The Chinese Xi administration may choose to leverage its state dominance of rare-earth elements to better balance the current Sino-U.S. trade war.

Dan Rochefort

2019-06-13 10:26:00 Thu ET

The Chinese Xi administration may choose to leverage its state dominance of rare-earth elements to better balance the current Sino-U.S. trade war. In recent times, President Xi visits a Jiangxi hardware factory that spins rare earth elements into permanent magnets in iPhones, electric cars, wind turbines, and military missiles. China monopolizes 80% of the strenuous extraction of 17 vital rare-earth elements for ubiquitous applications from consumer electronic technology to military defense. Although the raw ores are as common as copper and lead, rare-earth ores oxidize quickly and their extraction can cause severe pollution. With its low labor costs and lax environmental regulations, China has become the dominant force in the rare-earth market since the 1980s. With almost half of global rare-earth deposits, China produces 120,000 metric tons of rare-earth per annum, or about 80% of the global supply. Australia is the second largest supplier of only 20,000 metric tons of rare-earth per year.

The Chinese Xi administration has a strategic incentive to reduce the quota of rare-earth elements for better environmental protection. The next quota reset is due in June 2019, and this reset can indicate whether China intends to leverage its rare-earth quasi-monopoly to counteract the Trump tariff tactic.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors.

Charlene Vos

2019-08-08 09:35:00 Thursday ET

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors.

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors. In collaboration with former Web.com CEO Jeff Stibel, the NBA champion invests

+See More

Dr Kai-Fu Lee praises China as the next epicenter of artificial intelligence and smart data analysis.

Peter Prince

2017-12-01 06:30:00 Friday ET

Dr Kai-Fu Lee praises China as the next epicenter of artificial intelligence and smart data analysis.

Dr Kai-Fu Lee praises China as the next epicenter of artificial intelligence, smart data analysis, and robotic automation. With prior IT careers at Apple, M

+See More

U.S. regulatory agencies may consider broader economic issues in their antitrust probe into Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

Joseph Corr

2019-07-03 11:35:00 Wednesday ET

U.S. regulatory agencies may consider broader economic issues in their antitrust probe into Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

U.S. regulatory agencies may consider broader economic issues in their antitrust probe into tech titans such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google etc. Hou

+See More

U.S. trade envoy Robert Lighthizer proposes America to require regular touchpoints to ensure Sino-U.S. trade deal enforcement.

Daisy Harvey

2019-03-17 14:35:00 Sunday ET

U.S. trade envoy Robert Lighthizer proposes America to require regular touchpoints to ensure Sino-U.S. trade deal enforcement.

U.S. trade rep Robert Lighthizer proposes America to require regular touchpoints to ensure Sino-U.S. trade deal enforcement. America has to maintain the thr

+See More

Andy Yeh Alpha (AYA) fintech network platform: major milestones, key product features, and online social media services

Joseph Corr

2026-01-19 10:30:00 Monday ET

Andy Yeh Alpha (AYA) fintech network platform: major milestones, key product features, and online social media services

  Andy Yeh Alpha (AYA) fintech network platform: major milestones, key product features, and online social media services   Introduction

+See More

U.S. inflation has become sustainably less than the 2% policy target in recent years.

Jonah Whanau

2019-08-03 09:28:00 Saturday ET

U.S. inflation has become sustainably less than the 2% policy target in recent years.

U.S. inflation has become sustainably less than the 2% policy target in recent years. As Harvard macro economist Robert Barro indicates, U.S. inflation has

+See More