China has declared that all rare earth mineral deposits within the country now belong to the state. China controls 60% of global rare earth mineral reserves and accounts for 90% of production globally
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.
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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–“
”Wait omg is that another investment opportunity in China where I can bring in my capital/technology/expertise to make some money? Hell yeah, where do I sign?”
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.
I wonder why they fucking did that, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the US trying to destroy their chip making segment by sanctioning them for it explicitly
It’s the exact same reason why Russia has been so difficult to sanction/restrict for western nations since the invasion of Ukraine.
Financial sanctions work really well on countries who have no industry and are basically only in the business of ways to move money around. The west all sanctioned Russia and expected it to immediately collapse, except they forgot that they are only a small part of the world and that Russia is not only in the business of just moving money around and actually produces tangible goods.
No matter how much you say “you can’t sell that here!” regarding a tangible good, somebody somewhere will buy it. The same applies to China for many, many examples, but most recently is the electric vehicle debacle. “Oh I can’t sell these in Europe or America? Whatever, I’ll just outcompete you elsewhere. Goodbye global market share.”
Can't wait to hear all the concern trolling about this pretty normal philosophy. No one made the natural resources so they all belong to the citizens of the community equally. It's how botswana was able to start a solid recovery from colonialism.
Joining the WTO was not because China changed ideology. It was a strategic goal to establish a position in the Western capitalist economic system that could be exploited to their advantage. They needed to do it because China had been outmaneuvered by the West economically and development was threatened. The cost of gaining access to the WTO was neoliberal policies, true enough, but that cost was imposed because of a power imbalance, not because of a sudden shift from Marxist to neoliberal ideology. Xi is overseeing a much more powerful China, which means less need to compromise. Xi does not need to gain entry into the WTO by convincing the West China will change. Xi is limited, however, by the need to not get kicked out of the WTO before sufficient development has occurred.
15 years ago I genuinely wouldn’t have believed it but I’m happy to be proven wrong.
All socialists thinkers ever who did any serious analysis came to the conclusion that capitalist development is largely unplanned beyond achieving profit, and operates nearly entirely unhindered by the state. China is just the first place to truly find a way to use this to its advantage. States where capital is the foremost power are utterly incapable of stepping in and stopping capital from doing the only thing it knows to do.
Kinda gets into Marx's idea of Capital as a "Real God." Capital has alien intentions of generating profit, and the market will move in that direction regardless of the wills of individuals because the system requires it.
This is absolutely great and all but can we not memory hole the past like 2 years of the CPC literally in bed with the current genocidal US admin? China is a country of contradictions, they have many great Ws and this is one of them.
But I don't think its particularly smart of fair to say this stuff when Yellen and Blinken have a permanent vacation home in Beijing almost where they're always welcomed with open arms and "civility" despite all the genocide etc.
I want to see results, preferably without looking like hypocritical fucks too. I believe they can do it.
They can be praised for their Ws but we should not pretend they have been taking huge unnecessary Ls too.
I don't think you understand how the China Ws come about. They come about explicitly because they don't let moral considerations impinge on the strategic needs of defeating capitalism. That means no Iron Curtain, no bloc enforcement, no hard resistance based on ideology. It means letting American businesses come in, abuse their people, pollute their land and air and water. It means letting American politicians come and go and feel superior. The entire strategy is play to Western and capitalist hubris and let them take all the actions that will be their undoing.
If Blinken didn't have a vacation home in Beijing, he'd be that much more willing to bomb/nuke it. If American politicians didn't have business interests in China, they would be more willing to destroy it. The thing you're describing as bad is actually the mechanism by which the good things come about. Your comment feels like someone watching a grandmaster at chess and complaining anytime they lose a piece.
china manufactures key parts of us military hardware, this seems contradictory, until you realise this makes it impossible for america to ever go to war with china. China has succeeded because it is too important to try fell. China has succeeded because it is not the ussr
Lenin even said it "Morality is subordinate to the class struggle."
Winning is the most important thing, would you have had China fight to stop the East Timor genocide, only to be destroyed? Or the Iraq War? We all want these things, China even makes the statements it can to signal these things, but it does not know if it can win. The USSR could fight, and it won some battles, but it died before it could challenge and destroy the bourgeoisie.
I don't like the turn to neoliberalism of China one bit either but it seems to be working out now that the imperialists have fallen for it and lost all their means of production through capitalist means to China. If it weren't for Dengism maybe China today would be just like Russia, a sad ruin of something that used to be great, but it's not. It seems to be reaching a turning point and slowly giving capitalists the boot.
I guess something similar would be the bourgeois revolutions that ended feudalism and the French Commune which got crushed because material conditions for socialism were far from ready. Capitalism is shit but it was necessary to get us to the point that proletarian revolutions were possible and led to the not so short lived success of the USSR.
We can't ignore the reasons that USSR was defeated though, it was because of strategic failures and the backtrack by giving in to capitalist measures but also because of being surrounded by hungry wolves in the West.
Dengism seems to postpone the revolution until imperialist's capital is stolen to the point that they are much less of a power to be reckoned with when revolution happens. If strict ML socialism is implemented at a point like this, it will probably be extremely more likely to defend itself and support global socialism until the US itself is also socialist.
This is still progressing and only time will really tell if Deng was a genius revolutionary or a traitor. I'm really hoping it's the first, it would mean that wherever you are, socialism might be coming soon enough to see it in our lifetimes.
Morally it sucks but this is what material dialectisism teaches in part, morals aren't the driving factor of history, only material conditions and relations of production are.
It wasn't? As far I know in Brazil the state owns all natural resources, you need permission to extract anything. Probably something from colonial period that the Portuguese crown owns everything in my country.
That's the case in Denmark as well, at least with offshore oil. The state owns the resource and gives private companies concessions to extract them in return for a percentage of the profits.
I'm honestly surprised that this is a new thing. I sorta figured that all of China's natural resources were already state controlled, and had certainly assumed that for rare earth deposits and refinement.
A very common misconception, actually. You might be even more surprised that for a long time, not even the USSR’s mineral resources were all state owned, nor was the mineral refining process.
In fact, here’s a bit of very interesting socialist history: During the first ever 5 year plan, the USSR was unknowingly committing one of the most heinous acts in history, and nobody seems to know about it. The USSR sought foreign expertise in the oil refining sector, and signed a contract with none other than the Koch brothers’ father, Fred C. Koch, to build 15 oil refineries that ended up making him extremely wealthy.
The US and EU have sanctioned China’s green energy technology, so why are they complaining? They don’t want to use it lol. This is like the spongebob pistachio ice cream scene