【Text by Observers Net, Qi Qian】

China's dominant position in the rare earth sector has made some Americans uneasy.

John Moolenaar, the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on China, who often stirs up anti-China issues, has come up with an "out-of-the-box" idea, claiming that if China does not supply the U.S. with rare earths, it would not allow Chinese aircraft to land in the U.S.

According to Reuters and the House website, on September 18 local time, Moolenaar wrote a letter to President Trump, urging the Trump administration and U.S. allies to "take strong coordinated action" against Chinese flights' landing rights, pressuring China to supply rare earths.

In his letter, Moolenaar proposed three "bad ideas": restricting or suspending Chinese airlines' landing rights in the U.S. and its allies; reviewing export control policies targeting the sale of commercial aircraft, parts, and maintenance services to China; and coordinating with major allies to limit China's foreign investment in the aviation sector.

Moolenaar claimed that these measures would send a "clear signal" to China, "that cutting off key supplies for our defense industry would inevitably affect its own strategic sectors." He further dreamed out loud, imagining that the U.S. and its allies could enhance the "resilience and unity" of their alliance through "jointly constraining China," and thus "build real leverage" in dealing with China.

Photo of John Moolenaar from video

The "China Issues Special Committee" is a special committee established by the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2023 specifically targeting China, which has manufactured many "anti-China" issues. Since taking over as chairman of the committee, Moolenaar has prioritized ending cooperation between the two countries.

In July this year, Moolenaar targeted Chinese students. He wrote to and pressured seven U.S. universities to re-examine and even terminate their cooperation with the China Scholarship Council (CSC).

At the same time, Moolenaar was also not forgetting to manipulate the chip issue. He explicitly opposed the Trump administration's decision to resume NVIDIA's exports of its H20 AI chips to China, claiming that this move might enhance China's military capabilities and strengthen its ability to compete with the U.S. in the AI field. The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce responded that the U.S. should abandon zero-sum thinking and continue to cancel a series of unreasonable trade and economic restrictions on China.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S.-Western sanctions against Russia, since 2020, there have been large-scale cuts in Sino-U.S. flights. In the past three years, due to continued tension in Sino-U.S. relations, the negotiations for full recovery of Sino-U.S. routes have not proceeded smoothly.

In May 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an order allowing Chinese airlines to increase the number of weekly round-trip flights between China and the U.S. from eight to twelve, matching the number of flights operated by U.S. airlines between China and the U.S. At the time, media generally believed that this decision by the U.S. Department of Transportation "marked a slight easing of relations between the two countries."

Since then, Sino-U.S. flight frequencies have continued to increase. Reuters reported that on the 17th local time, the U.S. Department of Transportation allowed United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Airlines to operate 48 flights per week to China, totaling 119 approvals. The number of flights operated by Chinese airlines to the U.S. was equivalent.

Over the past 30 years, China has always had a leading role in rare earth mining and refining.

According to data from the International Energy Agency, in 2023, China accounted for more than 60% of global rare earth ore production, but its control over the processing stage accounted for 92% of global production, almost having a monopolistic control over the global rare earth processing sector. The U.S. Geological Survey also stated that between 2020 and 2023, 70% of the rare earth compounds and metals imported by the U.S. came from China.

After China introduced measures to control rare earth exports, the West felt "choked" and began investing heavily to develop "non-Chinese" supply chains.

"Has China won the rare earth race, and can it maintain its leading position?" On August 28, the UK's Financial Times published an article with this title, and answered that Western efforts to build competitive supply chains and break China's dominance would face challenges in cost and scale.

"Our technological advancements will consolidate China's position in rare earth pricing," quoted a Chinese rare earth industry practitioner, "in the foreseeable future, the international market will still rely on China's rare earth supply chain."

Stephen Olson, a senior visiting researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute) and former U.S. trade negotiator, previously analyzed that rare earths could provide China with "the strongest leverage," so unless the U.S. is willing to make significant concessions, China is unlikely to give up this advantage.

This article is an exclusive piece by Observers Net. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7551591526859407882/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author. Please express your opinion by clicking the [Up/Down] buttons below.