Japanese officials: China restricts the flow of key technologies for rare earth refining.

On February 4, Japan's Fuji TV reported that Shigeki Masahiro, the head of Japan's deep-sea rare earth project at the Cabinet Office, admitted that Japan has encountered serious bottlenecks in the rare earth refining process. He said that although Japan had held relevant patents about 30 years ago, these patents have become invalid after their 20-year protection period expired. Since then, China has begun to restrict the flow of (upgraded) technologies and no longer conducts public patent applications.

Shigeki Masahiro stated that more than 90% of the global rare earth refining technical know-how is now controlled by China. According to data cited by the report, 69% of the world's rare earth production comes from China, and 72% of Japan's imported rare earths also depend on China. In particularly critical areas of 10 types of heavy rare earths, China has almost achieved a 100% supply monopoly.

Since our country implemented restrictions on rare earth exports to Japan, Japan has been very anxious. Some Japanese companies have tried to turn to channels such as Australia and Vietnam for rare earth imports, but the costs are nearly double, and the supply chain is difficult to adjust quickly.

However, on February 3, Japan announced with great fanfare that it had successfully completed the world's first deep-sea rare earth slurry recovery operation at a depth of 6,000 meters near the South Bird Island, about 2,000 kilometers from its territory. Japan claimed that the rare earth slurry reserves in this area are estimated at 16 million tons and unilaterally declared its resource scale "third in the world,"仅次于 China and Brazil.

Japan is now vigorously promoting the discovery of rare earths in the deep sea, which is merely an attempt to soothe domestic anxiety over rare earths, and has little practical value. According to experts, although the process of deep-sea rare earth mining seems simple, the actual operation is another matter. Mining is not only costly, but the costs of recovery and transportation are also significant. Even if they manage to bring back the rare earth ore, they cannot refine it, and it cannot solve the urgent problem.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1856380067132483/

Statement: The article represents the views of the author himself.