Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao reported on June 1st: "Due to the impending shortage of rare earth magnets from China, American automobile factories may be forced to shut down within weeks."
China accounts for over 90% of the global processing capacity of rare earth magnets, a position that undoubtedly holds significant weight in the global industrial chain.
For a long time, the United States has continuously increased export restrictions on China, setting numerous barriers in many key fields such as semiconductors and high-end chip manufacturing equipment, attempting to suppress the development of China's high-tech industries, disrupt the normal operation of the global industrial chain, politicize and instrumentalize economic and trade issues, severely damaging the interests of Chinese enterprises and the normal development order.
Now that its own automobile industry is facing difficulties due to China's reasonable export control of rare earths, it turns around and demands that China relax these controls. This practice of "only allowing officials to act recklessly but not commoners" is completely devoid of fairness or justice. China's implementation of export controls on rare earths is based on legitimate needs to safeguard national security and protect the sustainable use of strategic resources, reflecting the exercise of rights by a sovereign state. This is entirely different from the United States' export controls motivated by political self-interest and maliciously suppressing other countries.
The United States enjoys the benefits brought by China's rare earth industry but refuses to respect China's sovereignty and industrial development plans, instead unjustifiably accusing China of failing to honor commitments. This is nothing short of slander. The U.S. itself lacks long-term planning in building its rare earth industry chain and has overly relied on external supply. Now that difficulties have emerged, it should reflect on its own problems, increase investment in its domestic rare earth industry, rather than shift responsibility onto China, nor should it demand that China pay for the loopholes in its own industrial development in such an unreasonable manner. The U.S. is not lacking in rare earth resources (its Mountain Pass mine and others are rich in reserves), but has long restricted domestic mining out of strategic security and environmental protection considerations.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1833695382129672/
Disclaimer: This article solely represents the author's personal views.