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China Begins Stockpiling Rare Earths, Draws WTO Attention
eldavojohn writes "A report by China Securities Journal claims that China is now stockpiling rare earths although it has not indicated when this stockpiling started. Many WTO members have complained about China's tightening restrictions on exports of rare earths while China maintains that such restrictions are an attempt to clean up its environmental problems. A WTO special conference scheduled for July 10th will hopefully decide if China's restrictions are unfair trade practices or if the US, the EU and Japan are merely upset that they can't export their pollution and receive rare earths at low prices. Last year, China granted its mining companies the right to export 30,200 tons but in actuality only 18,600 tons were shipped out of country."
China thinks ahead, but doesn't play nice.
They could be doing it not just for practical purposes but possibly for setting up a DeBeers of rare earth metals.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The minerals are theirs; why shouldn't they keep them?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Even if it harms the businesses and the fellow travelers that aid and abet such a hostile regime, it is time that the world plays hardball on China.
Things like this are why Faustian deals of getting a pliant slave-labor workforce are always a bad idea. Trade is no excuse for appeasement.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So why isn't the WTO complaining about OPEC?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Just so I have this straight, China unfairly damages the US economy when they:
1. Trade low-cost goods with us.
2. Don't trade low-cost goods with us.
Those bastards! *shakes fist*
They can't and won't. They're afraid of China.
The world will eventually regret not opposing the rise of China, because they will be bullies 100 times worse than the Americans at their worst, with the added bonus that the Chinese are fiercely xenophobic and have a massive chip on their shoulder from their "100 years of humiliation".
I'm looking forward to an age of oppression and tyranny under the boot of the Chinese Communist Party.
I thought that this is what the Free Market is all about. Why do I have to hear my country's (USA) leaders complain ONLY when it doesn't benefit us? It's not like we're an impoverished nation. China can do whatever they want, and we can pay them for the resources or not buy them. It's not like we can't survive without them providing rare earth metals. So tired of the hypocritical whining ONLY when things don't go our way.
America has done well without ever having the best grades in math and science .
In Nebraska.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/2/rush-for-rare-earth-may-create-nebraska-boomtown/
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CFcQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Fhuge-rare-earth-minerals-deposit-springs-tiny-nebraska-032805893.html&ei=ULj1T9nJLaWL0QHyj9mQBw&usg=AFQjCNHG6D33wkRGwc0jTZnGsk2Mw0m0uQ&sig2=gSmPFTmoFxZNTwOsLRVOmA
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/tiny-village-in-nebraska-hides-worlds-largest-rare-earth-mineral-deposits-2011085/
Dealing with suppliers or manufacturers of anything in China presents the possibility of low costs but adds risk. The reward/risk calculus is seriously out of whack these days: for example, a tremendous amount of world HDD capacity is located in Thailand, where floods can stop everyone's production. China's industral advancement is going to be short-lived unless they start treating contracts as binding instead of a general idea.
A responsible supply chain manager would second-source everything they bought in China except for plastic toys, shower curtains and flip-flops - and I'm not so sure about the toys because high lead or selenium (or both) levels have been found in Chinese toys.
Molycorp, which owns a big rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, California, is back on line. That mine used to supply 100% of US demand, plus exports. It was shut down in 2002 due to cheaper rare earths from China. Now it's back.
Rare earths aren't that rare. They're just present in small concentrations. So mining produces huge volumes of waste for small amounts of product. The big rare earths mine in China is an environmental disaster area. The one in California had to comply with US and California regulations. At current rare earths prices, that's not a problem. (They do, however, ship some of the sludge to Nevada through a 20 mile pipeline. Really).
A year from now, rare earth supplies won't be a problem. Then people will be bitching about the Molycorp monopoly.
Haha, old joke :) :)
(And I think you forgot a word between the 'A' and 'Earth'. Something like 'Regular' or 'Common'.)
Darn typos get the best of us, you and me included
China has not had a history of projecting its occupation forces well beyond its borders. Sure, China has invaded Tibet and is threatening to do the same with Taiwan and some puny islands near the Philippines. But unlike the US and the old European empires, China has not sent its armed forces across continents to conquer people of vastly different cultures. And you can't talk about China's "100 years of humiliation" without taking into account fiercely pro-American Taiwan, political heirs to the government that the Communist Party kicked out of the mainland. The Communists have been in power only since 1949, well short of 100 years.
Most asteroid mining plans involve mining asteroids for things that are valuable in space. It's possible you might drop a few things down to the surface as a bonus, but not as your main business.
Seawater mining is expensive because the stuff in seawater is very dilute, all mixed up together, and dissolved. Seawater mining isn't economical with current technology and prices, but it might be in the future. Asteroid mining isn't either, but might be in the future. When either one becomes economical, it will happen. One possible difference is that we're working on rocket technology, which will lower the cost of asteroid mining, in order to do other things.
He was talking about the 100 years of suppression and conquering by britanny and the USA BEFORE WWII.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Create methodologies that ignroe the requirement for Rare Earths.
A mountain of wealth is worthless, if only one group has it.
America used to be a place where effort was rewarded with success, so the people who did well in Math and Science were rewarded. Now it is all about making things "fair" to all the various "groups".
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Our mineral/seawater separation techniques currently suck. It would be significantly cheaper for most materials to get them from asteroids than from seawater.
News reports are that there actually is a group right now that is planning on snagging some asteroid riches. I'll believe they are serious when they actually bring back a load of minerals.
Pretty much all this stuff is controlled by the market price and cost to extract dynamic.
Stockpiling does two things:
1) In the short term it limits supply, causing prices and profits to rise.
2) In the medium term, it gives the Chinese the means to flood the market, driving out new competitors and restoring their near monopoly.
Rinse, lather, repeat
It is simply too soon to say whether economic engagement with China just made it stronger without fundamentally changing it, or will result in major political reforms. We won't know until this "new" nation (now with a much more wealthy, worldly middle class) is put to the test of an economic shock or a period of stagnation. Citizens almost never agitate until they are hit in the pocketbook.
There are many on this site that will disregard China's actions on all of this. Or they will claim that China is taking these actions because the west is beating up China. Regardless, Molycorp is coming. But my guess is that China will dump on the market until Molycorp is dead.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The Chinese also don't have the reputation of conquering the wives of foreigners from vastly different cultures. I'm sure it's just because the simply lack aggressive ambition and realize the immorality of such despicable acts, and not because they lack the proper resources.
You guessed my location wrong too.
I can now narrow your location to Alberta based on your sensitivity towards jokes about the US.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm sure the Vietnamese would have plenty to say about that. They're fiercely nationalistic (as the Americans found out decades after they should have).
Start a Thorium energy program. This makes lots of heavy rare earth deposits in the US economical to mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=tyqYP6f66Mw&NR=1
The USA and several other countries had their own mining operations inside their own borders which produced meaningful amounts of "rare earth" metals. The US companies chose to close them and purchase cheaper Chinese metals instead. Thereby handing China an effective monopoly on rare earth metals.
Now everyone is screaming that China has a monopoly and is not playing fair. I mean really, what the fuck did everyone think would happen?
China looks at the long game. We look towards the next quarters profits. I am sure that from China's point of view, this is all poetic payback from how the western world fucked them as hard as possible in the 18th and 19th century.
I just do not see how China is the bad guy here for putting itself in a position of power. A position, like the US, where everyone else is afraid to piss them off. Hell, we do it every chance we get and we are somehow the moral compass of world.
Wait, the WTO essentially wants to force them to exporting their raw materials? That's a very strange definition of "free market". Last I checked, coercion was one of the things that a free market does not allow for.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I don't know how many decibels the dollar rings in at, exactly, but this article adds to the growing pile of evidence that insists that Corporate America's money is louder than anything else in America. America's politicians, certainly, are unable to hear anything else over it...to include warnings from America's economic and defense experts.
Oh, well...Wal*Mart's share prices are doing well, and that's what counts...right?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
because they will be bullies 100 times worse than the Americans at their worst
Now I'm curious to see that happen, because I'm not sure it is even possible. And I live in Europe, not one of the 20 or so countries that american wars have left devastated for decades.
Let's talk again when China's track record comes near, shall we?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
They've been at this for years. There are warehouses the size of towns in China full of minerals, there too keep prices high. It can only eventually all come crashing down though.
"You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead!" - Stan Laurel
Allowing people to do stupid shit to themselves is my idea of "fair". What is unfair is expecting the rest of us to bail out their stupidity in the name of "fairness" or whatever. Sorry, but trying to fix people's idiocy doesn't accomplish a thing except make a few people feel better about themselves as being some form of superior or another.
Stupid should hurt. That is how some people learn (and often the ONLY way they learn)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Hmm, let's see. China have invaded and occupied Tibet. Invaded Vietnam. Invaded Korea to prop up one of the worst regimes the planet has seen. Bombarded Taiwan for decades and threaten to invade. Dominate Mongolia (who had to turn to the Soviets for assistance). Bully Vietnam, Japan and The Phillipines at sea. Fought Russia in Siberia on and off for decades. Use cyber and economic warfare around the globe. Conduct military and industrial espionage around the globe. Exploit Africa worse than any former colonial power. All this while the Chinese feel they are weak. Once they feel they are strong they will be more than a handful. Wake up and don't buy the 'China is peaceful and non-expansionist' line - it does not match the historical facts.
Would you sacrifice the few? The few who are the best? Deny the best its right to the top - and you have no best left. What are masses but millions of dull, stagnant souls with no thoughts of their own, now dreams of their own, no will of their own, who eat and sleep and chew, helplessly at the words other have put into their brains? ... I know no greater injustice than the giving of the undeserved. Men are not equal in ability and one can't treat them as if they were.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Can we have a +10 right on?
China has not had a history of projecting its occupation forces well beyond its borders. Sure, China has invaded Tibet and is threatening to do the same with Taiwan and some puny islands near the Philippines. But unlike the US and the old European empires, China has not sent its armed forces across continents to conquer people of vastly different cultures. And you can't talk about China's "100 years of humiliation" without taking into account fiercely pro-American Taiwan, political heirs to the government that the Communist Party kicked out of the mainland. The Communists have been in power only since 1949, well short of 100 years.
Genghis Khan. Granted that was almost 800 years ago, bu it has happened before.
I bet they're building something huge for space colonization. They would need a large amount of rare materials. I'm not looking forward to welcoming our new Space-Chinese Overlords
http://interserver.net/
Most of the examples you've cited support or at least don't contradict my premise, that China doesn't project its military power well beyond its borders. It invades or bullies only its neighbors.
At worst China will be a regional threat in our generation. Vietnam, Korea, Russia, and Mongolia are neighbors. China's only great war with a single nation was with Vietnam, a months-long war which pales in comparison to the havoc the US wrought during its Vietnam War. The Korean War was a mini-world war. China picked the wrong side.
As for exploiting Africa, China at least doesn't export slaves (China has enough homegrown people to work its sweatshops). Yes, China is expansionist, but expands gradually if at all.
Er, China was the one conquered by Genghis Khan, says our friend Wikipedia:
If China was at all involved in the conquests of Genghis Khan, it would be like the British Empire conscripting Indian soldiers to fight for it in World War II.
China has not had a history of projecting its occupation forces well beyond its borders. Sure, China has invaded Tibet and is threatening to do the same with Taiwan and some puny islands near the Philippines. But unlike the US and the old European empires, China has not sent its armed forces across continents to conquer people of vastly different cultures. ...
Sure, if you leave out the recent conquest of an entire nation (Tibet), and the invasion of India (1962), and the invasion of Vietnam (1979); and discount much longer ago conquests of the non-Chinese inhabitants of Central Asia, then sure, they are the friendliest most peaceable neighbors imaginable.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Oops. Left out the invasion of Korea with more than one million troops during the Korean War; and the border fighting with Russia during the 1970s.
Say, which of their neighbors have the Chinese NOT shot at in the last 60 years?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Like I said, China tends to be a threat mainly to its immediate neighbors ("well beyond its borders" and "across continents"). If the Chinese were Martian invadiers, they won't be conquering the Earth any time soon. They'd first be raiding the two rocks (Phobos and Deimos) above their heads. And no, I didn't say they were the friendliest and most peace-loving neighbors around. I say, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, if China sends a naval armada to annex Taiwan by force, then let everybody start re-arming.
Note also that the China that invaded Vietnam, their last major war, is several million iPhones different from the China of today. A new war, where no immiment threat exists, will prove fatal to the Communist Party, since they are the only ones who'll get the blame for the economic crises that's sure to follow. Unlike in the US, where the two party system allows for buck-passing, China can't survive a military undertaking as large as the second Iraq War.
The Korean War was a mini-world war. China picked the wrong side.
China chose to side with North Korea's communist forces given a common ideology and a desire to avoid a US friendly ally on their border. I'd say that history shows they made a choice that was far from wrong, given those goals. The only downside to this choice was that North Korea's style of international politics requires the US to station more troops in the region, thereby impacting China's present and future ability to influence its neighbours.
North Korea is simply an awful place. I cannot understand how anyone would seek to defend it or those who actively support it. I hope you go there sometime. That way you'd lose the obsession about the US (who doesn't want South Korea to be subject to the terrible affliction of a North Korean takeover) and recognize the North Korean government for what it really is, not a bunch of locals valiantly resisting Pax Americana but actually an evil pseudo-feudal system that has zero regard for its own citizens or other countries. Wake up and recognize evil for what it is.
Just because China is inept in waging war is not the same as it lacking in imperial ambition. Clearly its history of serial belligerence since 1949 puts paid to the notion that it wishes for a peaceful rise. Once it is strong it will throw its weight around far more than the US does. nb. I also forgot to mention the (expansionist!) infiltration war against India in the 1960's (where China won against India, and got a taste for acquiring more territory by taking small bites). Now don't confuse me with someone reflexively anti-Sino. There is much to be admired about some of Chinese methods. That doesn't mean I don't recognize the danger of their rise and how their increasingly aggressive deeds don't actually match their peaceful public pronouncements (I suppose that is to be expected from a system so thoroughly pervaded by propaganda that basically anything the CCP says can't be trusted; but there is a trend of this and I can provide many examples on request [eg. lying about the use of the Varyag carrier, copying Russian equipment all the time, refusal to sign a no-reverse engineer agreement for the current Su-35 purchase, trying to buy only two Rookvalk helos from South Africa for reverse engineering/IP theft], lying about melamine in milk that killed babies and then blaming it on New Zealand etc etc).
Hmm I interpreted "wrong" in terms of China's geopolitics, not morals or ethics. You're definitely right in that respect.
> Hmm I interpreted "wrong" in terms of China's geopolitics
Yeah, your are correct from that point-of-view.
This is EXACTLY the kind of brainless, hateful xenophobia that starts wars. Multiply that by 1.3 billion and the world has a serious problem.
Try to step away from the computer once in a while and experience the real world. Mr 50 Cent Army.
China is inept at waging war for several reasons. Unlike the US, it's a more or less atheistic one-party country. There's less reason for them to die for God and a country which they don't have even the illusion of having a say in. With the possible of Tibet, China hasn't really fought a war that they won, in contrast to the US, which managed to destroy Saddam Hussein and beat the Taliban into retreat. (Some may argue that they lost the peace.) Again, the one-party nature of China is its weakest point in any protracted war. In the US, a disastrous military adventure by, say, one party will simply swing public opinion over to the other side, rather than against the entire state apparatus. So, no, China won't be a threat to those who don't share a border or a sea lane with it.
> So, no, China won't be a threat to those who don't share a border or a sea lane with it.
Again, just because China may not win does not mean they are not a threat. Your example of the Chinese invasion of Korea is an example. While they may only have restored the status quo by propping up the North Korean dictatorship they killed a lot of UN soldiers in the process. I feel this was something completely unnecessary and the World would be a better place if they had not done this. Similarly, their incursion into Vietnam to 'punish' the Vietnamese was waged not only for stupid reasons it achieved nothing except the enmity of the Vietnamese (who have recently decided that the US is possibly the lesser of the two evils). While the China Vietnam border war was strategically ineffectual it was very destructive - a lot of soldiers on both sides were killed. So, I restate my point again, just because China is ineffective does not mean it is not a threat - it has the power (and appears to be willing to use it) to cause a lot of destruction and loss of life - even if they are usually ultimately defeated.