high-tech industrial technologies. China sees this as an opportunity to exert its growing economic influence at a time that the West is not economically or politically able to respond because it is bogged down in two land wars in Central Asia. They are sending a signal that they are now the dominant power in Asia and the rest of the world can expect them to be the dominant economy in the world in just 10-15 years time at current rates of growth. This will almost certainly happen sooner as the republicans who look as if they are about to come into power are determined to shrink the US government, which will almost certainly speed up the difference in infrastructure and military preparedness. If we get into it with Iran, expect the Chinese who rely heavily on Iranian oil to come into more direct conflict with the US, probably by igniting inflation in the US by pulling their underwriting of US debt instruments that are all that is propping up the US financial system presently.

If the China Japan situation escalates our treaty obligations will draw us into it. Its unclear how the US will fare being so dependent on middle eastern oil, which can be easily shut off at the Straits of Hormuz by the Iranians and its military highly dependent on satellites for its battlefield and tactical awareness. The strategic petroleum reserve won't last long in an all out draw down. To make matters worse, just a few well coordinated EMP generating blasts in space and the US military will be largely blind. No wonder DARPA is scrambling to counter the new maneuverable Chinese killer satellites with high altitude solar aircraft. My guess is the republicans will let Japan fall to the Chinese and go into a more conciliatory mode to keep the Chinese money needed for tax breaks for billionaires safe.

Re:I can see the historians now

[Antisyzygy]

Any nations actions are the responsibility of their government, so I am not saying the west is at fault. I am just highlighting the fact that the Japanese tried to play the Imperialist game and no-one would let them. The British, the French, the Spanish, ect. were pulling the same crap all over the world. What the Japanese did was just like what the British, Spanish and French did. I.e. they came to the Americas and either forced or killed Native Americans so they would relinquish their land. However, the Japanese did this in Manchuria. Not to mention, you fail to consider that Japanese people lived through the war as well. What happened to them? They had most of their major cities reduced to ash with incendiaries (see firebombing of Tokyo) and atomic bombs were tested on them for the first time. I say tested because the US military literally wanted to see what would happen if an atomic bomb was dropped since they still didn't fully understand what radiation does to a human being. Before you say "well, the Japanese performed unethical medical experiments on people so they were worse" why don't you look at the plutonium injections given to healthy people, radioactive iron given to pregnant women, and full body irradiation of US citizens in studies funded and sponsored by our very own government and the Atomic Energy Commission. War is not so simple as "one side is right, the other is wrong". Usually there is a dispute, and then all diplomatic relations break down to the point where force is used. The History of the event is written by the victors. This is why we view Japanese as "evil" and look at ourselves as a having a moral high ground. We have anything but that.