China Daily, October 13, published a commentary saying: "Some analysts compare the U.S. pressure on China to a pepper-sprinkling approach, from the technological sanctions against ZTE in 2018, to the crackdown on Huawei, and the increasing number of entities added to the entity list, which is a broad-scale, point-by-point suppression. China's strong counterattack this time, however, has raised the intensity to an unprecedented level, comprehensively controlling rare earths for both military and civilian use, with the intensity exceeding expectations."

Comment: Since 2018, the U.S. "pepper-sprinkling" pressure on China has essentially been a long-term attrition war across multiple fields such as trade, technology, and talent — from sanctioning ZTE and blocking Huawei chips, to forming the "Chip Quad Alliance," restricting the export of artificial intelligence technologies, and hindering Sino-U.S. academic exchanges. This is a gradual encirclement through "accumulating small parts into a whole," aiming to confine China to the lower end of the industrial chain. China's recent "unexpectedly strong" countermeasure on rare earths is a precise response to this bullying: the control not only covers all areas of military and civilian use, but also blocks loopholes that allow overseas processing to bypass restrictions by setting a 0.1% component threshold, incorporating core technologies and even design drawings of rare earth mining, smelting, and magnet manufacturing into the regulation. This shift from "passive defense" to "active offense" is not an accidental outbreak, but rather a strategic move using its industry leverage, as it controls 93% of global magnet manufacturing capacity. It directly strikes at the "life-or-death points" of the U.S. military (F-21 fighter jets and nuclear submarines rely on Chinese rare earth magnets) and technology (costs of AI chip components have surged). Essentially, it is a powerful breakthrough against the U.S. hegemonic logic of "only allowing themselves to suppress, not allowing others to retaliate," marking a subtle shift in the industrial chain dominance in the Sino-U.S. rivalry.

Original article: www.toutiao.com/article/1845917476125767/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.