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China Now Halting Shipments of Rare Earth Minerals To US
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.
I'm glad I invested in all these Bucky Balls when Woot had them on sale a while ago. I can supply them... for a small convenience charge.
From TFA, emphasis mine:
Because we haven't outsourced enough to China already.
American women have large, pendulous breasts. Chinese women have small, pert breasts. Japanese women also have small, pert breasts. The difference is that Americans and Chinese have no cultural aversion to getting tattoos.
Therefore, when the tit comes to tat, the Japanese with their small, pert breasts will remain unadorned.
Americans will continue with their behemoth breasts.
Chinese will continue with their ink-filled breasts.
And everyone will be the poorer for it.
Kids, pay attention, this is how wars get started. (I'm not suggesting we are about to start lobbing nukes at each other, but this historically causes issues, see Japan and WWII)
Close our markets to all of China's exports.
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
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.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
of the wto. they should never have been allowed in.
It sounds like you're thinking of some variant of the prisoner's dilemma, which is a classic, basic example of a non-zero-sum game.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
What to prevent a third party from buying these resources and then selling them to Japan or US?
This really causes me to question our Afghanistan policy even more. We, the US Geo Survey(?), found these mass deposits of rare earth metals/minerals and, at last read I believe, the Chinese are getting the rights to actually mine and produce the metals/minerals (cit: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all ) and (for those that like more of a "story" with your "news" cit: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/14/discovers-t-minerals-afghanistan/ ).
Am I way off here or should we not be keeping these rights? Not being a geologist, "IANAG", maybe these are completely different metals/minerals. If they are the same I believe we have every right to mine them ourselves. We have invested more than enough into Afghanistan to justify producing these reserves.
However it now becomes very interesting with China. I think most Americans forget how close to China our military is in Afghanistan.
Can anyone enlighten me if I am missing something since IANAG.
Member of American Sarcasm Society - Motto: "Like we need your help!"
Trade restrictions are nothing new.. the reason us murrican's are screaming USA! USA! USA! and 'investigating chinese trade practices', is because China is a WTO member state which prevents them from doing things like this, and from us putting teriffs on all Chinese goods.
Personally I love that they are trying to play this card.. nothing could benefit the US lower and middle classes more than destroying the WTO.
I bet the majority of the voting populous doesn't know what the word "majority" means (as clearly you do not either).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
China's rare earth supply should be boycotted anyway, because of the massive pollution caused by their unregulated mining practice.
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.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Considering that the US needs China to buy its public debt, more than China needs the US to buy its goods, there isn't much the US can do.
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.
Joke's on you, China!
We don't manufacture anything anymore!
The reasons for Afghanistan were not dubious. You're thinking of Iraq.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
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.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
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'.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
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.
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.
But this doesn't mean that the US will make the right moves and invest into itself, in fact I think they'll do the opposite. There's only so many times you can throw money out and expect Corporations to develop good busniess state-side(see automakers, see banks) As TFA points out, it would take the US quite a bit of time to catch up in terms of production and refinement, and we don't have any refineries, let alone good clean ones that would be required. Other Countries only make up 3% of of the current output, and it is still China who refines it. We have a problem in Canada where we allow other countries to dig out and own the resources and the only penny seen is in the blue collar work, which isn't much. If we developed and hired we'd have a lot more money floating around, instead our Oil money goes to Holland and our natural gas to the US. Canadian's loose on everything but the cheapest labour.
Although the products China ships with these materials are not being stopped, so don't worry about your iPhone 4's or Acer netbooks not arriving. There are a few big companies who use these materials to build their own chips here in NA will suffer (Intel/IBM come to mind).
[J]
Maybe, but it won't happen in the foreseeable future. We'll be mining it from the ocean before we'll be mining Afghanistan.
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Why in the hell is the US shipping dated, dead, or unwanted computers and electronics to 3rd world slums, when we should be mineral harvesting?
It was obvious a decade ago that China, amongst other countries, was going to cut off the mineral export. How is this a surprise to anyone? That they actually decded to do it?
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!!
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I like to think that the parent was not referring to people who work for the gov't, but rather people who let employers direct most or all of their professional lives. A self-employed person is a rarity these days, and I think that's behind many/most U.S. problems (WARNING: RANT FOLLOWS)
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.
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.
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.
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To make a nailgun, we need neodymium magnets!!
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
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, and trademarks; they can infringe all of them, but the the children in the US will go mad without their $.02 trinket in their "Happy Meal" and 80% of their parents will demand that the US Congress do something about it.
The US no longer has idea of what it means to be self-sufficient, nor does it have any strength of character to get there. Most of the participates in the discussions are stupid, arrogant, self-rightheous, ignorant, hypocritical, naive and/or self-centered.
Turning food into energy (AMD causing hunger) ,fixing the mess and paying for it.
Blocking energy efficient transportion (rail vs. air, Gore should get off his GD plane).
Blocking wind (Kennedy may he rest in hell)
Worrying about birds or Caribou
Sending thousands to die in the Middle East for oil (don't suggest for a moment that there is ANY moral issue here.. where was the US in Africa, Burma, etc)
Yet spending $1,000 B per year on the credit card of future generations instead of just "sucking it up"
The answer for the US could/should be quite easy.
US Government says that the tax on imported energy will increase by 15%/year for the next 10 years. (US citizens and companies, plan appropriately)
Birds, snail darters, carabou, etc are NOT more important than human life or the ecoomical growth of the US. (IE. there is no moral / ethical issue of using carabou carass for energy)
Any country that is part of or provides legal recognition to any cartel or host their meetings (OPEC, deBeers) will immediately lose US MFN status (what is Free Trade if there is a cartel).
Somewhere in the US there WILL be a nuclear waste dump, (Nevada.. shut the F* up. You only have 2 Senators and 1 congressman, and no one that lives there, was born there. If no one wants to move there anymore, in a country of 300M, who cares. It is cheaper to move everyone out the state (3000K) than to continue the insanity of making New Orleans (500K) a viable place to live. Give them all 1K ($3B) and tell them to move out or shutup.
While addressing Energy, the US that will go after the next set of key threats to the US economy and self sufficiency.. (Rare Earth, Happy meal toys, etc)
Good grief, the US problems are internal US problems. Lack of ethicals, morals, self responsibilty and pruduce. The US lost its ability be a Economical Superpower when it can't make 80% of the goods that are consumes and no one needs the US version of its production when it can make them theirselves (medicine, records and movies). The US military is totally dependent on components produced in Asia. The US has lost much of its abilty to produce many critical military components san imports.
The US no longer is in control of its economy (and has a by product, its long term military capabilities), and whence lost it independence.
The Chinese may only be doing field practices with their Rare Element threat, but the US has no appropriate response, either now or in the next 20 years.
The US is starting to feel the pull into the Beijing orbit. and it has no thrusters to match the long term force. Scotty will not help.
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 involving Japan withdrawing their occupation and signing a non-agression pact. Japan asked for two weeks to consider the proposal.
On November 26, 1941, Japan dispatched the carrier fleet which would stage the attack on Perl Harbor.
World War II on the Pacific Theatre was definitely about resources.
-- Terry
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Food subsidies (most, not all) are war proofing, because you don't want to be dependent for your daily bread on some third world tinpot dictator who can employ slave labour. Its more of a strategic consideration than anything else. Dumping is inexcusable though.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
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.
Wow, big word "jingoist". That's impressive. -1 Troll. Where are the moderators? If you use a big word like "jingoist" and then follow it with "you ignorant fuck" then apparently all sense is lost.
Unions are like any other special interest group in this country, they never know when to quit. They cut off workers at the knees, imposing unreasonable dues and ridiculous work requirements. They are a true, government enforced dictatorship. Everywhere they go jobs are lost. Welcome to America, the country that used to have manufacturing jobs - thanks to the unions. GM, for example, has to add $3,000 for each vehicle they sell, just to pay insane union pensions. Do unions care that GM can't sell cars because of this? No. Is it ever suggested that maybe worker wages should go down so the company can stay in business? No.
Intelligent people don't join unions. This is because intelligent people don't fall for the sucker-dream of unbiased advocates who are "on my side". We happen to be our own advocates, thank you very much. As long as we don't live in a dictatorship that requires people to buy things then union advocates will be powerless to help. A union can force a company to pay an employee a certain rate, but it cannot force the market to pay the company.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
China can huff and puff all they want but they can't afford a trade war with the US which is by a wide margin their largest trading partner and buyer of those products.
There is no trade war, there is only theater. this is a means of inflating the price of rare earth elements just as war in the mideast is a way of inflating the price of oil, then everyone selling oil benefits. The US and China are deep in one another's pockets and this is all just handwaving and distraction. Neither nation can operate as it has been without the other.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You sir, hit the proverbial nail on the head. The real issue is the industrial base going out from the US, and lots of other western countries. I can hardly find any product without a "made in china" stamped on it.
The million yuan question is, can the world recover from this? Or have we been all conquered by the China already?
A new revelation every day