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The US has hit China where it hurts by going after its telecom champion Huawei, but Beijing's control of the global supply of rare earths used in smartphones and electric cars gives it a powerful weapon in their escalating tech war.
A seemingly routine visit by President Xi Jinping to a Chinese rare earths company this week is being widely read as an obvious threat that Beijing is standing ready for action.
...
However, analysts say China appears apprehensive to target the minerals just yet, possibly fearful of shooting itself in the foot by hastening a global search for alternative supplies of the commodities.
Better buy your new devices now...
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Fears Rise China Could Weaponise Rare Earths In US Tech War
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:10AM (9 children)
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Long live the era of fake news and click bait!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:27AM (7 children)
There are multiple forms of weapons. China has been using their rare earths as an economic weapon for decades already. Using natural resources as an economic weapon is part of the Assassin's Mace.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/business/global/29rare.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FRare%20Earths [nytimes.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/business/international/china-export-quotas-on-rare-earths-violate-law-wto-panel-says.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FRare%20Earths [nytimes.com]
Maybe, one day, the US will actually learn recycling. Most of the rare earths we import end up in landfills. If we recycled diligently, we wouldn't need to worry so much about strategic minerals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:32AM (5 children)
Until now it hasn't been a problem. One would hope we'd find that all the BS going on would be a huge kick in the ass to develop our own sources
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:40AM (3 children)
As the world, and especially China, drains the wealth out of the US, it will become an increasingly bigger problem. Your observation is valid, as is my observation about recycling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:59AM
Both are equally valid, but we need new sources of rare earth metals. How we do it is left to *better* minds than mine.
*Better is merely a hope. It'll be left to the politicians and we'll be fucked as usual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @07:15PM (1 child)
The only wealth being drained out of the US is that of the 99% by the 1% who will suck this shell dry before moving on to its next host, like any other parasite.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 24 2019, @01:17AM
If you genuinely believe that, you really need to start looking at the world.
#1, the drug cartels have been leeching money out of the US for as long as I've been alive.
#2, the illegal alien traffic leeches money out of the economy
#3, the various trade deals are leeching money away
All of that money leaves the US, and the US economy, and very little of it comes back into the US. Your 1%'ers do the same thing, yes, but you can't dismiss the other money sinks either.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 23 2019, @04:17AM
As I noted above, there was a lot of talk about weaning off of China's rare earth production years ago. But talk is cheap.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @02:50PM
> Maybe, one day, the US will actually learn recycling.
A recent story (radio, NPR or BBC, I've forgotten) looked at electronics recycling outside the USA. Seems that organized crime is now involved and they start by burning/melting whole circuit boards down, damn any foul gasses or poisons that some out of the fire. This is done in rural areas where the mob can easily buy off local law and pollution enforcement. When they have all the metals & glasses, and the organics are burned off, they have something with higher gold content than typical gold ore, and probably other valuable material at useful concentrations.
We can do the same things in USA, but doing it responsibly, with minimal pollution, makes it currently not cost effective relative to the international competition.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:21AM
This.
With this lack of definition doing the rounds, everything can be termed a tool of ‘war’ and therefore ‘weaponised’. Negating the useful meaning of the word.
For example we could ‘weaponise’ efficient algorithms in the war to clean up a product codebase.
Or we could ‘weaponise’ love and compassion in the quest for peace.
We could even ‘weaponise’ tantric breathing techniques in the battle for the ultimate transcendent orgasm.
Some people have to have everything around them be some sort of adversarial conquest.