cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2904990
The Chinese government has introduced a slew of new measures designed to tighten its grip on lucrative natural resources used in everything from electric cars to wind turbines. In a list released by the country’s State Council on Saturday, Beijing declared that rare earth metals are the property of the state and warned “no organization or person may encroach on or destroy rare-earth resources.” From Oct. 1, when the rules come into force, the government will operate a rare earth traceability database to ensure it can control the extraction, use and export of the metals. China currently produces around 60 percent of the world’s rare earth metals, and is the origin of around 90 percent of refined rare earths on the market. Advertisement
Beijing has already prohibited exports of rare earth refining and magnet manufacturing technologies. In January, it banned the export of gallium and germanium, both highly sought after by the computer-chip industry. Fears that China is looking to exert control over the industry, and could disrupt critical technology, automotive and renewable energy supply chains, have sparked a race to shore up supplies from alternative suppliers. Both the U.S. and the EU have launched efforts to procure rare earths at home and abroad, including in Vietnam, Brazil and Australia. A year ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced construction of the first large-scale rare earth refinery outside of Asia, located in Estonia. She said the move would “bolster European resilience and security of supply.”
A 2022 analysis from the European Parliament warned that over-reliance on monopolistic suppliers was a major risk for Europe. “The EU imports 93 percent of its magnesium from China, 98 percent of its borate from Turkey, and 85 percent of its niobium from Brazil. Russia produces 40 percent of the world’s palladium,” it said. “The latter is a reminder of the strategic implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the need for the EU to prepare for an increasingly uncertain world.”
The EU has launched a probe into anti-competitive trading allegations against the Chinese electric vehicle market, which benefits from heavy government subsidies and preferential access to essential rare earth metals. Earlier this month, the two sides agreed they would host consultations in order to try and resolve the standoff.
That last paragraph really is so damning. It is admitting the superiority of China’s central planning and how it is being used to actually improve society. ”But at what cost?”
Well, apparently the cost is that shares of China’s largest rare earth mineral mining firm have gone up 5% since the announcement. China proving socialists right every single day and absolutely crushing the capitalist development speedrun challenge. It’s genuinely hilarious that the development plan of China runs basically like what I’ll describe below, and capitalist nations are just completely incapable of stopping it from happening because the power of capital is greater than the power of their states.
“hmmm yes, today I will invest in the Chinese rare earth mineral market. Since China controls 90% of global production and all of the infrastructure is in place, all I have to do is bring my money, tech, and expertise with me and I’ll carve myself some serious profit! Easy money!”
“Ahh yes thank you for the help developing our mining industry/technology Mr. Foreign Capital. We appreciate your business and you had a great run, but unfortunately for you we have nationalized your mineral resources. The extractive capitalism will now stop. Feel free to reinvest elsewhere or compete with us on the global market tho :)”
”China is nationalizing its rare earth minerals, but at what cost? We need to ban China from–“
Rinse and repeat
African and South American countries with lithium and cobalt deposits, pay attention!
Cries in Lumumba.
He would’ve turned 99 yesterday
Africa? Isn’t China already all over it?
Belts and Roads. Belts and Roads…
You mean how they keep forgiving billions of dollars in loans that they’re using to build infrastructure and industrial capacity?
How terrible!
Contest that with the IMF, which bleeds countries dry until they have to auction off all their state assets and impose brutal austerity onto the people in order to repay their loans.
Uh, China doesn’t forgive the loans, they seize the assets, that’s the whole point of debt colonialism. They can’t colonize by force and no one trusts them to host their military bases, so they use debt to build a port or whatever and then when the host country can’t keep up on exhorbitant payments they take the port and ta-da, they’ve expanded their geopolitical reach.
China is in a hyper-imperialist push right now.
so they use debt to build a port or whatever
Edit:
Uh, China doesn’t forgive the loans, they seize the assets, that’s the whole point of debt colonialism.
Show me these supposed seizures; you’re talking out your ass. Imperial core corporate media are projecting their own states’ neocolonialism onto China, and you’re accepting their propaganda like a good Council on Foreign Relations consumer.
China has forgiven billions in loans
Also literally read Lenin’s definition of imperialism before you start saying bullshit like “taking over assets in another country is imperialism”
Yes, Lenin also prescribed dictatorship. His mindset was inextricable from the imperialist context he lived in, it limited his ability to imagine further. Which is part if why communism has always failed or collapsed into a fascist state capitalism (like China).
dictatorship
Are you referring to “dictatorship of the proletariat”? Because if you read what he wrote, it means “democracy where the former oppressor class is temporarily politically disenfranchised”
It feels like you’re playing telephone with yourself while trying to get zingers in
Which is part if why communism has always failed or collapsed into a fascist state capitalism (like China).
China has better life expectancy than the US when it was a feudal state occupied by Japan 80 years ago, what is your metric for failure lol? China is also leading the renewable push, and has made massive innovations in participatory democracy.
MODHAT calling communist nations fascist serves to enable holocaust trivialization, doing this again will net you a ban.
China is also leading the renewable push, and has made massive innovations in participatory democracy.
Anywhere I can read about this?
“Temporarily” has a pretty consistent habit of becoming permanent. It’s either malicious or extremely naive on Lenin’s part to believe that ypu can concentrate power into the hands of a few people and then they’ll just voluntarily give it up.
Which term is Xi on now at this point again? Oh right, he made himself dictator for life…
Forgiveness in exchange for favors. All sides play the leverage game.
On one hand yes, on the other hand China is a democracy with a dominant marxist leninist party which understands that imperialism is an unstable system and that mutual development is better for the long term stability and prosperity of China because MLs literally wrote the book on understanding imperialism
They’ve explicitly said “the era of zero sum diplomacy is over”
China is a democracy
LOL
You know what?
GOOD!
Every nation should be doing that.
Seriously. Those materials are essential and necessary for growth. Allowing some capitalist douchebag to hoard it all and make profits from it is a national security threat.
Let the country build and the country will grow.
Not just that, but get fair value for the material.
Not how companies got basically carte blanche to extract however much they can get and then claim no profit when taxes come around.
And then on top we provide these with parasites with transfers from federal budget to develop their mines and fields… and they get to price gouge on the back end.
NO money for anything else tho
China announced they’re cutting production to prop up rare earth mineral prices, a lot of people here seem to think something very different is happening…
I understand your point. They’re manipulating the market.
But still, every country should nationalize their natural resources.
What they’re doing is basically implementing a cartel model, which is not good for anyone except the people who make money from the industry
Care to elaborate? Cutting production of what?
I see now, I must have missed the word ‘prices’ on my first read. Fine by me though. As if the west hasn’t tried to economically destroy China for decades. Good for them. Get the bag, kings.
Cutting the mining and refining of rare earth oxides, aka the production of rare earth metals. That’s what this conversation is about…
Xinhua reports (Google translation) that the state will implement a unified plan for the development of the rare earth industry. The aim is to encourage and support the research and development of new technologies, processes, products, and new materials and equipment, it says.
Regulations will be implemented to control the total amount of rare earth mining and smelting. Additionally, Beijing intends to introduce a product traceability system to “strictly manage circulation” of rare earths.
According to Nikkei Asia, underground resources in China already belong to the state, but illegal mining and smelting of rare earth elements is known to happen in the private sector, and it seems that Beijing is keen to tighten its control over them.
It’s in every article about this. The price of rare earth ore in China has dropped precipitously, almost 80% since 2022. China is going to punish unauthorized mining and smelting activity and limit production among authorized producers.
Here’s one article, use your favorite search engine to find a bunch more
Dude, the frequency with which people are accepting this screenshot of a headline as a statement of fact is frightening. Please read about what they actually announced rather than falling for what is essentially propaganda
You’re so blinded by this lust you have for China that you forgot to read a goddamn thing about this besides the headline. What China’s doing is intentionally cutting production to prop up rare earth mineral prices. They’re purposefully making these minerals more expensive so the businesses that refine them can stay in business. You might recall similar business models from the Texas Railroad Commission and later OPEC, both regarding petroleum supply controls.
Here’s an article if you care to know anything at all about what’s actually happening lmao
So what’s your issue here?
If prices are falling low enough that it’s causing financial issues for some of these companies that would tell you that there’s too much supply relative to demand so you’d obviously slow production. By your own post you’re saying it’s so the refineries can stay in business, that would mean the price is too low for it to be economically viable.
If you let things continue eventually one would go bankrupt if they don’t slow production so one way or another the supply would come down.
Dude, did you read anything at all that OP wrote above? That China is imposing these restrictions makes economic sense, but OP is celebrating it like some socialist/communist victory over the West lmao
The fact that the government recognized the issue and stepped in to take control of the industry in order to prevent issues is a win compared to how things are allowed to just burn out and fail potentially causing larger issues in for the economy in other countries.
Most countries wouldnt be able to say no to capital and it would meant the resources would continue to cheaply get extracted at the expense of the long term health of the counties industry.
The US, which is what I assume you’re talking about, has had supply controls on a ton of commodities, so I’m not sure what you’re comparing to here. Just one example among many, the Texas Railroad Commission.
If only it cranked up the supply for housing
What’s wrong with OPEC supply controls? No one owes you cheap oil.
I didn’t give any opinion on OPEC being good or bad, but it’s certainly not some socialist utopia like OP is trying to pretend this is
Image posts should be banned on all news communities. Just post the link to the article. We don’t need a screenshot of the headline.
Questionable news plus four paragraphs of highly partisan commentary
Even Reddit news is superior, and that place is a shit hole
Didn’t a Scandinavian country recently find rare earth deposits that were twice or triple as big as China’s?
Precisely this. Thank you!
I believe the US has significant deposits as well. But its one thing having deposits and another to have the manufacturing capacity to refine it. Because the cost of labour is cheaper in china the “west” decided to import it from there. It also has the added benefit for the west of exporting environmental concern and to have a boggey man to point to when it comes to implementing green energy. ("Look we can implent what we can, but as long China is being a polluter, it doesn’t matter anyway)
based china
Woooo sodium-ion batteries.
This just forces the west to speed up research on alternative solutions to those materials. So win win really.
Removed by mod
“Everything I don’t like is Russian or Chinese.”
China takes a dub.
