Slashdot Mirror
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.
From TFA, emphasis mine:
Because we haven't outsourced enough to China already.
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!
But that would put Wal-Mart out of business!
Jokes aside, trade wars lead to shooting wars. This isn't welcome news.
How could this possibly be modded interesting? Do you really wish to flog yourself to death? You know all those reasons why you couldn't just stop buying chinese goods for the last 5 years? Well, every single one of them still applies. The damage you would wreck upon yourself, especially in the short term would be orders of magnitudes greater than the damage caused by a rare earth metal shortage.
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.
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.
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.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
China's rare earth supply should be boycotted anyway, because of the massive pollution caused by their unregulated mining practice.
You're right, but I question whether it's worth it at this stage. I think a better solution right now would be to just cut off some of the trade benefits that make it so beneficial for Mainland China to continue their rapid-growth export-driven economic policies, which was a possible end state of this increased Congressional irritation about their currency manipulation.
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.
Maybe you should.. you know.. read about what thw WTO and 'free-trade' actually means. Just a thought.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
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.
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.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Joke's on you, China!
We don't manufacture anything anymore!
Hey now... no need to be sexist. (north) American men have large, pendulous breasts too, although I can't speak for the Chinese or Japanese, but I'm sure the same holds true.
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.
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.
If you want to play economics and war, one could argue that the reason we stayed out for so long was it was more profitable to sell to both sides. When that was no longer the case, we joined the war effort.
Get a web developer
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Exactly. Limiting free trade does absolutely nothing to help a country but harms both countries.
China has had phenomenal success by limiting free trade.
first models predicted peak oil between 1965 and 1970 http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf
...in the US. And that's when it peaked.
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
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 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.
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.
yea, it's literally terrorism!
Balderdash!
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.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
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.
Neither should the US.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
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.
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.
The US does exactly the same thing in the agriculture sector.
So I entirely agree, so long the US gets kicked out as well.
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.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
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.
May the Maths Be with you!
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
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book